Yes, I know wat you mean.

Started a new game in 1.08, on Large map with 6 opponents just an hour ago. I can say I found 4 other sovereign capital within 30 tiles of my own capital!!! It is really crowded down here with the 5 of us competing for the same tile, while the rest of map is totally deserted. (80% unused) 

In the my game in 1.06 while playing on Large map, the same thing happened. Discovered 5 out of 6 opponents within 100 turns. Within the next 50 turns, 3 sovereign did suicide attacks and died. At around 250 turn, Kraxis declared war on me, and was exterminated by turn 300, ending with 1 discovered sovereign and 1 unknown sovereign. Within the next 100 turns, I discovered the last unknown sovereign, almost exterminate the previous known sovereign and discover, the eastern and north-eastern side of the map is totally vacant and filled with so much resources.

I really hope Stardock is doing something about this.

I believe for both my cases, the 6 different opponents start out very near to where my capital started. Its hard to get a nice slow long game where you still see most of your opponents around by 1000+ turns.

In my latest game 1.08. I started near the coast. To my north and west is the sea. I can see Thath kingdom capital to my east, 30 tiles away. To the south of my city, I see the capital of Altar, 30 tiles away. Slightly south-easten to Altar is Magna city, 30 tiles away. To south-western to ALtar is Kraxis city, 30 tiles away. East of Thath Capital is Gilden, 30 tiles away.

As I type this, I hope that there is something like a world builder similar to Civ4 available in EWOM.