In previous games I always did like snapping up all the little islands. I would always absolutely have to take all the islands in the mediterranean; it always disappointed me that there were so few of them and that they got rid of the Balearics for M2TW. It also disappointed me that in BC, the only island in the Indian Ocean was Socotra, off the coast of Yemen (which of course I always take without fail, regardless of which faction I am).
So yes, I would very much like to see not just the Channel Islands, but the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Man, Anglesey, the Orkneys and the Shetlands as separate provinces. In fact, if it were up to me, Rockall would be a separate province which can be built up to a Huge City. Unfortunately however, since I believe all of these islands were relatively unimportant historically, I suspect they are unlikely to be there.
Hopefully however the Caribbean and Indonesia will be in, so there should be plenty of scope for island-hopping if that's your thing. In fact invading archipelagos should work quite well for this game since it requires plenty of naval action as well as land battles.
Then, maybe I could make an Island Mod, where for example France is represented by a single province, but every single one of the South-East Asian islands is represented individually.
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