Dungeon Keeper used to play quite a lot like this as well. It was an interesting aspect that set it apart from other strategy games that were around at the time.
I seem to recall now that one of the ways you could torture a captured agent was by having him being squeezed by moving bookshelves or something...
You could do things like pick up imps to make them prioritize a task, or slap them to make the work faster (took a slice of health out of them though).