Thoughts about Island Plates/Inland Sea

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I haven't played a successful Emperor+ game on Island Plates yet, but I haven't given it a strong go. BUT, it would appear to me that the usual spawn 4-6 settlements to rely on later 6-tile synergy bonuses, OR go on an early rampage against nearby city-states/AIs, are both a lot tougher when you start on an island that at best can tightly support 3 cities at best, and often not even that.

Plus, fewer CS bonuses early on as the AI's early tech advantage will lead to them spamming the oceans.

Anyone here playing Island Plates a lot, or are the synergy bonuses too awesome to give up?

Note about Inland Sea as well -- the map on standard is HUGE, no pun intended. Played on Immortal, and the closest AI in one direction was 10 tiles, in the other, 30 tiles. Each AI had 4-8 cities but there was room for at least another 6 civs on the map with similar sized empires, if not more. Ton of City States were left at end of game, a lot more than even happens on Emperor/Pangea.

Barbs are grimmer too, lost a city on turn 120 or so and was dealing with technologically advanced barbs attacking multiple cities from turns 120-200. Standard lazy tech victory on turn 340, didn't even meet some of the civs until turn 300+. Looking forward to playing it when SuperAngryBarbs becomes an option.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Wow, I guess everyone is Pangaea-ing all the time ...

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

I've won on both of these. Island Plates is actually pretty easy even without the synergy bonuses... I won my one and only Religion victory using that setup. You're absolutely correct about the Inland Sea map, it is very disproportionately large compared to the others. Even if you leave all the AI's in the game, you can still spend hundreds of turns just trying to find everyone... great room for expansion though. It was much more difficult to win on Immortal using that map because of the constant Barbarian spamming. I've won Immortal on every map now. I guess I have to try Deity... not really looking forward to that

 

[LDiCesare]

Inland sea : Yes the map is huge. I played one (deity). There are so many mountain ranges and chokepoints that I never touched the sea but settled (with a few CS) about 1/4th of the map between the mountain ranges blockign access to the sea and the map border by myself. The corners of the map were empty to the end : I plucked a city in the NW while starting in E because my exploring archer met a friendly barbarian settler, which gave me some luxuries and huge culture as Gorgo from killing barbarians.
So, indeed, lots of free space, meaning CS survive and barbarians thrive.

 

[KmDubya]

After two victories on standard continents going for random map detail inland sea. Ended up as Germany in tundra between Scythia and Russia. Russia denounced me early for no culture and then attacked, fought off with archers and got a great work as settlement. Settled my fifth city six tiles from a friendly Scythia and got DoW'd. So far really liking the inland sea map, having bad starting terrain makes for some additional challenge at Emperor.

Starting to see the same leaders again and again. Two games in a row with Peter, and Trajan; second game with Gorgo and Pedro

 

[Huaojozumakurwa]

I play Island plates a lot. I find it easier, because you don't need to prioritize military at all. The chances of an AI being on the same island are slim. Push the sea level to low if you need more space. If my initial island cannot support 6 cities, I prioritize Shipbuilding and grab a few more islands nearby - you can usually get there on coastal waters.

 

[Sascha77]

I haven't had much luck with Island Plates.

I must've re-rolled at least 10 times with Japan, but I always got the same useless starting position: One half of all my islands was always covered in snow and tundra, with very few hills near me and no mountains even in medium-term settling range.

Plus the game sometimes places civs on islands that are way too small and isolated. In one of my games I was alone on what would've been a typical island/landmass on Civ V's "small continents"-map, while some of my opponents were on ones that looked like typical landmasses from Civ V's "large islands"- or even "archipelago"-map. And the AI really, really sucks when it's starting out on a small-ish island. I'm not going to post my "Isolated Cleo and her scout-orgy"-screenshot again, but they really do seem unable to make an island-start work.

S.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I haven't had much luck with Island Plates.

I must've re-rolled at least 10 times with Japan, but I always got the same useless starting position: One half of all my islands was always covered in snow and tundra, with very few hills near me and no mountains even in medium-term settling range.

Plus the game sometimes places civs on islands that are way too small and isolated. In one of my games I was alone on what would've been a typical island/landmass on Civ V's "small continents"-map, while some of my opponents were on ones that looked like typical landmasses from Civ V's "large islands"- or even "archipelago"-map. And the AI really, really sucks when it's starting out on a small-ish island. I'm not going to post my "Isolated Cleo and her scout-orgy"-screenshot again, but they really do seem unable to make an island-start work.

S.

Try using "Balanced start", it may even things out a bit, probably at least stop you from being on a really small/island at start.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Found Inland Sea, now don't play on anything else. Nice and relaxing and I have all the space in the world to spread out.

Except for my last game with Rome, where Japan was like 12 hexes away from me (or maybe 20; the map is huge), built an army, built Stonehenge, attacked me, and promptly lost his empire as a result.