Not sure whether someone else has reported similar experiences...

Recently I had a few games where I banish my settler and warrior to the new continent of Terra, at the very beginning, through the use of the map editor. Then I play along normally from there.

As I might accidenly drop my settler in the middle of 10 bear spawns, I made a rule that I can pick a spot that I think is most ideal (and safest) for my capital. Then, no more map editors - I try to play survivor from there. To compensate for my advantage here, I usually play at Deity.

The first trouble I run into, even before the game starts, is that the new continent usually has less density of resources than the old continent, and less variety of them as well. Therefore, it is hard to pick an capital that can prosper as fast as an capital on the old continent. Usually there are also far less forest to chop.

After the game starts, you probably guessed it -- I run into huge hordes of barbarians coming from all directions. The first barbarian archer usually shows up before I chop out my first axeman, so my starting warrior is really critical for survival. Sometimes I have to reload the game until he survives, or my empire will die in its infancy ;)

The Deity barbarian archers are numerous, and never stop coming, which makes the game very exciting (or frustrating). They know where I am! Fortunately, once axemen comes out, they will make a big difference. After I start to push them back, and make a few good sentry posts, my axeman are usually roaming around in small teams, bashing some randomly spawned barbarians, and pop huts.

There will be 4 barbarian archers guarding each barbarian cities, so it is very difficult to occupy a city before I gather enough powers. Usually I take the defensive stance, luring their spare units out to kill them on some easy terrain.

After barbarians cities grow to size 2, they are "mature". I will organize a "expansion team" made up by 5-6 axemen and workers, and take the city over with axemen. I get far more loot money after they grow to size 2, too. If the city is founded in stupid locations, I will raze it and replace it with my own settler.

After the barbarians are controlled, I start to fall into some tech problems. By the time I finally meet up with other civilizations, my tech is usually WAY behind. This is because I can't trade resources and techs before I even met the other AIs, but they can. Also, I don't have their religion to make them happy with me. Sometimes, I can spend a great scientist to give me Philosophy (and a Shrine later), and spread it among my isolated kingdom to generate some little income. I can't use missionary to spread religions to barbarin cities, too bad.

After a few frustrations of hopeless games, recently I start to add a scout through the map editor at 4000BC, and leave him on the old continent. This way at least I can still make long distance calls with other Civs' leaders, and trade techs (not resources, as there is no cross-ocean trade route before Astronomy). This makes it actually quite a balanced and fun game on Deity. I suppose on lower difficulties you can just go with your own empire.

I recommend you to try it someday as well. It is definitely not easier than a Deity game, because the barbarians cities you conquere are far less developed than cities from regular Deity Civ leaders, and the barbarians are CRAZY! :cool:

Sounds like a cool idea--I'll have to try it sometime. I have yet to try a terra game, and this would be an intriguing twist. You are, essentially, playing as one of the indiginous peoples of the "New World". Do you also choose an appropriate Civ for that role (Aztecs, Incas)?

You'd have a bit of a leg up if you took Incas, their UU can go toe to toe with the barbarians for quite a while.

Rather than spoil the theme of the map with a special agent in the old world you could play on a difficulty less than diety.

You'll probably struggle a ton in this game science-wise. With no trading partners and an AW situation with constant barbs, when the AI comes over to colonize it literally will be like real life when the colonizers were much more advanced than the natives here. Let us know how it turns out.

Rather than spoil the theme of the map with a special agent in the old world you could play on a difficulty less than diety.
Why do you think it spoils the map? It's a very interesting way to create a map with two continents where you are alone in one of them and all the others are in the other (you can't achieve this in other ways, I believe). Maybe Deity makes this almost unplayable, so it might be a more interesting experiment for Emperor or (at most) Immortal. But the solution maltz found (the scout in the other continent) is very good. Still, I feel that the fact you can't profit from the early wars between your opponents makes it much more difficult than a normal game. I really wonder how it will go.

i like to give myself all the essentials while still in the editor, and play raging barbs, always war, one city challenge over in the new world.