For someone who is decently smart, no it doesn't. You just see what's an issue and fix it. If you still can't you just move all water carriers into one corner and put them into positions again. It's pretty straightforward, literally takes no mental power.
The strategy also lies in the building order (or ignoring buildings at all). Also, the problem of "fixing" happiness is absolutely non-trivial - if you want the best solution. I can tell this, because I even wrote a script to calculate the perfect solution. You would be surprised how complex this script is and what solutions you don't see. With this I did easy in 81 turns, normal in 96 and impossible in 145.