Okay, I've played about 10 games of DA so far, six of which went horribly

, but my question is this.
In every game, w/gigantic gal/five opponents/occasional planets;habitable planets/common stars the computer puts at least two major civs right up against my home planet. I mean literally right next door. It does this so much that I was surprised they didn't start out on my smaller PQ4 planet within my system. Is this due to the 'occasional' setting or what? I've never had so many games in succession where the AI civs are so close, especially in a gigantic galaxy. You would think there would be enough room on the map for us to all be pretty well spaced apart. Hell, I even had what I thought was a good corner location, isolated and 'safe'. The first system my colony ship came across was already taken (I had maybe three systems in that little corner while the rest of the map was peppered with solar systems)as well as the next two further out.
It's not a big deal really (well actually it can be because it seems a little 'cheap')but I just wondered if this was due to being a Meta game, due to the diff setting, or due to the frequency setting. Does anyone know?