At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.
I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
Same.
It just doesn't matter what other 'choices' exist. If they are given in opposition to the thing I specifically want to do, then they will
never get chosen.
And total number of potential choices I have to make will be lower.
This is why adding arbitrary 'choices' explicitly
reduces the amount of choice in the game.
All it does is make one specific way of playing 'the one true way', and everything else is ignored at best.
If the player happens to like this particular way of playing, then of course they're not going to see any problems here. Nothing is getting in the way of what they want to do, and many things are rewarding them for playing 'the one true way'. (
"I'm alright, I've got mine.")
If the player does not however, then they're not going to be very happy. There are many arbitrary and entirely manufactured blocks to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. And a general feeling of being 'punished' for
daring to not like playing 'the one true way'.
And there's other questions...
If the skills were entirely open, what would be stopping the 'choice' players from just choosing the different things they want?
Why is allowing 'QoL' players to have fun less valuable than allowing the 'choice' players to have fun?
How does allowing 'QoL' players to pick thier favoured features (whatever they may be) in any way degrade the fun of the 'choice' player in a single player game with no interaction at all with other players?