Continents

[PrinceOfLeigh]

When playing on a Standard Map with two Island Continents would you rather be on a Island packed with other Civs or on a sparcely populated Island for you to expand at will into?

I personally would rather be on the crowded Island in order to trade those early techs. Being alone usually means being left behind. You can always conquer your neighbour later when they no longer become useful.

That being said, there is a chance on a large island that you can snap up all those resources to trade for techs later.

It comes down to preference, so what do you think?

 

[nerovats]

Prefer when both islands have more or less the sam density, and have both benefits.
Prefer even more not to play continents, but pangea or archipello.

 

[Fried Egg]

The best thing is to start miles away from anyone else but then get out and explore very early on. That way you get the best of both worlds; loads of space to expand into and still get to trade techs and keep up with the AI.

 

[mastertyguy]

I prefer lot of space: the other civs, I'll discover them sooner or later, and I will trade them some monopoly techs for a lot over-traded ones!

 

[Padma]

I just play the hand I'm dealt.

For instance, in my current game (PTW - random settings), I started out on a huge continent, with only the Romans and Spain for company. The other continent, about half the size, holds the other five civs. Once I realized we were "isolated", I built the Great Library, and started sending out suicide Galleys, while I went on 1-Scientist Research. By the time I found the others, I had the Republic, and Rome and Spain had provided me with everything else in the Ancient Age. The other civs were not really any further along.

Now that it's 1800AD, Rome is just a memory, only remembered by a couple dozen slave Workers of mine. Spain is the 2nd largest Civ, but its outlying cities keep culture-flipping to me. The other continent keeps fighting amongst themselves, with Arabia almost gone, and Korea becoming a technological backwater. France is emerging as the Power there, so I will probably have to take some steps to counter that.

 

[madviking]

once I was playing a game and I had an island for myself!!

Everybody else was on another island...