[chrispedersen]

See, I think the program hashes all sites, and ranks them.
It then goes through and assigns the best sites to the the players with the best scales.

I *think* this to be true - it does seem to have variability.
Also, player created starting locations seem to remove some of the benefit of positive scales, by creating more or less equal starting positions (which I don't think is actually intended).

It would be interesting to take a map with 3 sites in wastes, 3 neutral sites, and 3 positive sites - and then take 3 players with +3 +3 +3 scales, 0 0 0 scales and -3 -3 -3 scales

And see where the computer assigned them. I *don't* think its luck.