Return-To-The-Roots
suggestion: save preset for distribution of goods and other menus
At every game start, after building the first few buildings, I begin by adjusting the resource allocation, military, and tool production. I think everybody does because the standard allocation of the game is not optimal.
Is there a way to permanently save a base preset that loads every time I start a game? The food allocation is fundamentally flawed, as coal, a resource needed in significantly larger quantities for smelting iron and gold and for blacksmithing, provides the least amount of food. The grain allocation at the beginning is equally nonsensical because it leads to the production of considerably more donkeys and beer, resulting in a lot of waste, especially at the start when grain is scarce.
The same applies to the military: if there are no enemies nearby but you have gold for upgrading the soldiers, you want to garrison your inland buildings to the maximum, which is practically always the case. (This problem is less pronounced since full military control was introduced.)
Tool production could be set to 0 by default when the rule for tool orders is active, but a preset would also be beneficial. However, with this menu, the issue has become negligible since the introduction of the "zero" button.
Personally I think it might be surprising: Currently the settings are the same for every new game so you know what you get.
If it was saved you might get surprises as late game requires different values than early game.
So I'd say "consistent suboptimal" is better than "sometimes wrong"
It shouldn't be a fix setting, just a preferred setting for the start. The presets for goods are always bad for the beginning. Even if you would save the settings after every round and forget it, it is not as bad as before. Advanced players probably check anyway. And in later game you adjust most likely a bit. But not as much as with the standard setting which is really hindering the progress. Nobody needs mass of beer if you have not enough food for your mines. And the bit food from the beginning is mostly given to gold and iron mines. So you hoard gold and iron but you never always run out of fuel to melt them. Maybe Bluebyte made it on purpose that you have to think about how to run your economy properly.
Here the (messy) calculation for food allocation: The standard is: 50% coal, 70% iron, 100% gold. So there is 1 coal for about 3.5 gold/iron. For 1 coal they mine 1.5 iron and 2 gold. But you need 5 instead of 1 for the production chain. ("Pi mal Daumen", however you translate it). Adjustment of the goods allocation is always necessary for the beginning and after playing several rounds it gets pretty annoying.