Island Start advice?

[Lliraedeon]

I started playing the huge earth map with fixed civs and picked the English to play, but am having trouble due to my island start! I have focused heavily on researching sailing and other naval techs (and believe I may be in the lead with these) but my empire is tiny and I am being squeezed by the other nearby civs with their huge empires!

Any tips for my next game if I choose (or get) another island start? Since Chop rushing no longer works until Iron working, I've been struggling! (I did manage to build the Great Lighthouse, Colossus and the Pyramids though, lol)

 

[DRJ]

On huge earth map, you can build 4 cities on England and 2 on Ireland, 1 in Iceland and with 7 cities you're gonna be fine for a conquest raid in direction of Paris, Madrid and Rome/Berlin/Scandinavia later in the game. Great Lighthouse is good, Collossus, too but hard on higher difficulties.

Positioning of cities on England:

OOOOOO
OCXOOO
OXXXOO
OXXOOO
OOCXOO
OXXXOO
OOXXXO
OCXXCO
OOOOOO

O=Water
X=Land
C=City

Wait, this screenie I just found explains it better I guess...

Spoiler :

 

[Lliraedeon]

I think the size I was using is larger. Possibly Gigantic size as England itself seems to have more tiles than the screenshot you posted. I shall screencap later and post my image!
Plus, I never can remember which vessels can go in ocean tiles. Does anything enable triremes etc ocean faring, other than Optics (which are a long, LOOOONG way away)

 

[DRJ]

yes, culture bombs help sometimes if you play huge earth map as an american civ and want to contact the old world early, build a city on Greenland, accumulate a lot of culture or a great artist and expand the city to radius 3. Then your ships can sail on ocean tiles around the ice to Iceland because ocean tiles inside your cultural borders can be moved into even without knowing optics.