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However, things aren't as bad as at first glance. Even though each player can only start on at most two islands, there are a number of things that make life a lot easier. These are:

• Each player has the opportunity to place his two starting pieces on two different islands. That means two resources are accounted for.
• There is a gold field hex on each island, with a 5 or 9 production token. This can partially compensate for missing recources.
• There are three 2:1 port hexes on each island that match the resource of the island, plus two additional 3:1 ports. This also helps to compensate for missing resources.
• Because each dice roll will tend to load up players with mainly one or two resource types, we changed the Special Building Phase to include maritime trading (but not inter-player trading!). Maritime trades are quick and help to relieve the accumulation of identical resources.
• You will find that inter-player trading is easier in this game. In the normal game you often need a resource that is short for everyone, or want to trade a resource that no one wants. In this game, you almost always can find another player who has surplus of what you want, or who needs what you have in excess.
• Finally we removed the Mining and Irrigation cards from play as they made rediculous payouts to one or two players.

Each island has 9 terrain hexes, so use production tokens of 2 through 11 or 3 through 12 for each island. To encourage ocean crossings (as if those missing resources weren't enough!), the first player to connect two islands receives 2 VP, while the remaining players can earn 1 VP for the first time that they connect two islands.

The key to this game is to start on two islands on the edge of gold hexes, and to immediately head for a 2:1 port that is also a good launching point to "sail" to another island.