Oh, and if I may jump in with a thingie? I don’t really know what I think about the result of this observation, so I’ll just share it here. The issue is, naïvely, I have a feeling that the Greeks settle Ionia too rarely. It was, after all, a hugely historical relevant area for their civilization (looking at you early Byzantion), the birthplace of a number of great philosophers, scientists, and home to 1.5/4 Greek UHV wonders (I’m counting Rhodes as half, yeah).
There are, of course, issues though. Asia Minor is where the Sea Peoples are active, and whenever I settled the second Greek initial settler in Ionia, they’d attack. I have a lot of doubts it is a good way of playing, even though historically accurate. Also, settling in Ionia can potentially lead to conquest by other civs, and it’s not like it never happens as of now.
I ran eight Roman starts to see where the Greeks would settle their 4–5 initial cities, and these are the results I got:
Athens, Byzantion, Pella: 8/8
Crimea (Khersonessos, Pantikapaion): 5/8
Ephesos: 2/8
Epirus (Epidamnos, Ragousa): 2/8
Italy (Kroton): 1/8
Cyprus (Salamis): 1/8
And, well… naïvely I’d say that I’d rather the Greeks colonize the Mediterranean more often than the Black Sea. On the other hand though, I don’t know if I really want to see this as a problem. But maybe it is.
I think seeing the Hittites settling Ionia, and giving the Greeks the potential to conquer a city from them, would be really interesting. In that case too, though, I’d believe having the Greeks themselves more likely to settle there would be good, having in mind the starts where the Hittites don’t spawn – like the Roman start.
So, idk what I’d really want to see, but maybe (hopefully) there can be some use in this information.