There's also a desire among some players to make sure naval activity is present. I concur with this (since I need to build navies more), and I definitely like the income benefits of coastlines (particularly with Financial civs, which I am very fond of nowadays).
While reading various map guides I came across an interesting statement:
Remember that a continent is not necessarily one single land mass (think Oceania).
So I played around with the map generator and came up with some interesting designs. All images are at their original res so you can see the detail, and crudely edited to keep the globe map in view; the sources were 16x9. All of these are settings on Hemispheres.
Tiny islands, 6 snaky continents, medium sea level. Sea contact from the beginning. Tons of coastline. Minimal ice.
Another run at these settings.
Islands, 6 normal continents, medium sea level. No sea contact (or combat!) until Astronomy, more land.
Tiny islands, 6 normal continents, low sea level. More land, oceanic separation.
Same settings, different map.
Tiny islands, 6 snaky continents, high sea level. Some beginning sea contact, but not as complete as at Medium sea level.
I think the first settings (tiny islands, 6 snaky continents, medium sea level) would make for a cool experimental map. Moreover, I think it'd be fun to pick our civs. I personally would suggest everyone take a Financial civ because of all the coastline; I certainly would.
