[Shadrach]

Rabelais, 253 is not a fixed start, so the game you were in must not have used them. This game will, so there shouldn't be any problems with adjacent capitals.

The main disadvantage of starting positions like the one in Japan is the lack of neighboring provinces, which means that capitals there would have access to fewer resources. The map description explains that those starting positions have been given resource generating sites in some of the neighbors they do have, which should make the starting positions quite balanced.