But they would work pretty good for the mobile port, so maybe.
But serious, sliders would make a lot of sense for a lot of options. And more options are mostly better than less options when it comes down to game settings. Add sliders for max companions and stuff like this. You can also hide those sliders behind an "advanced settings" button. Everyone would win.
If someone wants to play with 999 companions let him do it, who cares, it´s a single player game. TW could still balance the vision of their game around their default settings. I don´t see any disadvantage here.