It's not so much a problem, but it gives players other options for trades and diplomacy over borders. As it is, the outer isles are just extra land, with no special resources that are up for grabs, so no reason to focus expansion over there, whereas the inner isle has the extra resources. This is balanced, but it could also give players a good reason to expand outwards as well as inwards and really make them question which way they want to expand.
One way to edit the map would be to place a large island that goes over the 4 corners of hte map, and place some of the extra resources there, as a continent about hallf the size of hte inner continent. This hurts the players on the N/S/E/W parts of the maps, so I'd place 1 gems resource between the N/S players, and 1 between the E/W players. However, as they are all slightly staggered, I think the N/S pair, which are the worst off, are about an extra 4 tiles from the corners of hte map compared to those closest. That is hardly unbalanced, and would be a decent alternative.
However, the current set up is still playable, and there is no real reason why any alterations such as those proposed are any better, as the suggestion that it may lead to there being 2 large continents to rush to instead of 1 and hence extra choices to be made, is not at all for certain.
One way to edit the map would be to place a large island that goes over the 4 corners of hte map, and place some of the extra resources there, as a continent about hallf the size of hte inner continent. This hurts the players on the N/S/E/W parts of the maps, so I'd place 1 gems resource between the N/S players, and 1 between the E/W players. However, as they are all slightly staggered, I think the N/S pair, which are the worst off, are about an extra 4 tiles from the corners of hte map compared to those closest. That is hardly unbalanced, and would be a decent alternative.
However, the current set up is still playable, and there is no real reason why any alterations such as those proposed are any better, as the suggestion that it may lead to there being 2 large continents to rush to instead of 1 and hence extra choices to be made, is not at all for certain.