I was doing some basic experimentation with starting system generation, trying various combinations to see if certain empires naturally get an advantage at start or if every game I've ran with custom species has just been incredibly unlucky.
So far I'm leaning towards the first possibility. I took the basic United Nations of Earth and generated them three times: once in Sol, once in Deneb, and once in a random system. All other parameters in both empire statistics and galaxy setup remained the same.
In Sol, I started with 3 EC, 2 Minerals, and 4 Engineering.
In Deneb, I started with 4 EC, 3 Minerals, 2 Engineering, and 2 difficult anomalies.
In a random system, I started with 11 EC, 11 Minerals, and an easy anomaly.
None of my custom empires in random systems have started with anything near that huge of an early-game advantage, instead starting with 2 of a single resource at best.
I'm going to move on to testing the other pre-made empires, before going back to customs.
Commonwealth of Man
Sol: 6 EC, 3 anomalies (all difficult with 50% base fail rates, one at level 3 and thus with an 80% chance to fail at the moment)
Deneb: 3 EC, 1 medium anomaly
Random: 2 EC, 3 minerals, a medium anomaly
Tzynn Empire
Sol: 8 EC, 4 minerals, 6 engineering
Deneb: 3 EC, 10 minerals, 2 physics
Random: 4 EC, 2 physics, 1 medium anomaly
Kingdom of Yondarin
Sol: 5 EC, 4 minerals, 2 medium anomalies
Deneb: 2 EC, 2 minerals, 4 engineering, 1 easy anomaly.
Random: 7 minerals
Ix'Idar Star Collective
Sol: 3 EC, 6 minerals, 1 medium anomaly
Deneb: 4 EC, 4 minerals
Random: 4 minerals and a medium anomaly. Also an unemployed pop right away and an event that gave -15 happiness.
Chinorr Stellar Union
Sol: 10 EC, 8 minerals, 1 medium anomaly
Deneb: 4 EC, 3 minerals, 2 medium anomalies
Random: 6 EC, 5 minerals, 2 engineering
Jehetma Dominion
Sol: 12 EC, 4 minerals, 1 social, 1 engineering, 2 medium anomalies
Deneb: 6 minerals
Random: 4 EC, 3 engineering, 1 medium anomaly
Scyldari Confederacy
Sol: 2 EC, 4 minerals, 1 social, 1 engineering, 1 medium anomaly
Deneb: 9 EC, 3 minerals
Random: 2 EC, 2 minerals, 2 engineering, 1 medium anomaly.
So that's all the pre-built species. 24 games, three per species. Average starting resources are as follows:
EC: 4.4583333....
Minerals: 3.9583333...
Physics: 0.16666...
Social: 0.083333...
Engineering: 1.0416666...
Anomalies: 0.916666...
Next up, custom species.