Really like the interesting lakes and the river down the middle. Allows me to have food production on one side and non-food everything on the other.
yes its good to keep a paper n pen handy to keep a list of some of the good map codes. i like the large open areas to build a nicely decorated town center,with hospital,market,hall,etc. and yet u need small mountain spots for mines n a good production area. i have a cpl map seeds saved/ 1 has a penisula right at the start to set up a good fort between 2 rives and a cpl lakes, the south is mostly flat for a town n the east has a area for production then a hill for the mines. it fits nice for the map. plus still leaves room to expand later.
biggest problem i find working that way,is the workers live in 1 area n bu expanding to aanother they become slower at clearing n building.but it makes sence to me to build little self-sustaining areas,that u dont have to maintain n micro manage. then u can go uild elsewhere freely.