I was thinking of doing the same thing, kinda. I am planning a group sent to the holy lands, knights. Given a land about 3-5 thousand acres to command, to defend, to maintain and to manage. They live there and participate in skirmishes with raiders, renegade knights and muslims when the king or marshall or bishop commands it. I hope to introduce macro and micro management of the settlement that will hopefully grow into a small town itself and introduce politics and intrigue on the court