I have The Planet Construction Kit and since I wasn't sure where the culture would be placed to begin with (I wanted a temperate zone), I just started with the world map, and then, because I'm trying to be realistic, did the climate zones. It's simpler, to my mind, to have them than to not have them, if that makes sense.

The mountains on this particular continent are either not high enough to provide a rainshadow, or the winds are being weird. I'm not sure. At any rate, based on my interpretation of the PCK's semi-detailed instructions, the climate zones are correct enough to make me happy.

I did hand-draw the mountains... first I tried doing some sort of satellite thing (that didn't work, it felt messy, probably because I didn't seek out a tutorial to do it efficiently), then I tried creating a mountain brush, only to realize I didn't like it enough to keep. So, hand-drawn mountains.