Walliard's suggestion would be a nice compromise between "How it is now" and "What I was talking about earlier", maybe give 1 scout by "extra" settler for earlier civs and 1 explorer by "extra" settler for later civs, but to be honest and after thinking it through, I think Rhye is right that having a "normal (small) revealed spawn area" is not really much of a problem, although the two main differences between a "regular (non-RFC)" start and a RFC start are:
1) we get more settlers, but without knowledge of the land to settle..., imho, you need to explore before you want to settle...
2) barbarians/independants are often roaming the maps as soon as classical civs begin to spawn, while in "normal civ", it's not the case (since everyone starts in 3000BC)
Another idea I've had (and it's only an idea, not a suggestion) would be to have the "extra" settlers spawn later, maybe at the same time the free workers spawn, that way, we can found the capital on first or second turn and use extra units to explore some before having to think about founding a second city, but then again, I guess I could simply have those "extra" settlers wait in my capital until I have good (and safe) places to settle them in. (I'm not the most patient person... I know...
)
I still think the best idea would be to have the "reserved spawn area" (the area which has foreign units and cities flip to me in the first couple of turns) be revealed as my civ spawns, that way, I know what's supposed to be my "homeland" and so I don't risk funding my second and third city on eventual foreign land... having 2 newly founded spanish cities (half of my newborn empire) flip to England or another later european civ can be very annoying, the only civs who get that treatment in "earth RFC" are the ancients civs which "are supposed" to collapse (IE.: Babylon, Egypt, etc...), but then again, if it goes against what RAND is supposed to be about, disregard this idea, I perfectly understand that the whole point of RAND is to play a RFC game without knowing about stuff like this.
On another note, I'll try to upload a save from my Dutch "would've/should've been UHV", somewhy, the "be the first to settle on an island larger than 25 tiles" didn't work for me, I don't know if it's supposed to trigger as soon as the city is funded or when the deadline comes, but either way, I have two of those "big enough" virgin islands and I was first to settle on both (in the 1500s) and somewhy, I didn't get the UHV, although I've installed some user-made files (the three files by "one dreamer" from the "
Small bug fixes thread" and the "
RFC Rand Optimizer", I think the optimizer might be causing this, as it says it changes the way UHVs are checked, so maybe that's the cause, I don't know... I'll upload a saved game, although it will be from the late 1800s or early 1900s, I saved it in 1775 and somewhy overwrote the save later... (playing addictive games up to 4am makes you do stupid things...
)
As for starting ressources, I must admit I rerolled many ancient and classical civ starts and they had access to their "usual" ressources more often than not... I must've been unlucky on my first games...
However, I've noticed that most of the "fish" ressources spawn on "ocean" squares, instead of the usual "coast", I don't know if that's intended or not, it's really not a problem, I like it that way, but considering the rarity of coastal ressources, I really think Japan shouldn't be getting those 2 fishing boats as they spawn, unless they're meant to be used for exploring... because that's the only thing they seem to do in most of my games.
I'm a big fan of Rome, Japan, Spain, England, Dutch and Inca (terraces ftw!), so those are the civs I've played the most so far, I'll try to limit my input to those civs, so I know what's an issue and what's simply "bad luck".
Last thing, I'll check my autosaves for the earliest possible save of that Dutch game, but I've had a couple issues with diplomacy, my neighbor friends, France who'd keep asking me for every and any techs I'd research as soon as I get it... I wanted them as allies when I started, so at first, I gave them all they wanted, ... but they kept asking... they also harrassed me to go to war against Persia until I gave in... at some point, their attitude towards me also "froze", meaning they were "stuck" at "Pleased", no matter what I did, somewhy, they also asked (threatened) me to stop trading with their own vassals, I don't know if that's a bug or not?... I've also had a VERY demanding Ethiopia (similar to France, asking for all the techs I had that they didn't and not caring if I treated them like sh*t, but to a lesser extent since they collapsed and reborned a couple of times, but when they'd reappear, they'd ask for techs until they made up for the time lost while collapsed, which is a lot)...
Otherwise, after finally playing a game of RAND up to the 20th century, I must say I really enjoyed it, I achieved the historical Dutch goals (I don't mind not getting the UHV I deserved, that game is so much fun I want to see how far I can take it...), it was really interesting to see my world evolve, pretty much everything got discovered, settled, conquered, collapsed, reborned, etc... A truly complete and somewhat realistical game that didn't feel like I knew everything before it happened, I think that's what you aimed for with RAND, well done!
Thanks again for making this and don't worry about all the complaints, I'm pretty sure if you asked me to write a post about everything I love in RFC and RFC Rand, that I'd have a whole lot more to say...