[Endoperez]

Dominions 1 had pixel-based maps, in which 9? colors were defined for terrains (waste, mountain, forest, borders, capital, sea...), and dominions actually changed these pixels! You could quess that Abysia was in that corner, because it was becomeing more and more yellowish every turn, etc. Unfortunately those maps were very ugly. IW team had said that it was a great feature, but IIRC they didn't know a way to implement it in the game.

High population -> low resources is not always true, but there is very good reason behind the trend. Farmlands have high population but very low resources. Knights only appear in Farmlands. Other kinds of terrains affect population/resources/ chance of magic sites differently. Mountain has low population, high resources and lots of magic sites, forest is similar but not as much, plains is general, waste and swamp just bad but have more magic sites.