Just a guide to my first run I did. I've been tempted to clean it up, but for now this is how I ran my run.

The Genesis version has significantly faster text speed. Which can give more than a half hour difference alone in the run’s speed if run on that version. This is for the SNES version, but the game plays the same on the Genesis other than text speed and you can walk behind the backside of buildings (which doesn’t matter here). This guide is based on my first run. In case you want notes instead of 2 ½ hours of trying to play along. Time stamps are given. There are 100 villages in the game, but only 50 of them spawn in a playthrough. So there’s a 50/50 chance of a given village being present. So villages I mention might not be in your game and others are. When you first get to Lisbon, you’ll donate your money in 20% increments to gain luck. Luck will make it so you have to entertain villages less. There’s probably other mechanics involved, but that alone makes it worth it. And up to that point you will have less than 2000 gold, which isn’t much. Also I donated until I had no money left. I haven't bothered diving into just how many times you need to donate to get maxed luck or even how low you can go and still have to entertain the least with villages. So there's some area to work out.

When you go to a village, each search uses 2 food and entertaining uses 5 food. You can pillage a village to get food (and potentially lose men in the process), but this also lowers your luck. So especially after the round earth donation, unless you’re near the end, it’s better to just resupply at a port.

About an hour in I purchase balms in Goa. You CAN buy them in other locations. Might be a good idea before going down the west African coast, but I lucked out with one storm that I could stop in a port to skip. Otherwise you'll have to anchor on land for however long the storm is, which can eat way several seconds each time. Or just take the damage which can lower your speed or destroy your ship and end the game.

I stick with the starter ship, a sloop. Used ships on sell are random. It would likely be worth getting a ship with a larger carry capacity and crew (like a Nao or Carrack perhaps). Lisbon has a solid industry too, so an ideal time to upgrade. It takes about 20 seconds to restock each time, so having to stop a fraction as often would be a big gain. You can only really do this after turning in your first set of discoveries from the north expedition and by then Ernst should have acceptable experience to not be slowed down.

Time starts after confirming to start the game after name confirmation.

(0:00) Confirm through text until Ernst leaves Mercator. (1:55) Go to shipyard, remodel, load capacity, change to 20 bunks, 0 guns. (2:25) Assign crew. 50/50 navigation and lookout. Rations 90%. (2:55) Go to dock. Burn through the text until mentions father. (3:55) Get food and water. Set out. (4:05) Sail north. You’ll discover Bergen. Then sail north east. Discover Narvik. Sail east, then start moving in a zig-zag pattern to discover larger areas of open water until the coasts starts to close up northward. (5:45) When the land opens up again, sail southeast, discover and stop at Dikson. Supply up and sail off again. June 1st on my run. (6:20) Sail northeast. Find a village (maybe). Entertain to 55 (aurora). (8:00) Continue sailing east. Then southeast, zigzag slightly. Then sail south past the delta. Stop and supply at Tiksi. (9:20) Follow the southern coastline east. Village might appear on island straight ahead. Entertain to 30 (sea cow). (11:10) Sail southeast along coast and southeast through split. Stop in Nome. (11:50) Go back through the break and sail north then east along coast. Start to sail southeast in a zigzag, then stop in Coppermine. (13:25) Sail northeast through gap. Go northwest. If village, ent to 40. Restock in Coppermine if you reach this village otherwise continue on. (16:00) Sail southeast if that village hit. Otherwise sail northeast and come back around. Sail northeast then north for the mammoth village ent 65. Plunder to get food. And run outta there! (19:15) Sail southeast and go through southern gap then sail east. Go north east along coast. Aug 1 about now. Saber tooth in the northeast corner. Ent to 65. (21:40) Sail south then southeast. Go around the coast tip and sail northeast. Stop in Forel. (23:10) Follow the northeast coast. On map transition there’s a village on the 4th tile north coast. Ent to 35. (24:10) Sail southern coast of island and find Hekla, don’t stop there. Sail further southeast, past the island, then sail south to and stop in Lisbon. (25:00) Stop in Round Earth Society. Donate 20% increments (take off the last digit and double the remainder. Round up to make it easy) until you’re out of money. (26:45) Go to the Duke’s palace and accept a contract. Turn in all discoveries you found. (28:05) Go to the bar and get more men. You’ve likely lost crew from the discoveries and you’ll need them. (29:00) Assign crew again if you previously adjusted them for the crew that left/died. (29:45) Sail into the Mediterranean and stop in Alexandria to stock up. (31:20) Sail through the Nile and back. Most of these discoveries don’t take any ent or very little. Southernmost is 0, then going north 5 and 0 on my run. Return to Alexandria, bar for recovering crew, supply. (35:35) Sail out of the Mediterranean and get Madeira and Santa Cruz, then sail southeast to the African coast. (37:25) Stopped in Bissau for a storm to resupply too. But aim to get as far as fast as you can. Go through the river to Timbuktu. The few villages along the way are all low value. Timbuktu river was 0. Go through the other river further south for 2 more potential villages. Coastal villages are 0 ent each. When you reach the sandy part of the coast, avoid hugging it. There’s a monster event there. (41:10) Stop in Cape Town. Resupply. (41:30) Village down here is ent 0. Sail along the coast until it goes northeast. From here, just sail southeast until you reach the Antarctic. Then sail northeast in a zigzag, trying to uncover much of the ocean. If done right, you should end up around the southwest coast of Australia. Sail along its southern coast until you find the supply port. Check for the village on the southern island, then sail in to resupply. (44:45) Sail east and then northeast a screen, then sail southeast to find New Zealand. Check for village to the northeast, then come back to restock. (46:05). Sail straight east to Easter Island. Then sail northwest and a bit west to the supply port. (49:15) Sail northwest. Should reach a island for a village. Then sail down south and go around the islands. This is just north of Australia and Moresby is a good place to stop for supplies. (50: 55) Sail along the Australian coast southwest. Then start sailing northwest and move along the southern part of the islands. Stop in Dili. (53:40) Sail southwest to finish up the Australian coast. If both the northwest coast village (kangaroo, 40) and west village are present (40), you’ll want to plunder the second village for the food. Sail northwest for a few days, then southwest to get the zigzag exploring more map. We’re aiming to get back to the African coast near where we left off in the south. Sail to Madagascar as well. Stop in Tamatave in Madagascar. (59:10) A potential village to the south on a small island here (60). Sail northwest to the African coast. Find more ports along the way. Skip ‘em. Sail into the Middle East, keep skipping ports as long as you can. Stop in Cairo if possible. (1:02:40) Continue along the coast, exploring more of the middle east when that opens up too. Don’t bother sailing up the rivers to the north. Sail back southeast then east along the coast. Stop in Goa to buy balms. Item shop in the northwest. I bought 5, which is probably overkill. But storms can eat away lots of time. (1:06:40) Sail southeast along coast, then go through the gap and go straight northeast for a couple of days. Find the few islands to the east and a potential village. Continue southeast. Then go along the southwest to get the port south of the coast, then sail back up around the island and find more ports. Sail south through the gap and east along the chain of islands. Stop in Dili again to stock up and get more crew if any died/left. (1:10:50) Go northwest and along the coast. When close to the gap, sail south and then west hugging the northern coast. Continue northwest between the islands, aiming more along the northern coast. After the potential village location there, sail back south, east, then north along the coast. Keep following the coast Stop in Lushun to supply. (1:14:10) Sail east into the river all the way. Stop in villages on the way back. Restock in Lushun again. (1:16:50) Sail southeast along coast. Then east. Lots of storms in this area, so use a balm if the music cuts out (or you’re told there’s a storm coming). Follow Japan’s northern coastline then the southern. Then sail south and slight east to the supply port, then straight southwest for a village, then straight west for another village in the islands. Sail south to Mindanau to resupply. Discover Ternate south of there. Go back north and explore through the islands to the west. (1:24:30) I had goofed a good bit here, but leaving Ternate I go straight northwest. After a few days , I turn northwest, avoiding where storms usually happen around Japan and start to follow the Russian coast and end up sailing east to Alaska. Find Korf along the way. Be careful to go straight east from Korf to avoid getting stuck in Alaska’s island chain. Straight east gets you into Juneau. Restock. (1:28:00) Sail along the American coast to Santa Barbara. Restock (1:29:10) Sail west a screen, then northwest 4 days, then sail southwest 4 days, then southeast 4 days, then northeast 4 days to get back to Santa Barbara. Restock. (1:32:00) Follow the coast southeast. Go into the Baja. Then continue along the coast again. Stop in Guatemala to restock. (1:34:50) Follow the coast. Restock in Panama. (1:37:30) Follow the coast south. Sail east once you see the small river you can’t sail into to some islands for a potential village. Come back to the coast and follow it. Stop in Valparaiso. (1:40:20) Follow the coast and take the first opening. This is the only pass through. Winds can potentially die here. Keep sailing north and northeast to Montevideo. Restock here. (1:42:05) Check the rivers. Restock in Montevideo if needed. Otherwise keep sailing along the coast. (1:45:30) Go into the small river, spot the port. Run away. Keep along the coast. Stop at Cayenne. Restock. (1:47:00) The Amazon! Try to sail to the end of branches of the river before going back and doing the villages. Many of these you’ll lose men. After you’ve found them all, restock and get crew in Cayenne again. I had to go back to restock and new crew before leaving the Amazon a second time. Either way, head off along the coast again. Stop in Margarita. (1:54:20) Lots of ports around here. Just follow along the gulf coast. Enter the Mississippi river. Potential storms as you come near the entrance and around Cuba and Florida. Ready the balm. Ideally you resupply around Cuba before you run into a storm because balms are canceled after docking. Restock somewhere around here. I stopped in Santo Domingo. (1:58:35) After discovering all of the Cuban area, sail along the east American coast. I restock in Cape Cod, but probably don’t need it. (2:00:20) After Cape Cop, try sailing southeast a bit into the ocean, then east. Just trying to cover more open ocean as we head back to Lisbon to turn in discoveries. Stop in Lisbon. (2:02:00) Turn in all those discoveries! After this I had 31415 fame. On the SNES this will take a while because of the slow text. Head to Amsterdam to turn in your map and cross your fingers you discovered enough! (2:07:50) Beeline to Amsterdam! Turn in your map to Mercator. Pray you got 40k fame. (2:09:20) I had 41905 fame, which is a comfortable wiggle room, so definitely some options to not discover as many villages or as much of the map. But not a lot. 2:10:20) Now that Paula has joined us, it’s time to act like she was with us the whole trip. We’re going to head to around the area of India and the pacific islands. I sailed down, past Cape Cod, and back up to the area, but probably faster to sail along the northern Russian coast. You won’t get storms until you reach around Japan either. Stop where you need to restock, but around those ports (I ended up in Bankao) the topic of going to the golden land of Zipangu will come up. You’ll go to Zeiton here as one example. They’ll mention Zipangu is to the north from here. (2:19:15) Head to Nagasaki (Japan). More dialogue mentions this is Zipangu. Go to the Inn and Ernst mentions Paula looks a lot like these people. She mentions a “yellow sea.” Go to the ship dealer and he’ll mention a yellow river nearby. Head on out. (2:22:45) Go west then northwest. We’ve been through this river already. Just sail down it and Changan will show up straight east of the entrance. Go to the royal building. Enjoy the ending. Well, for the speedrun your timer ends when the number of days sailed can be clicked out of, so speed through the text. (2:24:34) Days sailed, 520!

There’s a lot of big time gains to make against this run. So hopefully this helps others get a feel for how to run this game. And I have no doubt there’s plenty of time to save in more straightforward routes and nailing down the exact amount of help needed in villages.