Where does everybody seek to open their first few counting offices?

I've been going to Oslo first. Because of the lumber/bricks/fish/mead. Then I went to Aalborg for the meat/wool. Then over to Riga for honey/furs.

I've read where it seems most people go to Malmo first which I can see a good strategy too. I haven't tried this yet but I'm gonna this time. I'm going to try the Malmo/Aalborg/Lubeck loop to see how that works out. Those of you who already do that, where do you go next?

On a side note. I love this game. I'm a bit of a perfectionist constantly restarting when I find out something new. Been playing for well over a month and I haven't become Mayor yet. That lets you know how many times I've restarted. and I'm retired I probably play a minimum of 6 hours per day. LOL

Well one thing you get right:

It is essential to get a town with wood and bricks as soon as possible. So if you don't start in one of the citys that produces both, the first new counting house should be in a city that can produce the missing goods.

Than you will need iron goods, cloth, hemp and pitch for ships, too.

And you need grain, wool, cheese to feed the population.

The moneybringers are meat, clothing, skins, wine and spices.

So it all depend on the way you play the game.

A: Do you play to move on fast and build up your own production?

B: Do you have a trade approach and first collect money, till money is no problem anymore?

If A:

a: Do you make the money by selling big amounts of goods?
b: Do you want to make the money by selling to the highest possible prices?

.......

So you see it all depend on the way you like to play the game.

It is a bit like the traderoutes, that may work for one player but will never work for a other player.

Your desitions what and how to do things in P4, change the game or better the developement of all the towns in the game. And that makes the game especially in the first 4 gameyears every time a different game. A succesfull strategie well chosen in one game may cause mahem in a other.

In general you only can say, that you will need bricks and timber but also irongoods fast, if you want to go into the production. And if you do that, you will need nearly as fast grain, chees, wool and beer. Or the needed workers will not come to work in your facilitys.

Everything else depends on the way you like to play P4.

Hein

I must admit I restart all the time, too

It's such fun to use your experiences from the last game to see if you can do better next time.

It's not just building big, that matters. Its how fast you can build big.

Well, I like to play random resources so you will find a different approach everytime. I like to restart till I get a hometown with wood and bricks and then spam the square thingy in my hometown to block the Ai from building his houses and business while I scout for other cities to make my 1st counting house. In the meantime I will auto trade with 4 or more single snaikkas west seas and east seas to keep money coming in. When you have enuf counting houses and ships......get to mayor quickly in your hometown to block the AI from opening up the wall.. Then keep building your ships and counting houses also pirate hunt for free ships. The trick/exploit to get level 5 battle captains is to get a new ship to attack a pirate convoy. When the pop up comes out, cancel it immediately and keep doing this till your captain is level 5 which is very quick and easy, better than paying through your nose at reval for training. In the meantime research your university and get the upgrade for guard post and wall sink costs then your storage capacity. Cos by this time you will need lots of storage.

Just don't open the wall in your hometown till your rich enough to buy out all your AI business and houses. I don't like pirating the AI so this is my strategy. When you want to build something, put on very slow mode and delete your square thingy but be warned! The stupid AI will still try to spam in a house if you go too slow with your mouse LOL! It is very very annoying but there you go I have to keep saving everytime I build something in case this happens then I reload again. I am not going to pay crazy prices to the ai to buy back the space.
Sorry for this wall of text

> I've read where it seems most people go to Malmo first which I can see a good strategy too

I did Malmo first in my current (& only) game, the campaign where you start in Luebeck. In hindsight, I think Oslo would've been a better call. You get Iron, Fish, and Mead (in addition to wood & brick) from that port. Adding Malmo only gives you cheese.

Iron is particularily important because you can't produce many tools in Luebeck until you have iron being made somewhere else.

Try not to immedietly trade with Malmo for its goods, you'll cause a deflation of prices in your city which is consuming the goods. If you haven't tried spreading the wealth to several other regions to reduce the process of gradual buildup in the amount of certain goods with the city, I would do so or your total income per unit of materials sold will begin to drop.

Oslo is a very good choice for a supplier, I would consider Reval to be a good supplier of Iron.