Patrizierforum

Steersman:
You had the right hunch. I am aiming for Bremen with its precious sheepfarms. At this point I don't know if I will stay or move on to Ladoga since that will be my prime IG town. I guess it depends upon the brick situation and the offering of goods in the new production town. I am going to get some important stuff. The dream is wool, salt and timber in Novgorod. I would take Memel with brick, timber and salt as well.

For those who have not had a chance, go look at how to determine the goods in the new production towns, make sure you do. I know you will have to get workshops going to get rid of honey as the first choice. Also, aiming for whale oil/fish will not work for a southern town, so don't waste your time tyring for it.
It appears that, without destruction of a pirate's nest, there are always two choices, either at the same time or alternating. The second town in this contest appears to be Ripen.

Last, but not least, there are no extra points for making LM or AM early. You just have to get recognition of a new production town in 1301 and that, if possible, within 6 months. Start piling up 1,500 bricks for the task. And while you are at it, look for IG and timber as well. In order to get the recognition within 6 months it is imperative that all building crews are working non-stop. Delay the chucrh and the port until after the recognition. And remember, new production towns have one extra building crew.

Just to confirm:

the three towns available, without destrcution of pirate nests, are:
Novgorod, Memel and Ripen. It appears that Novgorod changes to Memel early in the year (end January / February) I'm not there yet but there are several reports that it does change from Novgorod to Memel.

There is a bug regarding AM missions. When you accept the mission to eliminate a notorious pirate, the AM will cancel the mission within one day because someone else has taken him down. This, of course, is a fib.
To work around the bug, see, via s/l, what the name of the notorious pirate is and, when you have him right in frnt of you, accept the mission.
Also, I have found that the names will change. It appears that when a pirate emerges from a nest, he will be the new target. I eliminated all 3 pirates within 2 weeks without any tricks. They came, in order, out of Toensberg, Flensburg, Koenigsberg.