You are guaranteed a start within X tiles of every necessary resource (and within 2 spaces of science, so you can Detect the other things you need), but unfortunately you don't initially know where things are, so you might explore in a bad direction initially. I've added a feature (in the version I'm uploading today) in Custom games where more resources are revealed at the start. I might make this the default in all game modes, because I like it. It doesn't reveal all the resources you need, because that made the start boring, so some exploring (use the Detect button!) is still needed.
And, if you don't feel good about a particular start, I've tried to make it low-friction to just start a new game.