Just as an aside, what would happen if I created a scenario with 512 cities on it? Would I be able to add more cities in the editor just for the scenario to not load in-game?
IIRC, the Firaxis Editor will not allow more than 512 towns to be placed on a prebuilt map in the first place.
Not sure about
@Quintillus' Editor, but I would guess also not (at least, not without relaxing the in-built restrictions, to allow modding beyond known .exe tolerances). But even it were possible to build such a scenario in the latter Editor, and even it were also possible to load such a scenario without crashing, as long as 512 towns exist, the AI will not build any new Settlers — and though the human player is still able to, they would likely not be allowed to plant any new towns, until existing towns have been razed below that limit.
Playing using
@Antal1987's(?) hacked "No City Limits" .exe apparently will allow additional towns to be planted (by the human) beyond the 512-limit. You should be able to find a link to the relevant DL in one of his(?) threads, but (again, IIRC!) everyone else who tried using that patch (eventually) reported increasing game-instability/ crashes as additional 'excess' towns were planted.
Removal of the city-limit has also been a relatively frequently requested addition to
@Flintlock's list for investigation/patching, but he has not done it yet (AFAIK).
