FYI i have a stock 7x7 build forward base i often build .. central fire two tiers wood first stone optional. so thats 14meters x 14meters.I replicate this when i need defensive shelter often improvised around existing "keeps" 3x3 stone towers in BF.. quick dry moat and moderately safe. fire dries my char out except in the outer corners. but yes i have A HUGE main meadows base and a Trader Base "Star Fort" style... and a circular plains farm with Lox defenders

I've done both, large and small, and each with devcommands or vanilla.

In play throughs I will start by finding an abandoned farm / wooden village near a swamp / meadows / black forest convergence. Then I convert it into a large colonial style wood fort surrounded by a moat, making each house into a specialty; forge, workshop, kitchen, and bed.

From there I clear content through mountain biomes utilizing portals and roads. Once Moder is done, I find a border between meadows and plains. Here, I will build a large defended structure of stone and iron with all the advanced crafting stations to finish out the content.

Other times, I use the Valheim World Generator to look for some cool seeds, go explore them, and if the place looks nice I will then spend a few hundred hours on some mega build that nobody sees. Often times villages are part of my builds, incorporated inside and outside of city walls, sprawling fishing villages along a rural country road outside of the gates, mage/watch towers on top of nearby small mountains, mega bridges spanning between islands.. yea. Then I look at it and think, wouldn't it be cool if it wasn't just me, here? So I spawn in a Haldor somewhere. That's usually when I run out of creativity and back to another fresh playthrough.

I never use dev commands, because it might hurt the integrity of the world, and make it buggy.
Part of the fun for me is gathering the resources and I'm so good at building now, I can pretty much make big castles and stairways in a few hours.
There's a huge learning curve in this game, but if you keep practicing, it becomes easier to build anything you want.

I have world for pure dev mode, I have worlds I actually play and build, it all depends on how I am feeling at that given moment.

I have builds that are simple, and at one point I tried making my version of the ruins of Atlantis (no devcommands on that one)... so as I said, it depends on how I feel which is one thing I like about this being Early Access at the moment..

...but like Joker thinks about Batman sometimes, I wish I had a lot more building toys.

I build a big main base and small biome bases or portal hubs. When I mined copper and silver I kept the rocks and used them to build. Trees I would cut down and replant near the main base. I took my time and just kept expanding the main base until it had every thing I wanted in it. I didn't spawn in any materials.