Wood

Your first thousand wood belongs in a Tool Cupboard. Until one stands and you are authorised on it, anyone can build around your twig shack, so it comes before the furnace, before the bench and before anything fun. A hammer costs a hundred more, and every twig wall you upgrade to wood is paid from the same pile. After that the cupboard keeps taking wood as upkeep for every wooden piece it protects.

Later the job changes. From mid wipe most of your wood is fuel: a furnace burns it while ore melts, a campfire burns it while meat cooks, and what is left in the output slots is charcoal. No charcoal, no gunpowder. So a group that cooks sulfur all night keeps someone at the treeline all evening.

For that kind of farming the stone hatchet is only a start. The metal hatchet is the everyday tool, and the salvaged axe swings slower but brings more per hit, which you notice over a long run.