What is the best utility to customize a map? (Looking to play on a 512x512)

[egaonogenki]

I want my Marathon to be an Über-marathon, and that will be by playing on an epic-sized map of my own size specs. "Huge" sure isn't huge enough. I think 512x512 is the biggest map I'd feel alright playing on.

But I need to find and download a utility that'll let me customize map sizes. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Leoreth]

Are you looking for a tool to help you create one set map of this size, or do you want the map generator to create it for you?

 

[egaonogenki]

Are you looking for a tool to help you create one set map of this size, or do you want the map generator to create it for you?

Either or both. A map generator may save me time though. I'd like one where I can control the ocean/land ratio - no less land than 50/50.

 

[Nightinggale]

You might want to read this thread first: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=561718

Random maps should use the map size from the world info xml file, which makes it quite easy alter size. I have seen map scripts, which hardcodes the size in the python script itself. I consider that to be poor programming, but was met with "it's working. Why change it?". Regardless of reasoning behind it, that's the two locations where it is possible to set map size for random maps.

AFAIK addresses are truncated to 16 bit in some cases, meaning you can only have 65535 of any one type, including plots. 512x512 = 264144 plots, which seems to be precisely 4 times the limit. You could try that size, but it could result in a whole bunch of technical issues. Performance would also be an issue. AI pathfinding gets slower the more units the AI has (obviously), but pathfinding for each units gets much slower as the map size increases. This mean such a huge map is unlikely to deal with AI movements within a few minutes. I fear late game AI turns could last hours, or at least more than one.