Strongly recommend returning to Timberborn
Timberborn, the citybuilder where you manage a colony of beavers and control the water through their various dams, is one of my favorite citybuilders specifically because it is much, much more complex and fiddly than other citybuilders. It is a citybuilder for people who are so citybuilderpilled that they cannot enjoy the genre anymore without, like... planning their city across several z-levels, and building weird fluid management systems, and stuff.
Oxygen Not Included is another favorite of mine, and it fulfills this same role in the settlement sim genre, I think - an overly complex, fiddly settlement game for people who are so good at managing production chains that these things no longer interest them all on their own.
Timberborn recently hit 1.0 and released an update that adds a series of desertified maps, where the player begins with their settlement in only one part of the map, then needs to manage the flow of water from their oasis out into the world, unlocking new regions which can be safely settled. Funny enough, I find some of these maps a lot easier???? than the original maps precisely because there is so little water on them. You have to be very deliberate about your initial buildout and expansion, but you are forced to be focused. Losing my sense of focus is the big thing that sets me astray in Timberborn.
Anyway - if you've been putting this game off, I highly recommedn it! The beginner maps are easy and you should not feel intimidated by anything I just said. Please check it out. It's a great game!! It's cute!! I love stacking buildings on top of each other. I love making a giant pool of water. You can use dynamite to terraform. It's cool!!!