anyone ever do island hopping?

[Cidifer]

Has anyone ever play an island hopping game? and I mean the whole game not just a couple islands off the coast of a few large contenents, it's always seemed too time consuming to me but at the same time I kind of want to try it. So anyone? and if so did you set it to have a lot of islands or was this an acciedent?

[Inverse Icarus]

i had an archipeligo game once on a large map, and there were no real continents.

the largest one was occupied by germany and persia, and it held about 15 cities. everything else was smaller, and scattered all over.

the whole game was island hopping.

[Bella Hella]

what's island hopping? (i can pretty much guess, but what's your definition?)

and no, i don't believe i've ever had the opportunity.

[Patroklos]

I have never played an archipeligo game as I always found it too time consuming, but I have played on maps with large island groups. If I can get to the islands first I normally do, because as this thread alludes too, the concept of island hopping is time consuming and thus the comp has trouble with it sometimes.

The problem with islands, whether you are holding them or taking them, is that small islands usually do not have the resources to make the effort worth it. If they do, then you are in for a time. The logistics are what makes island hopping tiresome. You need to build an army, build the transports, build naval units for protecgtion and bombardmant. Also, if the island is only a few tiles big, then you can just fill the island up with cheap units and it is invulnerable until you have marines (or paratroopers to hit an undefended interior square). So basically if you don't mind spending time then go for it.

Note: I also find with island hopping is that you need to have a reserve transport sitting around, because once you take one island and move to the other, an enemy transport will apear out of nowhere and land, moving reinforcments between islands is also time consuming so it can be difficult to thwart such a "suprise" attack.

[alexman]

There was once an Apolyton University game (103) that had lots of island hopping.

[Bella Hella]

i just thought of something. i've tried to set the game up for island hopping in the past, but even when i've selected archipelago and lots of water, i still get larger continents. weird. maybe i should try again (this was before the patch).

[Cidifer]

well it's got to have a couple continents so that when you start you can build a few cities and not need to wait around for navigation and and ships before getting you next city. I know it would be hard and take a long time but I was just wondering if it was fun, personally I enjoy taking islands every once in a while in normal games but that's usually after I have most of my continent filled in. So I just thought if someone had done it before and it was fun I might try it.

[PrinceBimz]

I setup everything random and a remember some of the maps I played on had several islands. The AI made use of them too and some of those were very valuable as far as resources go. Not to mention position was very strategic for two of them. I will say a strong navy is a must on maps like this even if you are not at war. You have got to keep an eye out around your coasts and sea lanes. The enemy will sneak up on you and land behind lines in your weak areas.

[Bella Hella]

i think it would be pretty fun. it would be totally different than how i normally play (not prioritizing naval technologies; not really using ships much).

- edited because i said "chips" instead of "ships."

[Theseus]

Try AU 103.

[Cidifer]

Originally posted by Theseus
Try AU 103.

someone actually already said that.

[Theseus]

I know... I am merely reaffirming alexman's brilliant suggestion.

One of the nice things about the AU games that we don;t refer too much is the quality of the maps; in almost all cases, somebody had tweaked the map to make it more fun / surprising given the focus of that game.

Also, FYI, since AU 103 (I think) the games have been set up as scenarios, so the individual player can select difficulty level.

[Tuberski]

The biggest problem I see with island hopping is that your place and FP have a lot less of an effect than on continents or pangea.

[Theseus]

It's not as bad as you think. Corruption by distance is an issue, but OCN is sort of minimized. It does mean that FP and Palace placement are critical. Moving the Palace several times helps a lot as well.