As long as your civ isn't using steam punk stuff, anything from the industrial revolution which includes tech more advanced than that. So a civ with technology primitive in comparison to maritime empires is totally fine by me.

 Feel free to have any sort of culture, even if it's a cultural group that consists of different tribes.

One thing i'll say is that players can have creative control over some areas and dictate the region's fauna and flora. Although the base environment i'll be dictating as soon as I make a map.