i know you basically entered free play when you beat every island before the portal to the next land, just never did it lol. i would always just go right in to the next land and build another city/conquer again.
I hate that feature of the game.
In my honest opinion, I think god games should never have progression like that. I think story helps, and even the influence progression that Black and White 2 gives is alright, but shuttling the player through different theme park rides to achieve any sort of ending is subtractive from the genre.
But the sandboxes help. :)