Seems its happend to me ,melhem19 and other 4 players this issiu. Even with the verified files never show the start positions . Iff any one else got same problem tell to uber try fix.
This should be in the Beta/Bug forum. There's no difference between Steam and non-steam, except by which technique you use to launch the game. Is it happening every time? Is it just against AI? Is it against players? Is it on certain planet biomes? Certain planet sizes? The more info you provide, the faster we'll be able to diagnose this issue.
fixed it for someone else. you go into C:\Users\tatsu\AppData\Local\Uber Entertainment\Planetary Annihilation\localstore\Local Storage .........................(user) and delete al four files there than re-patch the files. come back here and post if this works for you. something in the settings may be causing this.