For those who are unaware, the number of Minor Faction villages per region is randomly generated with each map, always being either 1, 2, or 3 per region. This has an exception: it is hardcoded in that if a player would spawn in a region at the beginning of the game, the number of Minor Faction villages in that region will always be exactly 1. If you want to change this, there's a single line in the game's code where you can change the number 1 to either 2 or 3.

All that I'm suggesting here is that this option be included in the World Generation settings when starting a new game. Have a little category titled "Minor Faction Villages in Starting Regions" and have the options of 1, 2, 3, or random.

Myself personally, I would like it if every player started with 3 Minor Faction Villages in their region. I imagine some people would like the generationto  be true random like in every other region. Everybody has their own preferences, and it is relatively easy to change the game's settings to match those preferences. I just think that we really shouldn't have to manually alter the game's code to do so, so I don't really see any reason to not include this setting in the World Generation settings.

There were several requests regarding the "balance" of the starting region ... e.g. strategic resources, general FIDSI output and so on.

I think the idea behind it is whether you accept a more difficult challenge or simply quit and try another map.

If the devs would implement your suggestion (which btw. makes sense in theory), they'd have to also implement other similar settings, which would mean quite a bit of work.

So ... if I were you, I'd simply go for it. Trying to win the game with just one extra population and boost percentage when assimilating the minor faction is fine ^^