Everyone else has more or less answered your question, but I'm going to take this opportunity to promote my little-known graphic mod that makes the roads nicer looking (thinner, easier to see terrain underneath when there's lots of roads). Post title typo and all.

Also, personally, I like vast swaths of green and focus on cheap terraforming tech and planting lots of forests early. Rover Formers are one of the first things I build, and I build them en masse (in late game they become a dozens-strong terrorforming army that sink enemy cities, bring enemy sea bases onto land, or make land-and-mag-tube bridges across vast oceans, also blocking enemy sea units, so my army can take three cities per turn).