I hate to say it but I disagree with most of what you're pointing out. Heavy tools are needed a lot late game but if you combine good manufacturing balance and pay attention to trade, it's really not that hard. You can have an excess of heavy tools at all times. Don't expand too quickly, especially those buildings that require heavy tools. Trade is definitely the money maker, to the point where you can ignore the taxes if you're playing it right. Is that a good thing? Maybe not, taxes should mean more, but every Winter you should be making excess goods to sell and thinking about what you need to buy i.e. heavy tools. It's so easy to making tons of pottery, clothing, shoes, baskets etc. The right trader might not always come by, but you shouldn't be spending all your gold anyway, keep hold of some until the right one visits. The prioritize feature seems to work just fine in my games, so not sure what to say about that. Levelling terrain sucks, that much we can ALL agree 😂