In large procedural landscape games, the land seems dull, but that's probably because the real world is largely dull, with only limited places where the scenery is dramatic or tactical.

Looking at world generation from this point of view, a landscape generator for a game needs to not follow the rules of landscaping, but instead some rules married to the expectations of the gamer. For example, there could be a choke point / route generator that creates hills ravines, rivers and mountains between cities, rather than cities plotted on the land based on the resources or conditions generated by the mountains and rainfall patterns.

Is there any existing work being done like this? Start with cities or population centres and then add in terrain afterwards?