Production chains explained

Most Manor Lords goods pass through two or three buildings before anyone can use them, and a chain stalls if one link has no workers, no fuel or no way to carry goods to the next step. This guide draws every chain the game has as of version 0.8.104 (Update 8): what each step is, which building does it, how many families it employs, and the ratios the developers have stated. Where a ratio has not been published, it is left out. Click any building in a diagram to jump to its row in the buildings table.

Bread: field, farmhouse, windmill, oven

1. Field: sow wheat or rye. See the field planner for which one suits your soil.
2. Farmhouse (up to 8 families): workers plow, sow and harvest, then thresh the sheaves into grain. Keeping the grain at the farmhouse, with a windmill nearby, saves walking.
3. Windmill (3 families): grinds grain into flour. Since Update 5, windmill workers fetch their own grain; granary workers no longer deliver it. The wiki says a windmill works better the further it stands from trees and buildings.
4. Communal oven or bakery: bakes flour into bread. The bakery is a backyard extension that needs a level 3 burgage plot since Update 6, and the official wiki describes it as twice as efficient as the communal oven. Early on, the oven is your only choice.

Ale, cider and mead: the brewery

Families at level 2 and above drink 1 beverage every 3 months, and a tavern hands it out. Barley goes to a malthouse (2 families, burns 1 fuel a month) at 1 barley to 1 malt, and the brewery extension turns 1 malt into 1 ale. So one family's year of ale (4 units) costs 4 barley. Cider takes 4 apples each and mead 1 honey each, both since Update 8. Families only drink the type their tavern is handing out, and never at a tavern with no workers. The full walk-through is in how to make ale.

Clothing: linen, yarn and clothes

Flax from the fields goes to a weaver's workshop (up to 3 families), 1 flax to 1 linen. The livestock farm (the sheep farm before Update 8) shears sheep once a year, in summer, and each sheep gives 2 wool; the weaver turns 1 wool into 1 yarn. Clothes come from the tailor extension. Update 5 removed cloaks and gave clothes two recipes, one from wool and one from linen. The same update removed the old dye chain, so a guide that tells you to build a dyer or make cloaks is out of date.

Leather and shoes

Hides come from goats in a backyard pen, the hunting camp, or butchering cows and sheep. A tannery (3 families) turns hides into leather, and a cobbler extension makes shoes at 1 leather a pair since Update 5. The cobbler needs a level 3 plot since Update 6.

Iron, tools and weapons

A mining pit on an iron deposit digs ore. The bloomery (2 families, 1 fuel a month) turns 1 iron ore into 1 iron slab. The smithy (2 families) makes tools, which many workplaces now use for maintenance. Backyard workshops on level 2 plots make the military kit: the blacksmith makes sidearms from slabs and spears and polearms from slabs plus planks; the armorer makes helmets and, with the right development, mail; the joiner makes small and large shields from planks; the bowyer makes warbows from planks.

Fuel: firewood and charcoal

A woodcutter's lodge (3 families) cuts trees into firewood, and a forester's hut nearby plants new ones. A charcoal kiln (3 families, needs the Charcoal Burning perk) turns 1 firewood into 2 charcoal. Homes burn 1 fuel a month and 2 in winter, counted per plot, not per family. The calculator adds it up.

Building materials: planks and roof tiles

The logging camp fells timber, which only oxen can move. A sawpit turns 1 timber into 5 planks according to the wiki. Clay from a mining pit goes to the clay furnace (5 families, 1 fuel a month), 1 clay to 1 roof tile.

Dairy and animal feed (Update 8)

Oats share barley's fertility. The livestock farm turns 1 oats into 2 animal feed, which pasture animals eat every winter month. Cows give milk monthly outside winter, and the cheesemonger (level 3 plot) makes 2 cheese from 1 milk and 1 salt. More in the livestock guide.