Hmm. Wouldn’t it make sense to balance around several different map types rather than just one? Pangea, lakes, conti, and archi all play quite differently so if you only balance towards one then it’ll possibly be at the detriment of others.
Well, Continents was the first and was always meant to be the default map type that the game was built around.
Everything else was added for the sake of variety, balance wasn't a consideration.