I used to play random having to work out whether I have neighbours or not, and then finding Im on my own on a tiny island, that needs suicide galleys to get off, and which has no luxuries, water or resources! So as random, randomises both the land mass and water coverage, I dont think its a good idea where we want lots of cities to get lots of people to participate. Continents would give us a good land mass, but still leave use for a navy. We can then tune the water coverage to give us larger or smaller continents.