What does your ideal starting zone have?

[Crux]

I've seen a lot of the map so far from YouTubers and understand that each of the regions on the map will have different pools of resources with some having rich deposits of say iron while others will have fertile ground.

What's your ideal starting zone? Fertile land? Iron for weapons? A high amount of clay and other resources?

[Asken]

fertilland, no crops otherwise kinda, then i like berries or animals with a star, the iron clay and stone etc is alright to trade,

[CatPerson]

#1, Rich Berries.

#2 - er, well, depends whether I'm planning on a really large single-region population eventually or not. Many "non-fertile" regions are still plenty fertile enough for even pretty decent size populations, with some green patches and even the yellow single "+" being productive enough re: bread. So if I'm not thinking "1000+ sandbox population town!" I'd rather have Rich Iron or Clay vs. "Fertile."

Rich Iron and Rich Clay is a good way to go, too. With veggies/apples being so much slower now tho, I like the berries+berry node+4-6 single-Family berry gatherers a little better, now.

[Whysoserious]

My most succesful town was with a rich iron and meat deposit. It had 2 patches of land fertile enough for wheat/rye.

I boost that fertility with sheep I imported with enough income to spare, from exporting the insane amounts of armor/weapons. The rich meat deposit with the double meat perk and the decision, with the vegetable gardens, eggs and the sporadic bread keeps my food surplusses at 100% to all houses, at all times.

[Marshal]

Rich iron and berries.

[CatPerson]

*after rerolling 12 times just now*

....I think my most important starting aspect is the starter-camp location vs. whatever else is personally important (to you and your style) early on re: avoiding approval loss in the first month or two.

[Kedryn]

It has being in Nusslohe, Immenreuth, or Waldiwhatsit (it's hard to remember names because I rename them all), and not starting with either only stone or only clay.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to get something so undemanding, but...

[Crux]

Now that I have about 100 hours in the game I tend to lean very heavily into finding a rich Iron and Wild Animals zone because between Iron and Leather you can make pretty much everything in the game and sell excess to buy ale and whatever else you need. I originally went with Rich Berries over Wild Animals but found that I would just end up with a huge surplus of 400 berries, some dye making, and not much room to sell or make use of the surplus.

Originally posted by CatPerson:

*after rerolling 12 times just now*

....I think my most important starting aspect is the starter-camp location vs. whatever else is personally important (to you and your style) early on re: avoiding approval loss in the first month or two.

I personally havent had issues with approval loss so much as approval gain but usually resolve that by building a church and getting at least a Tannery up to satisfy the one tick needed for clothing. After that my approval usually floats between 60-70% until I get other essentials up.

[Ranzera]

I love starting Rich Berries/Rich Hunting, then turning the starting region into a crafting mecca. The economic boost you get from exporting berries/dyes/hides/leather right out the gate is so strong. That makes it easy to expand into other regions that will then dump iron into the market, which I then import into the first region and turn that into a massive economy.

As far as regions go, I avoid Nusslowe like the plague. It loves rolling hunting and berries on opposite a$$ ends of the thing and is generally too big to be useful as a starter. I don't mind expanding into it if it rolls rich farming though.

Even the other large region (I forget the name) has a pretty decent chance to clump the resources somewhat, though sometimes it'll be as bad as Nusslowe.

The rest are pretty samey. I usually don't mind starting in any of the others.

[Crux]

Originally posted by Ranzera:

As far as regions go, I avoid Nusslowe like the plague. It loves rolling hunting and berries on opposite a$$ ends of the thing and is generally too big to be useful as a starter. I don't mind expanding into it if it rolls rich farming though.

Even the other large region (I forget the name) has a pretty decent chance to clump the resources somewhat, though sometimes it'll be as bad as Nusslowe.

Eichenhau has been a go to for me, usually clusters the goods and typically will still have some patches of fertility even with rich Iron and Wild Animals

[Batfish J. Macaque]

Originally posted by Whysoserious:

My most succesful town was with a rich iron and meat deposit. It had 2 patches of land fertile enough food wheat/rye.

For me this is the best starting combo.
A hunting camp, a tannery and a woodcutter is the quickest way to get a fully supplied marketplace up and running and start growing your approval rating to get more families in sooner, and extra meat and hides boosts this further. Also later on more leather means a cobbler can easily satisfy the level 2 clothing demand.

A rich iron mine combined with a good timber and saw pit set up allows you to make a variety of weapons and shields for your militia and sell off the excess for a healthy profit.

The only food farming provides at the moment is bread. Every low fertility region I've started on so far has had around 3 to 4 morgen of ++ wheat which is more than enough to build up a large surplus of bread in the early years. 1 morgen of ++ fertility at around 70% will produce 80-95 every other year (except for the 1st time you plow and sow a field when you get a bit less for some reason) which turns into 160-190 bread.

Land fertility doesn't affect veggie gardens or orchards so they'll produce the same amount of food regardless of where they're placed.

My current low fertility region farms 2 morgen of wheat a year, has 3 veggie gardens around half a morgen each and 2 morgen sized orchards and with around 400 (edit - 278) people it has (edit - a bit under) 1k surpluses of bread, veg and apples. The only thing they've ever imported is barley from the region next door to make ale when it's time to level up.

[Clovis Sangrail]

I'm currently playing a rich iron/rich clay region, which is nice. And I saved the start under a different file name so I can go back to it when I want to restart, which I have done several times as I learn more about the game.

This start was extra good because there were berries and game and iron deposit very close to starting camp, so I had 5 burgages pretty quickly. Got my first new settler in April, or maybe May. (If you play Relaxing, you get enough starting supplies to build those first 5 burgages without having to start your logging or foraging or hunting until everyone has a house.)

Probably next I'll try to get something with fertile land.

[Scaristotle]

Originally posted by Saint Graz:

Originally posted by Bigc:

I'd love fertile lands and Iron deposit crown, after many attempts... seems its impossible. Idealy in the province with cliffside (love building my manor and church there)

This is also what i look for dont mind the cliffs but a good iron and farmlland

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3263199108

I tend to go for this kind of start as well. Rich Iron, Rich Soil. Although, any start that doesn't have RIch Stone is a good one, in my book. Most basic Iron deposits have enough to outfit a small army and then some, although it's less than ideal.

[Twelvefield]

Rich stone is possibly the worst, as there's no way to renew it. It's like starting on a world that absolutely teems with riches, but then you piss the entire thing away to fill the landscape with iPhone 16 Pro Max's just so that bored people can watch orange people go to jail. Once he's there and you look around and see there is nothing left, well...

[Coach]

rich iron ore, and rich clay. Use the development point to unlock deep mines. Now you have infinite resources. Produce Roof tiles and anything with iron ore (tools weapons, helmets..etc) in limitless way. Sell the surplus and see the money coming in.

Dont pay any attention to fertility. Just build lots of Orchard and vegetable backyards for your homes and also chicken farms. I have 540 families and produce a surplus of food. My town is called Winchester and my leader is Alfred.

[Metalllik]

all i need is fertile land, it is the most important to have resources to make food, ale and clothes. the other resources are not so important, meat is anyway not enough, berries also at some point, iron, clay and stone dont need so much only if you want to export the things you make with them.