Favourite starting place

I prefer Russia, or USA or Saudi Arabia or Turkey

South Korea #1

I prefer Kazachstan, Saudi or sweden

My favorite starting places are medium 6-7 city nations with little sea access so you can't be devastated by attacks by sea but enough to make a navy needed by late game and enough so you have 1 or 2 homeland cities on the shore. My favorite example of this is Poland which by far is my most picked country. But I love a challenge every once in a while...

Do you play Europe 1990, since I think that is the only map with Yugoslavia in it.

I've played about 30 or so battles now, and Poland is usually one of the 1st Countries taken over, unless they manage to snag a good Coalition and fight with them to stay in the game in such a vulnerable spot, I prefer Syria, also I like somewhere in Southern Africa as most players except the ones directly near you ignore you there for a long time, enough to build up while others battle it out, most seem to want to take control of Europe, so somewhere like Poland is very hard to keep, at least in the games I've played.

In about 1/4 of the games I have seen, Poland gets taken over in 20 days since a noob is playing it. In about 1/2 of the games I see Poland becomes a powerhouse but is around 5-10 on the leaderboard and doesn't win. In about 1/4 of the games I have seen, Poland takes over Europe and other areas and wins or almost wins the game and is around 1-3 on the leaderboard.