Round 1 i always try to get 11 income, but if that isnt possible i normally take a country in my starting continent that i aim for.
Before i went for SA alot, but lately ive felt that aslong as you dont have any good oppononet vs u in NA, NA is alot better to go for instead of SA. Normally you wont have anyone attacking you early game, except for SA. If you place out just a few rifles in defense, that will usually discourage the europe player to get into NA, and im not talking about having the whole continent. Normally the time i go for SA is when i got all countries except Greenland/alaska and canda. Usually im working on one of them though. At this time, even a good SA player wont be strong, and unless he started attacking me, he will be trying to gain territory elsewhere, and those units elsewhere wont make much use in defending, even him spending 10g elsewhere helps loads, when you do your initial attack, aslong as you hold one country in sa you will have crippled him alot, and as said, its key to have just a few riflemen placed as psychological places so you dont get attacked by someone else, dont cover all spots, but make it look like you are still strong.
Starting in asia, gives you a big risk of becoming one of the small powers, since alot of ppl like to take at least one of those 2 gold countries, or any of the smaller ones except china. You can fight yourself through it, and gain the asia income pretty fast, but asia is a strong continent late game imo, but not early game, since there is so much more potential in other continents. Say africa/ant combo, or NA/SA, or Aus/ant. Ant/sa i dont like going in ship games, but it works good in transport.
