If you play mostly standard-sized continents maps, island starts are a frequent occurance. While I quite enjoy them on Monarch, I find them really difficult to tackle on Emperor and above because I invariably seem to fall behind in the techrace.

Assume the following: After having researched Mining and BW as your first techs, you find you are on an island with no land in sight in either direction. What do you do?

The obvious first step seems to be to focus on cottages, library and possibly the oracle, while keeping military to an absolute minimum and growth moderate. But then what?

I find that if I beeline for optics and astronomy to get in touch with the other civs early, chances are I won´t have much to trade except for, well, optics and astronomy.

If instead I focus on science and wait for them to find me, I am frequently locked out of the trading game.

Anybody have a surefire strategy here, especially on the research side?

J.

Trading for Optics is a good strategy. The key is to not trade it to the first guy you meet. If you do, he'll go and trade it to all the AIs on the other side of him and by the time your Caravel gets over there, you won't have anything you want.

When you get Optics, send two Caravels in each direction and don't trade Optics until you've met at least two or three civs. That way, you can trade it to multiple guys in one turn and get the maximum value out of it. Also, with two Caravels on the move before you trade it, you'll circumnaviagte the globe first and the movement bonus is a huge advantage on an Archipelego map.

Also, consider using Great People to get techs. Look at what tech will be researched by them and see if the AIs have it. If not, research the tech. Also, when choosing which techs to research, take the ones that the AI don't have so you can trade it around. You can generally go and trade monopoly techs around for two or three others and a lot of cash as well. On Emperor, you're generally going to be behind the AI in techs, especially in the early game, so you need to use whatever strategies you can to get a boost.

If you sit back and wait for the other civs to find you, you've already lost. They have a research advantage and they're trading back and forth. You need to get into this quickly and keep up with them or else they'll just run over you.

If you play mostly standard-sized continents maps, island starts are a frequent occurance. While I quite enjoy them on Monarch, I find them really difficult to tackle on Emperor and above because I invariably seem to fall behind in the techrace.

Assume the following: After having researched Mining and BW as your first techs, you find you are on an island with no land in sight in either direction. What do you do?

The obvious first step seems to be to focus on cottages, library and possibly the oracle, while keeping military to an absolute minimum and growth moderate. But then what?

I find that if I beeline for optics and astronomy to get in touch with the other civs early, chances are I won´t have much to trade except for, well, optics and astronomy.

If instead I focus on science and wait for them to find me, I am frequently locked out of the trading game.

Anybody have a surefire strategy here, especially on the research side?

J.
It depends on difficulty. On Immortal and below island start means that you have pretty much guaranteed cultural victory. As you said, focus on cottages and libraries, perhaps you want to get pottery first. Get Pyramids. Chop forests if necessary (if there're too few forests, don't chop them for any other purpose). If you can get GL as well. Concentrate on infrastructure and developing cottages around 3 cultural cities (don't plant many cities). Just before 1000AD build a bunch of units (so that AI won't want to attack you) and plant few more cities on the coast (to get religions). Your research goals are Liberalism and infrastructure techs. Don't bother with Optics or Astronomy and stop researching after Liberalism or Democracy. On Deity this strategy doesn't work reliably, but I don't know any better plan. On Emperor and often on Immortal you can also win by conquering AIs after you get Astronomy (in this case you need to prioritize Astronomy right after critical infrastructural techs).

Ugh, cut-and-paste strategies. IMO, wing it :mischief: