A quick word of advice for new captains who feel their islands are in a death spiral or just a big mangled mess. Give up.

it may feel like defeat but the fastest way to learn is to start over. This is a hard game but losing can take a long long time. If you for example ran out of building material and have to wait for in game decades to trickle out enough to finish your next production line. You wont get a game over but you'll be stuck for an hour with nothing being made and nothing to do. When I started the fixed maps felt like a downgrade to the randomised maps in other factory games. But to me now they mean you can carry lessons directly to the next try.

Once you know how the game works you can get back where you gave up in a quarter of the time. And find a brand new way to ruin everything.