Unbalanced map

I am running a large size, small continents game, with myself as Elizabeth vs. all of the new civs. For that map, I would expect between 2 to 4 civs per continent to give a balanced layout.

I quickly found that I had Gajah Mada to the north, Pocatello to the east, Enrico Dandolo to the south-east with Pedro II and Ahmad al-Mansur south of him, and only a short war between Pedro and Enrico.

So I am in a continent with 6 civs and expected the other 4 to be together. Having got to Astronomy and updated my triremes to caravels, I started exploring the rest of the map - and found that Ashurbanipal and Shaka are in one contnent, and at war, with Casimir III and Maria I on their own islands.

OK, I have the advantage of easier trade routes, but the other 4 are limited until they get cargo ships and can find each other.

It is likely that your continent is two or three continents that are joined together because they are too close. Try playing on high sea level to help keep the continents apart.

So you have a bunch of civs on a big continent and a couple smaller ones with a civ each... Unbalanced? Like Earth in RL?