Before you think you know what it means; you're probably wrong, I mean if you are on a island they will obviously generate so you have competetors, but will civilizations generate on the islands away from there? (more of continents) because if not, then I'll probably keep making new saves over and over again because i cannot find new civilizations and have a new experience. I've "conquered" the island that i spawned on and nothing else really happen after that. ( I made all 3 factions go into a alliance with me via trading enough with them) There were no others that I've found so far. No ships beside the 3 faction ones, no new buildings, towns, cites, our even trades. At this point I'm wondering if they even DO generate on the continent world setting.
I've seen it happen before on preview, but they built ships and went out, I don't see any of this tho...
So please tell me if it's an actual feature that they do generate outside the main / spawn island, or if they do have a chance of not generating. Sorry if this was a waste of your time and the answer was obvious.