i think general knowledge helps loads i.e. knowing flags, what countries use what currency and how their symbols look, what languages/alphabets are used in different regions of big countries e.g. India and how to differentiate between them e.g. if its Cyrillic but with ї then normally Ukraine, main religions cos then e.g. if u see ₦ being used on a sign and a lot of women are wearing hijabs u can narrow it down to the primarily muslim areas of Nigeria etc. numberplates are blurred out but if they have a vague blue stripe on the side then it's probably an EU country and if the traffic is on the left hand side then it's only a very select number of possible countries etc. neurotic stuff like that

roofs and architecture are also a big help, you can determine if it's a place that gets a lot of rain or not and stuff

also maybe obvious but it has a compass, so if there is sea or a large river to the east of you and a mountain to the west you can pinpoint yourself fairly easily, same goes for if you're in an arid region or green region because you can correspond your guess to the colouration of the map

I've also played it like WAY too much so i have a feel for what different countries and regions look like and also certain tells like taiwanese lampposts having yellow + black stripes which go all the way down to the bottom but Japan having a gap between the stripes and the bottom (good because their countrysides look very similar), turkish houses having a lot of water butts on their roofs, south african roads having these big distinctive gaps on either side and red soil and such 😛