I was playing around with the Population editor, and made a Neo Altarian race with +2/+2/+2 instead of +6 to social. When I started the game, I did not get the turn 3 choice with Council of Sages.
WAD or Bug? I am still Ancient. And to be honest, I don't really care, the random placement of the special Altarian building was pretty pathetic and ignored both tile boosts and adjacency. But I would like some clarity, and possibly the ability to choose to play one of the main races paths / stories.
Edit:
I switched back to the Altarians to test something, and again I got an event on turn 3 about finding something near my home planet instead of the 3 choice Altarian choice. Turn 4 I got a the "choose the specialization of your next pop" I never got the Altarian choice offered.
When I reloaded from game start, I did get the choice, but the council of sages showed in a really strange location, and not on the +3 science tile with 2 neighboring +1s I had expected, and when I deleted it I could not rebuild it.
Reloading several more times sometimes got me one event and sometimes another.