Overcoming Initial Land Disadvanatages

[pickleboy]

I just finished a game in which I got put by myself on a continent that was fairly small (only room for about 10 cities w/o serious overlapping) while there were only two other major continents and very few small islands. I expanded as quickly as I could and tried to seek out other continents or islands but they were just not to be had. I played the game through attempting to develop strategies for overcoming my bad luck. In the end I lost , but I think I have a better idea of how to take advantage of diplomacy and other factors to overcome my small size and industrial/economic/scientific output.

Has anyone had similar experiences and how did you deal with some of the following issues?

Procuring strategic resources and luxuries.
Fending off neighbor civs when they get greedy
Successful Colonization of far away continents when the opportunity arrives (ie overcoming distance and corruption)

[MarshalN]

I think overcoming corruption is the toughest part....

Actually, let me restate. I think getting off the initial island for something better is the toughest. I've played games like that where I start out on horrible islands, and because I like playing large/huge maps, tech reserach with just 10 cities is very slow. You end up waiting a few thousand years to get off (either through Lighthouse or getting Caravel, both of which take considerable amount of time). Even if you beeline for the tech, you still will be far behind because no trading happens. That's of course if you're not lucky and end up on an island that's far away enough from everything that galleys won't get you anywhere.

In those cases.... I think you're pretty much screwed because by the time you get off and find something, it's probably already settled and the AI has a commanding lead in tech/resource/military. I finally got off and found myself at least 4 or 5 techs behind in some cases, and everyone has 20 cities at least while I had 10. It was quite hopeless.... and no strategic resources anywhere on my island or on land near me either. I tried conquering some cities that are closest to me (I explroed farther to find no land that's not already settled).... but those didn't hold and eventually I just gave up and started again.