I'm not sure what farm to use if I start over.

Basic farm (farming) - Classic farm. Way too much space to be good for anything special for the first year or so. Some really powerful late-game and post-game revenue is possible, though. Been there, done that. Considering how powerful the Greenhouse is, I probably wouldn't miss the extra space overall, and I don't plan on making those epic Year 5 farm Let's Play videos. This farm was fine for a default first map, but it's actually probably not the best way to win the first evaluation on Day 1 Year 3. With the nerfs to the traditional power crops (blueberries and cranberries), it may be somewhat difficult to hit an early enough economy power spike to win on this map now.

Hill-top (mining) - Ore drops are reported to progress slowly. Is it worth it? Or is this just a buff for Year 1? It can often be hard to get any mining done outside of rainy days and Winters due to it being 4pm when you finish watering in the early game. Saving enough snacks for energy refills will be an issue, though - on my previous playthrough, I ran social errands and went fishing with the leftover time/energy, and it kept me busy. For this map to be appealing, it needs to become a reliable Iron source eventually, at the very least.

Forest (foraging) - Looks like an early game map to me. Mixed seeds are a nice way to get free money, especially if you save some for the start of the season so you can keep doubling your yields. With the space constraint, this could crowd your farm and run you out of energy/time on a regular basis, at least until you get sprinklers going.

Riverland (fishing) - Doesn't sound great to me. I just try to finish my bundles and catch the occasional fish with leftover time/energy between errands. Unless there are some serious Easter eggs in this map, it looks like a dud to me. Maybe early game it's a better way to get free money, and you might do some late-game shenanigans with crab pots. I'm not much of a fan of the fishing mini-game, at least not to the point where I'd want to play this one out for two years. Hopefully it's actually better than just fishing in Pelican Town, or else it's sort of pointless.

Wilderness - Unique monster reported to drop mixed seeds and coal. Coal isn't that hard to find if you mine the right floors. I'm not sure if the mixed seeds are more plentiful here as a loot drop or on the Foraging map. Either way, this sounds like an annoying layout to live with. The combat in Stardew is not the most fun. It's bearable, but not something I'd want to deal with every night.



So I'm learning toward hill-top or Forest until I hear more reports about how the maps scale over time.

Mountains felt too cramped for my taste, and the farmable land is too fragmented. But I'm liking the forest map so far (13th Spring, so not very far into the game).
- for the beginning, the mixed seed are nice boost to income. I didn't have much luck with the foragables that are supposed to spawn there - I think I only had one or two batches spawn over the whole time, but they have low value anyway, so not much is lost
- for midgame, renewable source of hardwood on the farm should be nice, saves quite a few trips to secret woods
- for endgame... I had something like 29x29 farm in my last game (4 scarecrows in a square formation with some overlap to get rid of the central unprotected hole) - and it was already almost too much to handle at the start of a season. I intend to get by with something smaller this time, and forest has enough space for that. More focus on the greenhouse (which I got way too late last time) and high-yield crops

It's a little odd that strawberries didn't get nerfed. Of course they're hard to plant early on, but Greenhouse and Seed Maker turn them into a huge power crop. I guess they'd be utterly pointless in Year 1 if they were balanced around that.

Lots of things are unbalanced with Greenhouse and Seed Maker. I filled mine with cranberries and was in the process of replacing them with ancient fruit before I got too bored - there wasn't anything to spend the money on (1.1 brings a few options to help with that). Strawberries are already among the more underwhelming crops for the first year and to get some use of them next year, you have to invest sizable portion of your available money into seeds you won't plant for a long time. I think it's better to invest them into something that generates further money than conserve them in the form of seeds. Especially during the first year.

If you plant them right away, you get a decent return. And because they're multi-harvest and a good all-around gift, you can save some for gifts/seed maker.

But you could probably get a better start to Summer if you just planted something else on Spring 16 or so. So it's iffy.

I did plant some strawberries to satisfy my completionist side, I even kept the plain-quality ones for seed making purposes. Their ROI if planted 13th is 1.4 - invest 1000, get 2400 (1400 net profit) at the end of month. Which I admit IS best among the spring crops available in first year (only better is to plant strawberries on 1st which gives 5x net profit). But you still first have to have money to invest first, and at that point those are pretty tight. I rather waited for a few more days and invested in summer trees (not a good idea for money making either, I just want my greenhouse as soon as possible and don't want to sacrifice mushroom cave).

Crops aside - Summer 2nd right now, and the best money maker in early game seems to be fishing. I found a good spot in the mountain lake (small bubbles on the surface apparently mean that fish will bit like crazy) and that day netted me 2600 gold. And had two other days with over 2000, and one 1800. Zero costs, only the first rod, not even a bait.

This discussion is becoming increasingly pointless - it was a question about map balance, not individual crops. So far I don't regret choosing forest.

I don't mind the tangent. Those are some nice thoughts. Rushing the tree will wreck your income, but getting the Greenhouse earlier is a big deal. On my very first run, I spent like 10k on Strawberry seeds and planted them right away. It was good money, but of course I didn't get the fastest Greenhouse. (I wish it were easier to be totally sure that your tree is growing, though. I've messed that up a few times.)

I still might do the hill-top. Forest sounds effortless and good, but the hill-top might be worth it too, even if it's a bit cramped and frustrating. It just depends on how good the ore drops are and how much leverage you can get out of some extra Copper. Transmute should be easier to achieve with the extra rocks in your back yard to farm daily XP. Maybe you could get a lot of kegs or something. I didn't have a ton of those on my first run, and with a shed, you could have a ton. Easier access to sprinklers won't be that helpful later on when you have less space for it....

If you don't mind using mods, this one provides loads of helpful information. Won't directly tell you that your tree is not growing, just when it is expected to mature. Hilltop might not be that bad either. I just quickly ran through it for first day when I was choosing and if felt cramped. But looking at the map now, It may have similar amount of space as forest, even in large chunks, they just are a bit further from the house. I got one mushroom (otherwise exclusive to the secret forest) for exotic foraging bundle, but I could have used oak resin intead. About the same usefulness as boosted early copper I think. Limiting factor for kegs in my last game was oak resin, and I don't recall any other items that need large amount of copper. I don't think any map is clear winner here, they just offer little help here and there, nothing you can't get with other methods.

Just found this thread which should answer your question about hilltop farm ore spawns.