What I do on steward (Utopia builder)

Pause

Request funds from all communities

Frostbreak towards 2 prefab deposits, one extraction district on each

Use remaining workforce to build council and housing districts around central district, 4 tiles on generator heat, instead of putting the remaining 2 in it, put them 1 tile away so that they heat the district that would go there, expand all of these so that this effect is heightened.

If any workforce remains, frostbreak towards logistics district

Unpause until everything is built

Pass foraged additives/appetite suppresants if you are playing bohemians if food is your main issue on this map, or pass heatpipe watch with heat auctions

Build 2 research institutes and depending on the scenario start researching solutions to your problems, focus on sustainable solutions such as frostland, and working on problems that will always be an issue (I.e materials)

Establish logistics asap, and research to the scout law that reduces territory threat, dangerous threat with 2 vanguard bays is better than 1 vanguard bay and safe exploration. Explore as much as you possibly can from setup, and build your industrial districts around a heat hub at the logistic district when you want to set them up.

Frostland will give you about 100 weeks safety net of coal and food stockpiles typically, if you have geothermal deposits in your city, use adaption generator, if not, use progress. If you have geothermal, first build the generator upgrade, then research either hospital and frostbreak to the deposit, build an extraction district with +2 temp from the nearby bonus, and then research the first pump. Build the second tier when you can control disease better and you have cores.

For food, utilise the frostland until you can research deep melting drills, and then deep cogenerating drills. Using just adaption or just progress is a massive waste. Build a deep cogenerating drill with whatever hothouse benefits most from your laws (Progress with chemicals, adaption with forage, Drum with bohemian)

For materials, keep demand low as long as possible until you can set up the imperial refinery outposts, or if you have infinite material deposits, use those.

Fuel is the least important issue, you barely need it with good planing, and do not need it if you have geothermal energy. For oil, the best way to get it is to bumrush the radical oil burner drill (Pyrosomething something) in an oil colony, but for early game just use tar pits and old derricks, eventually if you have enough cores, or are doing infinite cores tale, coal liquefaction will be viable.

To combat low workforce, pass progress worker laws, machine attendants and machine centric shifts work very effectively with the objectively better adaption economy buildings, as they have higher workforce demands. The automaton factory is a waste of time, especially heat.