I very much lean towards the microfactory approach - locate a cluster of resources within reasonable belting/piping distances, design a factory which can consume the cluster’s entire production of the limiting resource (clocking others to match) to make 1 output or maybe 2, then provide that output to the rail network. Some production chains make it easier to have certain inputs taken from the rail network.
Within one of these factories, items are refined further for each floor they ascend but I rarely enforce a 1 product/floor rule - in particular I find it convenient with many Assembler/Manufacturer recipes to have an input that is directly fed from a single Constructor using clock speed to match production with consumption. This usually means each microfactory underclocks its most power hungry buildings a fair bit which keeps their consumption moderate. Each microfactory ideally has a single priority power switch to turn off its entire production chain if its consumption is becoming a problem and I set up a priority sequence for them.
Shapez 2 is a very worthy sequel, IMO. Adding logistics beyond conveyor belts is quite nice, and 3 levels of height give quite a bit more options when building. You do often benefit from a build staying at one level since it makes platform blueprints that consume 12n belts of input to make 12 belts of output quite a bit easier, but several buildings are intentionally impossible to do that with for challenge.
The difficulty levels are also pretty well done - I got some fun learning moments out of Insane in particular. Hexagonal mode is also interesting.