Archipelago / Continents

[Tukker]

Im playing just regular civ3 and I been wondering is there any difference between Continents and Archipelago?

Pangaea is 1 huge landmass all connected to each other but the other 2 are almost the same? or am I missing something?

 

[Tomoyo]

Archipelago has more thin islands and has more little islands.

 

[JonahRowley]

Archipelago is a lot of small islands, with not many large ones. Contintents is usually 2 very large land masses and various smaller islands. You'll be playing island hopping a lot with arch., and it presents a lot of problems you won't usually see in the other map types.

 

[Hygro]

to rehash, continents usually yields 2 large continents and one small one, whereas archipelago yields about 6 or so large islands and some more small ones. (Im thinking largish map)

 

[CoolioVonHoolio]

arch. is good for higher levels (for me at least) so i can build up my citys and junk AND the AI wont be trading techs and stuff because its likely the wont find eachother until navgation

 

[RegentMan]

And there's always good ol' pangaea, which never is a true one. Archipelago has a ton of islands while continents has a couple. I tend to play continents the most.

 

[Hygro]

arch. is good for higher levels (for me at least) so i can build up my citys and junk AND the AI wont be trading techs and stuff because its likely the wont find eachother until navgation

Ironically I tend to lose early and fast in archipelago if I share my island with just one civ because I can't play the other civs against each other, nor are the lands big enough to take long to be settled, so war comes early.

 

[Wolfwood]

Ironically I tend to lose early and fast in archipelago if I share my island with just one civ because I can't play the other civs against each other, nor are the lands big enough to take long to be settled, so war comes early.

My advice to this would be to not wait until you start the war. Just build a couple of (or more) archers and terminate the second civ on the same island before they have time to build more than one or two cities. Then you'll have a long period to build your empire and navigate the seas and play the other civs against each other (or play the tech broker).

 

[Hygro]

Part of the problem I have is that my early strategy whilst play on demi god is that because I cannot militarily compete until the end of the ancient age, I tend to build few units at all. I also fear that I lack the competence to face a demi god level enemy in an early war. I can't outsmart like 10-30 units when I've got 1-3 cities and no infrastructure or whatever.

But I do see the point, and that in that situation, being a builder is plain stupid (and I'm a builder)