Mediterranean:   A large sea surrounded by land on all sides.  Easy to wall yourself in, but hard to hide from your opponents.

Archipelago: This map's many islands force you to switch your resource gathering center's often as you move from island to island.

Migration:  This island arena starts you off on a small island and forces you to move to the a large island in the center of the map to get more room/resources.  Watch out for the wolves when you are the first to land!

Highland:  Pretty similar to AOE's Inland, a river or two breaks up the map and a lake here and there lets you fish.  Lots of room to expand and grow.

Islands:  Small islands seem to have been axed for this island map type, which seems to favor large islands.  Each person starts on their own island and fights over the seas for control.

Team Islands:  Another great idea for a map type!   Team islands starts each team on a separate island and draws a road from each team member's town center to the next team member's TC.

The sea plays an important role for attacking and transporting troops, but be careful!  Your island is fairly large and the enemy could be sneaking around to you from behind.

Baltic:  A maps with peninsula's and a large central water body.  Similar to Mediterranean.

Gold Rush:  The gold is all in the center of the map.   Everyone rushes to get it. :)  Watch out for the wildlife though, it's ferocious!

Fortress:  The most revolutionary of all the new map types, this map starts you with a town complete with walls, towers, gates, buildings, etc.   It's sure to be a favorite on the zone for non-rushers.

Crater Lake:  A large lake in the center makes this map similar to Mediterranean maps, except for the fact it has much more elevation and cliffs to pay attention to.  It also houses most of it's gold right near the lake.

Continental:  This map from AOE is pretty much unchanged. One large continent in the center surrounded by water on all sides.

Coastal:  Similar to the AOE map, it's surrounded by lots of water and fish are plentiful.

Arabia:  In AOE, maps had desert, jungles, grass, and water in one map.  In AOK, the maps take more of a consistent theme.  In Arabia, desert is key word here so sea civs won't get to see their bonuses that much.

Rivers:  A low elevation map with many rivers running through it.  Watch those shallows!