For base location, I find myself gravitating to the hot springs area. A nice benefit is that you can have a swamp outpost to excavate mandrakes, without having to live in the swamp. And as you warp in and out, occasionally some cows, "necks", and sheep will spawn, giving an easy source of high-grade beef, meat, and wool (well, I don't care about the wool). It's nearby the iron mine too.
Most of the raid spawns are sensible, but a small amount are on the other side of an invisible wall. Regarding the nearby women village: well, I usually knock them unconscious, to prevent any unfortunate accidents from my allies... or an errant chaos sword heavy attack (oops).
Unrelated: I finally got Mira; she's cool. I saw the various posts about dealing with the death raid, and my conclusion was: yeah... I'm obtaining the shards via /get with 0 shame.