Only Old World

[Dennisbr28]

Is it possible only to play the old world. With out any other region???

[Chaosium]

To a certain extent yes but you will be blocked by coffee eventually because Kahina can only sell that much before demand outgrows her stock

[XceptOne]

To some degree it is possible, if you are careful.
But at some point, quite late into the game you probably want some new world islands anyway, as lots of content is locked behind those.

The most pressing issues will probably be oil, then all the advanced wares that engineers and inverstors want from you, so say goodbye to fully supplying those.
Skyscrapers and tourists will be mostly out of reach. And no research institute either.

But, yes, it's possible to get to investors and let them make you rich, without settling another region.

The first problem you'll encounter is fur coats, but you can buy an item to make these with with wool instead of cotton.
Be wary of some financial problems at this stage, as you won't have any reliable source of rum (can sink pirate ships, but that's not enough to supply large populations).

The real problem will be coffee to upgrade engineers to investors. You'll need to buy this and can only get so much. Basically only use your coffee for upgrade purposes and deny it to your investors.

Once you are at investor level, get them all the wares you can produce in the old world. With the right item you can also produce some chocolates.
This is enough to make you rich, but don't expect huge and happy populations.

If you've got access to the docklands, you should be able to get your hands on most wares that cannot be produced in the old world. It'll require a lot effort but it might solve the problems you have with coffee, choclate, cigars and gold. I think you can even get the missing pearls and caoutchouc, not sure about this right now, but probably.
It will still be hard to get all of these at once in large quantities.

No such luck when it comes to producing all the wares necessary for skyscrapers or tourists, though.

All in all, i think old world only is more of a challenge(?)/gimmick run, but I've done this (mostly because I couldn't be bothered to go to the new world before investor stage; but with easy AI only, so they won't snatch the new world/enbesa islands that I want to settle later).

Anyway, have fun tryin, but I'd still recommend settling the other regions sooner or later.

[asterix52]

All I would add is that you can solve the rum (and Canned Food) problem with an item that provides these two goods as long as you have a variety theatre. I agree that Coffee is a limiting factor,; you basically have to turn it off for investors. You can support about 80 Engineers houses with what you can by from Kahina. I had about 270 Investor Residences and an income of 140k+ when I decided to call it a day on the game.

[Tankfriend]

There's a few items that can help you out with the coffee crisis:
"Fernando de Faro, Coffee-Lover and All-Round Cad"
Legendary item, Sunken Treasures DLC, acquired through the Great Exhibition (only 1x)
-> Provides coffee to all residences in range of its town hall.

"Demijohn of Milk"
Uncommon item
-> Also provides coffee to all residences in range of its town hall.
-> 5 minute duration, consumed after use

"Cola Mola Wola Machine"
Legendary item, The Passage DLC, crafted at Old Nate's workshop
-> Makes champagne cellars also produce coffee (every 10th production cycle)