Having thought about matters, I think we'll be best served by starting off in close proximity to each other - with the rest of the world "greyed out" until we start setting up little colonies. 

There will be no restriction on culture types. 

All nations will be springing up at *vaguely* the same time. To confirm, our various races will have just gone from their hunter gatherer life styles (or equivilant of), to setting up agricultural communities. At the RP's start, players will each have a SINGLE city. Then, with each post during the Evolution Phase, they will start branching out, developing governments and religions, as well as technology. If I set the tech limit for the first evolution phase as "Iron Age", I think that'll stop anyone from trying to conjure laser guns. 

I know this simplifies things a little, but adhering to the realism of what would probably happen just makes everything a bit of a mind f**k. Best we just pick our peoples, and guide them through. 

Here's the map with what I thought would be the best starting area; it's mostly jungle, with some plains, a whole bunch of mountains and a bit of forest.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/vf1U03v.png[/img]

EDIT: Having trouble uploading things to Imgur at the moment, and am using a crappy sub to stand in. The real map will be much bigger, once you use "view full image". 

SECOND EDIT: Turns out Firefox isn't getting on well with Imgur at the moment, forcing me to use Edge *gasp* to upload the image. So there it is, in its entirety.