I often play continents. I absolutely despise when the game is played with city states off on their own islands. What's the point of that!!! The whole point is to manipulate them and play them against other civs. I also hate conditions that actually reduce the amount of growth that any given civ is capable of.
I like the idea of knowing somewhere a world away could be "England", "France" or "Spain" whose coming to subjugate you to death, destruction and the theft of your resources, when you spent half the game being the most dominant empire on your continent..