How different are the randomly generated maps?

For example do they always have one big continent, or do you get maps of several continents, maps with lots of small islands, etc.?

Still considering buying this (which would also mean buying an e-box, so not an easy decision!). I can live with the maps all being the same size, and not being able to customize maps, as long as the random ones are different enough from each other. If they are the same size AND a similar shapre every time it could really hurt the replayability in my opinion.

they are about the same in size, but completely different in shape.

Do they always have the same number of landmasses (e.g. one continent and a few islands) or a bigger variety (e.g. a variety in the number of continents)?

They are completely random: pangea, continents, archipelago ....

You should get a completely different map each time you start a new game. There are only a (few) million possible maps, so sooner or later you will probably see some similarities, but that shouldn't happen *too* often.

My first game was a weird archipelago/islands thing and it was awful. I thought all the maps were like that. Luckily, they aren't.