At Start, Pick Your Own Settlement Location

The first thing I do when I start a new map is moving the Settlement. I usually align it with the Shipyard. I bet most players don't even bother and accept the location the devs picked. This made me wonder: why not add this as part of the game, that you get to pick your Settlement location at the start? It's even a pretty common first player action for games in this genre. Think of the town square in Anno and Banished, for example. Asking the player to pick the Settlement location adds another layer of strategic decision making and leads to different layouts.

Actually I think it would be better to just start out with a homeless population. And that's just a map edit - so maybe for beginner maps you have a pre-placed initial settlement and for more advanced maps you have to build that yourself.

I think the Shipyard should house the workers in the beginning.
Or maybe some of them should live on the ship until a settlement is built.
I never like the initial placement of the settlements.

All items that are placed automatically when starting a new game should be allowed to be placed in the Map Editor. That includes the Shipyard and the 'ruined' building that holds the extra starting materials. And especially the settlements. Nothing should be placed automatically.