Do certain maps increase the chance of certain civ's?

[Carmack]

Ottomans, Hiawatha, and Greeks. Always those three and usually start near me.

I think if you play a water-heavy map then it would be safe to assume more civs with the coastal bias would be in it.

 

[bdporter]

I noticed recently that Rome was appearing a lot in my games. Turned out it was that Rome was still set in the advanced settings as one of my opponents from the game I started primarily to get the achievement for attacking a Roman unit with a Carthaginian African Forest Elephant from a mountain.