TBH, that was how I envisaged the horses set up, with the copper being off ring. However, having copper right on the inner edge of hte dnut and the horses between the start and the copper would also be balanced, if iron was easily accessible.
Ultimately, I think anyone can "cope" without having copper immediately accessible, but it screws up whoever got Zulu and whoever starts next to Rome, so the copper should probably be accessible just as much as the horses. That kinda makes me think, place both of them about 6-8 tiles from the capital but so they can't be settled with 1 city, or place them further away but settleable with just 1 city, taking into account ease of hooking them up to the trade netword due to rivers.
On the other hand, we could make it such that there is no iron on the ring, instead only on the near by islands, thus forcing everyone to stretch themselves to get the necessary defensive resources. That might not be so bad for Rome.
Ultimately, I think anyone can "cope" without having copper immediately accessible, but it screws up whoever got Zulu and whoever starts next to Rome, so the copper should probably be accessible just as much as the horses. That kinda makes me think, place both of them about 6-8 tiles from the capital but so they can't be settled with 1 city, or place them further away but settleable with just 1 city, taking into account ease of hooking them up to the trade netword due to rivers.
On the other hand, we could make it such that there is no iron on the ring, instead only on the near by islands, thus forcing everyone to stretch themselves to get the necessary defensive resources. That might not be so bad for Rome.