Choose for the Job the Settlement Must Do

The best settlement location is one that can support its intended industry and fit into your county's supply network. A fertile food site, a forest settlement, and a stone operation need different ground. Before building, compare the resources around the site and the direction of any river you intend to use.

That approach follows the official County of Fortune demo FAQ, which specifically recommends inspecting resources and river flow before placing the first settlement. It supports practical site selection rather than one universal coordinate ranking.

Check the Blue Resource Area First

Select Build New Settlement, or press C, and choose the starting building you want. Its blue placement area shows where the relevant resource is available. In the tutorial, use one of the white-circle starting locations as well.

Do not judge a site only by how much empty land surrounds it. A settlement intended to gather stone needs a usable stone resource, while a forest or food industry depends on its own suitable ground. A visually convenient location can still be wrong for the building you selected.

Plan the Supporting Economy Around It

A useful location also needs connections to the products its settlement will consume. Neighboring settlements distribute goods through roads joining their central market squares once receiving recipes or equipment needs are assigned.

Consider these supply roles together:

  • Food: supports settlement needs and efficiency.
  • Wood and a Carpenter's Guild: provide carpentry points for infrastructure.
  • Stone and a Mason's Guild: support masonry-dependent development.
  • Equipment: helps unlock more building space inside existing settlements.

You do not need every resource inside every settlement. The purpose of a connected region is to let specialized settlements support one another. The practical preference is a site with a workable supply connection, rather than an isolated patch that merely looks productive.

Inspect River Direction Before a New Region

In the demo, heavy goods such as stone cannot move between regions by road. They need river transport, and rafts travel downstream only. A region that depends on imported stone therefore needs a compatible downstream connection to its source.

Open settlement placement and zoom into the river to inspect its flow. Check this before choosing where a future raft port or resource-dependent region will go.

The current demo lets you move a settlement near its original position within the same region without a relocation cost or penalty. That can correct a local siting mistake, but it cannot move the settlement across the county into a different region.

FAQ

Is there one best starting location for every county?

The obtained official guidance recommends resource and river checks, rather than naming a universally best coordinate.

Should every settlement be on a river?

Not necessarily. Roads handle regional distribution and compatible interregional land trade. River access becomes crucial when the demo route needs heavy freight between regions.

How can I check which way a river flows?

Choose Build a settlement and zoom into the river, as described by the official FAQ.

Can moving a settlement rescue an incompatible regional route?

Local repositioning may help its placement, but the same-region and nearby-location restriction means it cannot reverse a river or relocate an entire region.