I just tried my first game of RFC RAND and picked the Dutch.

The turn after I founded my capital (I spawned in 920AD), I spontaneously founded Islam because I knew Divine Right. Without checking the rest of the map yet, am I to assume that Arabia never spawned?

I'd guess so. Did you choose large map ?

no worries i have had a trend of games where america never even spawned - ive seen a few religions founded by civ births.

yeah that's possible, if you picked a smaller world size

I'd guess so. Did you choose large map ?

I went with the default map size, which turned out to be Standard (as opposed to Huge in regular RFC).

I was quite happy with founding a religion spontaneously.

On smaller maps could we ever choose the civs that spawn? Say I'd rather dispense with Carthage than Arabia.