Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing about faction starting locations. I'm relatively new to the game and playing on normal. I've been trying to setup games with medium maps and 6 factions. It seems like they pack all the factions into a relatively small percentage of the map. In one example, they placed me so close to another faction that our capital city borders touched within a few turns. I met 5 of the 6 all very early and we were all compressed into probably less than 20% of the map. This makes no sense to me. In Civ, faction capitals are pretty well spaced apart (give or take).
Does anyone have any tips for setting up a game in which the factions are more spread out? Are there certain maps that are better at this than others? Should I drop down to 4 factions total on a medium map, or perhaps go to a large one? Any suggestions would be appreciated.