Settlement Survival/Blueprints

Blueprints are special buildings that provide various types of bonuses to your town. "Spectacular" buildings are high cost structures built at the endgame, while other blueprint buildings offer a small stat bonus to your entire settlement.

Spectacular
These are special buildings and have a high cost.

Castle will provide housing for up to 400 people and 80 families. The cost is extremely high, and even once supplied with all materials will take a long time to build. You may want to stock pile supplies early, or start ordering/trading with the merchant.

Temple will kill some citizens but will boost the happiness of those who survive. This can be a way of population control, or as a means to get your happiness levels higher. The building can be toggled off, to prevent the deaths. Like the castle, the cost is very high.

Shelter is a place where your citizens can hide. Once built, you must tell them to shelter there by clicking on the building and selecting the button. Having citizens hide when they are in the path of the tornado can easily save hundreds of lives, at the cost of all your production coming to halt. Tell them hide ahead of time, they may take their time on getting there.

Blueprint
Other blueprint buildings here will provide a very minor stat bonus to your entire settlement. They do not appear to be stackable. To obtain these, you must trade for them at the trading dock when the merchant ship comes. He rarely brings any. It is best to always have a few thousand silver coins worth of material at the dock, just in case he does!

To build any of these buildings you need to have blue tears these are obtained through trade with the merchant dock, or ordering them. Just like with blueprints, be sure to keep items of value in the dock so you can trade if he brings any. You can also get extremely lucky and have idle chicken as an animal that your finds. Once in a pasture or corral, their byproduct is the tears.