I am not sure what do you mean by "realistic spacing/placement of structures", could you elaborate? Do you mean that in reality you would not build a farm next to a blast furnace? That's true, we did not implement any mechanics regarding building proximity to others, but that is certainly an interesting idea!

When I mentioned our focus on reality, I meant that the mechanics and processes are mostly driven how things are done in the real world and by playing the game you can even learn something new (e.g. steel production needs oxygen). However, it is a game and this can be done only to a certain degree, especially the early game has a lot of "shortcuts".

As an example of realistic mechanics and processes, you build excavators that mine ores and coal, trucks haul materials around the factory, terrain collapses as it is being mined, iron and steel smelting produces slag that needs to be disposed, fertilizer for farms is made from ammonia (synthetic process) or from compost (natural process), etc. (see our wiki for more https://wiki.captain-of-industry.com/ ).