Need help with surrounded OCC map script

[LuvToBuild]

I would like to create a map script for OCC based on the inland sea or highlands map in which the player starts out in the dead center of an all land map surrounded by all of the other players. The ultimate goal would be to create a kind of "promised land" in the center with a nice assortment of resources, mostly food to support GPs but also a key strategic resource to control which forces all other players to trade. The promised land would be located within a river valley between mountain ridgelines that create natural chokepoints to be defended by forts.

I know this shouldn't be too hard but it seems nearly impossible to me with my limited understanding of the map script code. I think the inland sea map is probably the best starting point for what I want but I'm unsure of how to remove the sea and replace it with land. I'm also not sure of how to create the type of juicy starting point that I want.

Any suggestions for where I should start?

 

[davidlallen]

If you have a good understanding of programming, this may not be too hard. There are existing scripts such as pangaea.py which show the basic outline of what you want. I was able to cut down pangaea.py and then add in some code which puts big ruined city shapes at a certain distance from all the players. However, there isn't really a tutorial for editing mapscripts. If you do program, you can figure it out, and if you don't program, a tutorial on mapscripts won't help very much.

The main thing you want, if I understand correctly, is to have a very non-homogeneous resource distribution: that is, inside some central zone, resources are abundant, but outside that zone, they are much less abundant. First, you may want to look at the XML parameters that control resource distribution. This post is a good reference. You should be able to get the whole map to have less abundant resources. Then you would only need to add mapscript code which puts more resources into the limited center zone.