Buildings form the core of your settlement, and perform a variety of roles: they can range from housing, to providing raw materials, or a valuable service to the community.
All structures are either a domicile for your citizens, or provide a workplace for them. Structures can be broadly broken down into five categories:
Housing buildings are where your citizens recoup their strength, get warm in the winter months, and stockpile food and other resources for their personal use. These structures come in two types: detached housing for families, or large dormitories that can fit multiple individuals, but usually limit reproduction.
Food buildings produce food and sometimes other biological resources, such as the tree farm. Having multiple food buildings will be necessary to feed a growing population.
Resource buildings produce other items, or otherwise are reliant on nature to produce materials. Chopping houses, for example, produce small amounts of timber by chopping down and replanting trees. Most of these structures work in a radius around them - the hunting cabin is an exception, which has hunters spread across the entire map.
Production buildings take raw materials such as meat, food, and reeds, and processes them into a refined material for use by other production buildings. Flax, for example, is grown at a field (a food building), then processed into textiles at weaving workshop (a production building) before being turned into rough clothing at the tailor (another production building).
Storage buildings are responsible for storing materials. These structures, unlike others, do not have a worker attached to them. Instead, workers from other buildings will try to drop their materials off at these structures in order to continue working. Production buildings usually do not have too much storage space, and thus important materials must be stored separately.
Service buildings provide various services to the community. Whether it is increasing happiness, providing trade, or managing health, these structures will provide necessary support to the other production, food, and resource buildings.
Roads provide a passive benefit by increasing the speed of citizens that walk on them. This category also includes bridges and tunnels, which are necessary for traversing difficult terrain.
Decorations cost resources, but provide no benefit to their surroundings. These are simply for making your community look more appealing, or to provide lighting at night.
Blueprints are rare unlocks that can provide unique structures. They are unavailable at the beginning of the game and must be unlocked by trading.
