[Calahan]

From what I know of random starts and map balancing (and I've done a lot of the latter to have a fairly good idea), starts that are randomly generated for a map will try (if there is space) to ensure that capitals are at least two provinces apart. But it won't make any attempt to space them out.

eg. A 26 province straight line map (provinces named in order A-Z) could see start locations at A, D, G etc, but not A, C, E. But if four players were on the map, you could easily get highly unbalanced start locations such as A, D, G and Z. (since as I say, the random start algorithm makes no attempt to "space out" starting locations. Or at least not that I've ever seen)