cleverhandle
King
It would be nice to have an option (probably as a Custom Continents flag) to not have your civ start alone on an island, but leave the other aspects of Continents maps unchanged. I recognize that island starts have their own set of benefits and challenges and sometimes I like to play them out. But many times that's not the kind of game I'm looking for and it's a pain to play out the first 25 turns of scouting to find out that you're alone. That pretty much kills games where I'm trying to practice my early warmongering skills. Playing a Pang map is an option of course, but that also drastically changes the long-term, economic challenges to warmongering. Warmongering seems to be primarily an economic/tech challenge in Civ4 (how to conquer without stagnating?) and playing a Pang diminishes that challenge significantly.