No man is an island

[xenophile58]

Defensively, I'd agree that starting alone on an island continent is only bettered by starting inside an unbroken ring of peaks (Mordor start). My question was when do you break cover and I think the concensus is to stop banging rocks and start building something that floats as soon as you know the cold wet stuff is all around you. So that's what I'll do next time.

[arien101]

Hi,

I had an island start only once. I was the Incans and bent on early conquest. When I had built all these warriors and found nothing, it was already too late to switch to other techs. I was waaaaay behind when the others found me.

An additonal problem was that the island was covered completely in jungle. Only my capitol was halfway free of the damn foliage.

I haven't tried this myself, but I think it might work: If you find out you're alone quite early you could try the civil service beeline. That migt put you on an equal tech footing when you meet the rest of the world. I find this beeline difficult in other conditions because your neighbors are likely to take a lot of land before you can. This would be no problem when you're a lonely island civ though.

This beeline would rely heavily on some early warriors to keep the lands barabarian free though. At least on monarch I have made the experience that they can pretty easily ruin your day.

[Enigma_Nova]

It's not about Conquering players in far off lands
It's about finding those nifty islands with no players (or only barb players) on 'em, colonising them and shipping their resources back to your island empire.

Once, I was playing on a large central landmass (2 civs in a duel) without any Iron or Horses on the central island.
I promptly converted to the other civ's religion, colonised the iron/horse island, and prompted to greet my nearby civ warmly with some soft, cuddly Horse Archers and Swordsmen.