I know Rhye has done a lot of work on this, but I'm curious to know if there are any quick & dirty tricks I can do to improve the speed of my own mod?

Does the size of the map or the # of civs contribute that much to the lag?

Thanx in advance.

Speed is affected by the relation of:
1. Total number of units
2. Total number of Civs
3. Map Size
4. Unit ability

The first level is civs - with speed being defined by the level of activity for each civ - units, construction, and interelations. Inter-relations is very important, as each additional civ increases necessary activity by far more than the simple addition of one. Each civ has a relationship to all others, and must evaluate the movements of all other civ units also.

The next level is that of units - where the affect of total units, plus the ability of those units is affective. Removing settlers and workers, for instance, removes a very large AI overhead - removing these high load units, along with most considerations of settling - I don't know if it removes all aspects, as the AI may still evaluate settlement location potential. Also removing such functions as 'pillage' and load and airlift. Each removed function is a removed option and necessity for evaluation of 'next move'.

a 362x map with maximum civs and 1000+ units has a far higher load than even a 256x 16 and 500+ game.

It might be interesting for someone to 'value' load - such as valuing units as a base system load + points for abilities. Though the effort to value and relate civ compliments and map sizes, I think, would be a little more complicated.