I was watching the Raptor youtuber war short
video.
I do not understand how the custom/advanced game start works. You get some assets in turn 1 to be placed on map? As He had 4 settlements in turn 1 and in turn 2 he was seeing whole map too and spain had also several settlements.
Sidenote: Raptor does not seem very good player and did not understand promotions or why he could not move after unpacking etc…But like he said, he was still having fun. That is the beautiful thing in this game. With proper settings these games can be played unoptimally and have lots of fun in the process.