Everything you're saying is definitely valid and I think if we had more time we'd implement a benefit per X apples eaten. That said, we wanted to focus on the inevitable loss of control and make that the main mechanic. You can reduce the number of villagers who get scared and move in such a way to kill the fastest soldier, but the theme did make it inevitable.
Thanks for the suggestions! If we had an extra day we would have loved to add difficulties and sliders for all the balance levers. We ended up at the existing consumption level to reduce game length, since running from soldiers is ultimately the fun part of the game.
It's theoretically possible to go infinite if you never scare villagers, but that's pretty hard! Our quick playtesting got to 19 villagers eaten but we think higher is possible with more time!
Technical notes: When you eat a villager, one soldier spawns. Any scared villagers run back to town and spawn both a soldier and regular villager. Existing soldier's speed increases every two villagers eaten and new soldier's speed scales with total soldiers in play.
