Production Chains

How Production Works

Buildings produce goods on a cycle. Workers physically carry ingredients from the barn to the workshop, process them, and drop the results as items on the ground near the building's door. Other villagers pick those up and carry them to the barn. Nothing teleports — everything moves through your villagers' hands.

The output of one building often feeds directly into another. These are production chains. The longer the chain, the more time it takes to set up — but also the more valuable the result.

Food Chains

Grain and bread

Grain is edible on its own, but bread belongs to the Prepared food group — helpful for maximising your food variety bonus.

Pumpkin and pie

Pumpkin is edible directly as a vegetable, or it can be processed for a better result:

Pie belongs to the Prepared food group, adding variety for villagers who are already eating vegetables and grains.

Meat and fish

Raw meat comes from pastures, the Hunter's Lodge, or the fishing hut. Smoking it adds a happiness bonus per meal and moves it into the Prepared food group.

Drinks

Ale, premium ale, and wine are served at taverns. A stocked tavern is a big happiness source for a mid-game settlement.

Textiles and Clothing

Clothing helps villagers stay warm in winter and raises their happiness. There are two paths from raw material to finished clothes:

Wool path

Leather path

Rough shortcut

The tailor can also make rough clothing directly from raw wool or hides — skipping the weaver and tannery. Rough clothes wear out faster and give smaller happiness bonuses, but they're a useful stopgap in early winters before the full chain is running.

The three clothing types are work clothes, warm clothes, and town clothes — each serving a different purpose. Villagers will upgrade to better clothes automatically when they're available.

Fuel and Heat

Houses need to burn fuel to keep villagers warm in Winter. Without fuel, warmth decays faster and can become lethal.

Charcoal burns 50% longer per unit than firewood — 4 wood becomes 3 charcoal, but each piece of charcoal goes further. Worth the investment once your settlement grows.

Planks are a construction material, not fuel — don't confuse them with firewood. Both come from wood, but only firewood and charcoal heat homes.

Metalwork

The smelter and blacksmith burn industrial fuel — firewood, charcoal, or coal — rather than consuming it as a recipe ingredient. You can set which fuel industrial buildings draw from first in the Production Limits panel (F2, under Industrial Fuel Priority). Iron can also be refined into steel at the smelter. Tools improve worker output across all professions.

Clay and Pottery

Clay is dug from the ground and splits into two paths — one for construction, one for home furnishing.

Bricks

Bricks are a premium construction material used for stone and brick housing upgrades. The Brickworks is a loud, hot workshop — workers there don't lose warmth while on the job, but your neighbours might not appreciate the noise if you place it inside a Quiet Zone.

Pottery

Pottery is furniture. Bowls, jars, and jugs distributed through homes, the tavern, the chapel, and other buildings raise their room quality — which gives residents a recurring happiness moodlet. The Potter burns industrial fuel and also keeps workers warm while firing.

A single Clay Pit can feed both chains. Once it's running, split clay between the Brickworks for construction projects and the Potter for steady furniture production.

Medicine

Medicine helps sick villagers recover health faster. A hospital (unlocked through research) processes herbs more efficiently than an herbalist alone.

Candles and Faith

A stocked chapel satisfies the faith need better and gives a small happiness bonus to visitors. Candles also come from the apiary, which doubles as a honey source and a crop yield booster for nearby farms.

Flowers and Decor

Once you have a potter and have researched Floriculture, you can grow cut flowers and turn them into vases — a high-quality piece of furniture that brightens rooms even more than plain pottery.

The potter combines one flower and one pottery piece into a flower vase. Unlike most agricultural buildings, flower gardens restore soil fertility — making them a useful crop to rotate in on worn-out land even if you don't need the vases.

Tips for New Players

• Build barns early. Every building output drops on the ground first — villagers need to collect and store it. A barn too far away means items sitting unattended.
• Fuel before Winter, not during. Villagers deliver fuel to homes automatically, but only if there's supply in the barn. Build your woodcutter and stock firewood before the temperature drops.
• The rough clothing shortcut is fine early on. A tailor making rough warm clothes from raw wool is better than no clothes at all. Upgrade to the full chain once you have a weaver running.
• Charcoal is worth it. Once your town grows past 20–30 people, the fuel savings from charcoal pay for the kiln quickly.