I'm pretty sure that I've seen changes after having the game minimized, so it is not on pause mode. (I'll check later.)

But I've done a rough calculation of how many tech points, building percentage or farming it takes a village to do while watching (ignoring effects like repeating after "kick.") and if I've shut the game off and come back, it seems that not enough work has been done.

I suppose that I can compare the logs for each case, but I was also just wondering what other people have "observed."

If it was the watched pot syndrome, I would expect the opposite... Things would get done quicker when I was not watching the village!