Weeks. Literally. I'm so picky it's unreal. It made me crazy. That's the one and only reason I learned how to hack, just for a decent natural map (that could appear in the game but never did) so I can actually enjoy playing. Am I 100% happy now? Nope but at least I can only blame myself... Yes, I'm insane.
The longest I've ever spent was about an hour, and I'm pretty sure it was for my themed town.. As for main/personal towns I'm not super picky about my layout as long as it has one or two things I like. Vertical rivers/beaches and lots of ponds, for example.
i always choose one of the first four :') i feel like if i was picky about a map, i would be picky about a lot more of this game, and wouldn't enjoy it as much :\
HAhahahhahahhahaha I've spent around half a year looking for maps, I am so picky, of course I took a couple days break but I still think it was a long time, and now I am semi-happy with my map, I am debating on resetting.
I absolutely could not do it for three hours straight. I would go completely insane. But I can go between four and seven hours at max on and off with breaks and snacks and podcasts to make it more bareable.
For my current town (which I'm never going to let go lol), I spent about 6+ hours over the course of a couple (frustrating) days to get my map, since there were only 2-3 specific maps I wanted, plus I wanted apples (gave up on grass shape and train station colour long time ago ahaha). So happy when I finally got it, and I've even grown to like the things that I initially thought were awful. And to think, I almost gave up during that time... I don't even know why it was so frustrating, since I was pretty much chilling/watching TV while I was doing them! Grr. If I were to get a second copy of the game, I'd probably play it a lot more chill (like how the game was "meant" to be played), but I really wanted one, good town, since I knew I was going to put a lot of time into it.