If you play his mod, the resources are there. There are two maps, one with cities and one without the cities, but resources are in both. Some resources appear after you get certain techs. And this is to simulate when certain cities had an increase in population throughout history. By looking at the editor I see that for example, there are 2 game resources. One appears earlier, and one would show up at the appropriate time to increase the food potential of certain areas so those cities grow at the appropriate time in history. He did the same with horses and that is how horses first appear in Asia (and not North America), but later in the game horses do show up in North America. Very nice work, because horses were not in North America at 4000 B.C.
Great mod and idea, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
With world maps, like has been said before, you can always go in the editor and select 'redistribute natural resources' and this will randomize all the resources into new spots, so the general geographical features will still be the same, but you will still need to explore to find out where the resources are. Playing as America, sure you will have lots of land all to yourself, but because you have contact with limited civs you will fall behind in tech (if you are playing a high enough difficulty level).