Love this scenario, just a couple thoughts.
1. The Turks. They start right at Ankara. I know that's the capital of Turkey... but this isn't a very good place for them to start as it will probably be right in the middle of the Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Persian, Egyptian or Arab empires when it does show up (whomever is still around at that point), and it's not even historically accurate. Wouldn't it be better to put them over in Turkmenistan or somewhere else in central Asia, where historically the Turkish people actually did originate? The land over there is far more likely to be unoccupied and give the Turks a reasonable chance at getting a decent foothold.
Did you check their Unique Power ? They will take advantage from foreign culture, so what you described is not really a problem for the Turks.
2. The Americans. Why does everyone hate on American culture? They have one star in this scenario. If I had to think realistically about any cities in the world today that actually had achieved legendary culture, the first two that would come to mind would be New York and Los Angeles.
Excuse me ? We can think in 2 ways, in game terms and in real world terms. In both cases yours is a very strange opinion. In game terms NY and LA technically did not have time to reach Legendary status. Also the cultural value of their wonders is low compared to the ancient ones. In real world terms, much people outside America would not be sure wether NY or LA is on the Pacific or Atlantic coast of America, and which "wonders" belong to which, if any. On the other hand, pretty much everyone -at least in Europe- know where does the Pope sit, where are the Pyramids, the Colosseum, the Louvre and so on.
Your vision is wrong because your own culture makes you think that it is influencial. The american culture is based on prejudices and popular thoughts, advertised by the movies from Hollywood and TV shows. For example, most films from Hollywood that try to describe foreign cultures (italian, russian, french, etc) have generally two effects on the audience from those regions, they are either
or
, depending on the charachter of a person and how seriously they take a movie. Most films from Hollywood show how the USA is at the center of the world, everyone loves its ideals and would want to move to America and pursue the "American dream". Undubtly the american culture is spreading fast outside its borders (wether ot not this is good and how it is happening is another matter
), but this still doesn't make the culture INSIDE the USA even slightly comparable to the European or Oriental one. In fact, only a little percentage of the american culture is "native" (I am of course not speaking of the native american indian culture), the rest is a heritage from Europe mostly, starting from the language, which is one of the main traits of a culture. As we all know now the american english language is evolving, but would you dare saying it is more influencial than british english ? Hardly....
Some argument could be made for Paris, Rome and Jerusalem... but American culture dominates the world today like NO other city or civilization in history ever has. But... with such a late start.. and such a poor cultural rating.. it's impossible for them to catch up in this scenario.
This is actually the reality. Like I said your vision is offuscated by your own culture, truth is that most people at least where I live think of americans that they think too high of themselves, and that they will never reach the cultural levels in Europe, and to some extremes that the american culture is even a threat to the european one (see Mc Dondald's, like someone already said).
3. nations declaring independence... I think this is cool... but is there any way to fix the way that whenever a city flips all the buildings in it are destroyed? So annoying.
Yep, I have reported this in the thread about the first MP game for RFC. In that version when cities flip all buildings are lost, including Wonders. I am unsure if the same happens in the regular, SP scenario.