A maximum of 1 Worker per Sawmill can produce a plank using less resources, much like the stonemason transforms stone into cut stone cheaper than crafting does.

Built in forest. Cost:

• 20 Land
• 20 Log
• 10 Cut stone

Sawmills are better than Manufacture.

Summary of options:

• Manufacturers produces 12% more planks/tick per effective land (0.1589403973 Workers per effective land)
  • Essentially it uses 10.9% less Land for the same production amount.
• Sawmill uses 63% less Workers per effective plank output.
  • The amount of resources you conserve from 44 less workers is better than the extra output that 93 land could provide, because workers also have their own effective land costs (such as housing, heating, food production, cooking/food infrastructure, clothing production, cotton infrastructure, etc).

Effective Calculations use +50% boost from Happiness. Effective Land is based on Level 3 Logger Camps providing 0.0277 logs/tick per land while each land uses 0.25 Workers (fully staffed, 5/5). Foresters provide 0.0125 trees/tick per land while each land uses 0.1 Workers. So, at 36 Land (9 Workers) for 1 Log/tick and 80 Land (8 Workers) for 1 Tree/tick is 116 effective Land (and 17 Workers) for 1 effective Log/tick.

  Sawmill produces 0.002 planks/tick per land (0.05 Workers) while requiring 0.006 logs/tick (0.696 Land and 0.102 Workers)
  0.002 planks/tick per 1.696 Land (0.152 Workers)
      = 0.0011792452 planks/tick per effective Land (0.0896226415 Workers)
      = 848 Land per plank/tick (76 Workers)

  Manufacturer produces 0.00571 planks/tick per land (0.2 Worker per land) while requiring 0.0285714285 logs/tick or equivalent of 3.3142857142 Land (0.4857142857 Worker per land).
  0.00571 planks/tick per 4.3142857142 Land (0.6857142857 Workers)
      = 0.0013245033 planks/tick per effective Land (0.1589403973 Workers)
      = 755 Land per plank/tick (120 Workers)