No man is an Island...

[W4r_Machine]

I'm playing as Germany at the moment and I must say that they s@ck when stuck on an island alone. I'm currently on an island big enough for 18 cities, but the island is mountenous and full of desert tiles. I'm sucking at this game at the moment.

Here's the 411
I'm curently at war with 5 civs. and I haven't made contact with the other 2. The only reason I have made contact with the 5 civs is because they wanted to colonize my tiny island. I kiled thier all setlers. BTW, it's 900 AD and I'm way behind in techs.

Right now my galleys are being sunk by priveteers so DDay invasion isn't DDay when you have 2 units trying to take on the world. Millitary wise, I'm strong, transporting them to where they are usefull is another story.

Anyone have any thoughts on how takle islands maps.

[Alkis]

What is the difficulty level?

That you made contact with five civs is a good thing. Are you stronger than any of them? If yes you can sign a peace treaty and they will give you technology. Then you can try to buy some more technologies from them. Technologies are cheaper when many civs have them.

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[dawidge]

Make peace.
a) buy techs, get galleons, and try again.
b) build a sh**load of galleys and restart the war with your landing. Make enough galleys to give you a defensive perimeter around your loaded transports.

Do something about those privateers. If you aren't at war with their owners, the rest of the AIs will go like gangbusters to take them out. The AI hates privateers with a passion.

I haven't played an island map in a while. The last time I did it, I only had to cross coastal squares to reach the enemy, so I made a double line of galleys surrounding my sea lane and moved troops through the middle. Since I had a city at the closest approach and four moves to reach the nearest Zulu, I staged my galleys in two groups. load up, move two, activate and load into other galleys, move two, unload. The only galleys at sea were empty and the AI made a low priority of them. AFAIK, this should work over any distance. It's a good way to try the early ocean crossing when you can see something over there, but have to spend one turn in a sea square. Move the empty(ies) into the sea square and see if any live. Move the same number of loaded galleys as the survivors, transfer them to the survivors and complete the crossing. Better to lose an empty galley than a full one.

The lighthouse is almost a requirement for early dominance on island maps. Since they're already building privateers, I'd say that you're hosed and have a tough uphill climb to make it. You won't do it if you're at war with everyone else.

[W4r_Machine]

Deficulty level is regent.

My army is Big considering it's only 950AD, it about 80 units. I already sued for peace with japan and got 2 techs so now I'm only behind by 3 or 4. I might be behind even more cause of the 2 civs I haven't made contact with.

The only wonder I manage to make is the Colosus and The Oracle, everything else has been made by the AI.

I have the 3 biggest empire so it's safe to assume I have a bigger millitary.

[W4r_Machine]

I [layed it through but got whooped! I was lagging in techs big time so I just went ctrl-shift-Q

[Jawa Jocky]

Panzers are a nice UU, but your window of opportunety is limited with them. The only time I played them I used my GA to rush Panzers and destroyed England (which was twice my size). I had to settle with SS because by the time I eliminated England everyone else had Mech Inf. and modern armor.

[playshogi]

Your big mistake was killing their settlers. Why did you do that? You can always capture their cities later when war is more convenient for you. I find island maps easy, because the AI is pretty weak at getting off them. Build Lighthouse and you shouldn't have any trouble. On my last island map, I built Great Library and got zero techs from it. Built Lighthouse and found many uninhabited islands. Turns out the other 4 AI were all on one island and 3 of them had been beaten down to 1-2 cities by the time I discovered them. ( I had 3 AI on my island and beat them down to 1 city each on tundra).