I've made a script to help with the setup for this game. It shuffles all of the cards and tiles, distributes the cards evenly between the seated players, and places the tiles on the board randomly. I can send the save file if you want to update this mod with the script.

Sure, I have added you on steam.

Cool, it seems you've added the script. There is one small issue though:
This doesn't check how many players are seated anymore. It should be:

Not sure what happened, but the script no longer functions correctly (at least not in hotseat mode). The cards are divided into the correct number but only distributed to player 1. For example, in a 3 player game, player one is given 8 cards and 16 remain in the deck in its original position. Also, the players must be in the Red, Yellow, Green and Blue positions for the script to work at all, is it possible to just read the currently seated player's colour and go from there? It won't match the player pieces but that can easily be rectified by the player

I did a quick test and you are right. I'll look into it. If you want to fix it yourself, go ahead.

@malbonius
Considering the API, there are some issues with the hotseat mode or I missed something. For the moment while in hotseat mode, please load the Workshop mod BEFORE choosing the player colors
I hope to fix this in another update with some additional bells and whistles :P

Thank you so much for the effort on this! tried to fix it myself but simply lack the scripting knowledge. It's a great game and a wonderful mod, can't wait to see what else you do with it.