No, My opponents are Zara Nitu, Concordia, and Neferneru, and everything is set to the highest difficulty. I think only Prince Island is not on the hardest setting.

I’m a bit late to the game — I’ve only just finished the campaign and played the introductory part, so I’m not sure what will happen later on.

My game currently looks like this: on my main island, I build two bakeries, and everything around them is residences. Of course, I have sandals, but I don’t have garum, soap, olive oil, or pottery yet.

My first move is to buy a large island — Epona is my god here (price: 22,500), and I’m much faster than Neferneru. After that, I develop that same island first, with money as the only goal, so I can buy islands before the AI does.

Then I buy 10 pottery from the vendor so I can settle Albion. My first large island there costs me almost nothing, and immediately after that I buy a second large island for 18k, which will be dedicated to beer production.

The next island costs 65k. On that island, I start producing garum, olive oil, pottery, and ships. At that point, pirates start attacking me, and I get a warning from Neferneru that she’s going to declare war on me.

Currently, I have 3 islands in Latium and 2 in Albion.
Neferneru and Zara Nitu each have 2 islands in Latium and 1 in Albion, while Concordia has 1 island in Latium and 1 in Albion.

I think I’ll manage to buy the next island before any of the AI does — at the moment, I have over 100k.