For me, this was the most difficult "hurdle" in the <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> until I read somewhere that I can do whatever construction tree I wanted, or didn't want. That's true but I still need to make iron tools and clothing.
For clothing, I made simple leather coats to keep the bannies somewhat warm and later I wanted warmer coats which means I need sheep's wool. I can continue to produce leather or make wool coats - my decision.
For tools, bannies collect iron ore. I could have them make rough tools forever but they'd break and need replacing quickly. For them to make iron I'd need a smelter AND produce furnace fuel which burns hotter than plain firewood. And for furnace fuel I need to decide what basic materials I want to produce around the map, including firewood, coal, reed bundles, etc. My decision.
I may keep housing at a basic level or make advanced housing, my decision. I may build the standard cabins found in the vanilla and later upgrade them a single step to stone housing and for that I need lots of stone which means I may need a quarry.
Or for more advanced housing, I'd need the basic housing supplies. It took several games to figure this one out but what helped most was to build the building supplier, select which items I wanted to produce and then build those other support buildings. (Such as, I may want glass, bricks and lumber so I need glassworks, brickworks and lumber. The first two items are in the production buttons. But to produce glass and bricks I may need furnace fuel.)
I felt I needed to play the game without cheating but to learn I needed the debug and select zero cost building. I could tinker without wasting a lot of time and learn the production tree whenever. Don't forget to save first or, like me, you'll wish you could return to a previous save.
For food, bannies could live on plain lettuce, fish, walnuts, milk, beef, etc or I could build a bakery for better foods. Or flowers and water to make perfume. Or root beer from roots. Or mead from honey. The bannies would be happy grinding their own wheat or drink milk and never complain about only getting basic food stuffs.
In closing,I hope I've said everything correctly but very willing to learn more from other players. I'm not 1000% knowledgable or don't always say things correctly but I think I've stated what I've learned here and from others.
