Whats the best way to do this, if you want a map to start with set cities but no more building to take place... I'm guessing you can't just mod settlers out, and making all terrain unsettlable would be messy...

Is there a standard way this gets done?

You can mod out settlers, just delete the Settler unit in CivEdit. In C3C, I know the Napoleonic, and I believe the WWII Pacific scenarios have done this.

You can also make it so that no Civilization can build settlers for essentially the same effect

Cool. cheers

You can also make it so that no Civilization can build settlers for essentially the same effect
Although if you do this, my understanding is that settlers can still be "popped" from goody huts. If you mod the settlers out of the game like Olorin0222 suggested, I'm not sure what happens with the goody hut if it randomly selects to build a settler. Perhaps the two conquests he mentioned don't have them.

Nah, its alright... what i had in mind didn't have huts anyway. I wanted to muck around with a fully populated earth map, without worrying about non-existant cities popping up in the uninhabited areas.

Since the settler popping event gives you the starting unit1, I assume you can get for example a warrior from it if you make the starting unit1 a warrior.You can find a discussion and more detailed explanation about it in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=116841

Although if you do this, my understanding is that settlers can still be "popped" from goody huts. If you mod the settlers out of the game like Olorin0222 suggested, I'm not sure what happens with the goody hut if it randomly selects to build a settler. Perhaps the two conquests he mentioned don't have them.

If no civs can build a Settler, including Barbarians, they can't be popped from a hut.

Pfeffersack & Willem are correct, I've been testing this recently. Just make the settler available to nobody.

The only down side to this is that there is no way I know of to keep the AI from sacking and destroying cities, which really sucks when it destroys one of your favorites and since you can't build a settler you have no way to rebuild.

I think that if you make AI players have "growth" set to build often they will destroy cities less frequently.

I think that if you make AI players have "growth" set to build often they will destroy cities less frequently.

Have you tested this? I'd like to find a way to get them to raze less myself, especially in the C3C scenarios. I wish there were a flag that could be set for no razing.

I think that if you make AI players have "growth" set to build often they will destroy cities less frequently.

Never heard of that before and never experienced it during playing.At best unlikely I would say, since the building priorities only (slightly) effect what the AI builds inside their cities and even this is restricted to the case there is a tie between two options.

Razing is a problem for many scenarios and there is no way to prevent it completly, however some things reduce razing likelihood:

a) Set ONC very high - when AIs exceed this number, they might raze a new city because it doesn't give them enough economical reward.
b) Great Wonders in cities: AI razes such cities only very seldom.For scenarios with preplaced cities, you can great "city wonders" with little effect - the simple presence of a "great wonder"-objects helps.
c) Location of city/military strength of both the conquering and defending nation/city size/(more): A factor which is hard to fix, but the AI has a tendency to raze a city when they believe they cannot hold it.Not much can be done about this during scenario creation, but this occurs more frequent if you have many rather weak civs than when you have two superpowers fighting against each other...

Perhaps high costing settlers entering later in the game would do it - to rebuild those special few cities you want back.

I haven't tried putting a meaningless wonder in each city. I know that even victory locations won't save a city. Perhaps one that just reduces corruption would work.

Perhaps high costing settlers entering later in the game would do it - to rebuild those special few cities you want back.

Another option would be to make a building that produces Settlers after a certain number of turns. Just set it really high so there's only a few extra hanging around, maybe 100 turns or so.