Modifying start and city build locations

[PennyFromHeaven]

I'd like to find or create a modification that does two things:

Prohibits the AI or player from building a new city where it's full "fat cross" full work area would in any way overlap with another city's full "fat cross" work area. It's a nitpick I have that constantly frustrates me in all Civ games. City overlap is the only thing I find really annoying - I feel compelled to raze and rebuild after I conquer an AI city, which is not very efficient. I think setting a minimum build limit of four squares between cities would do it. I still like the restriction of not being able to build cities in a square bordering another civ's culture.

Modify start positions. Make it so if any start position (for the AI or player) would be located within a certain distance of a coastal tile (say two to three squares), then move it to the nearest non-mountain land tile bordering the nearest coastal tile. I hate building to find right away that I was right by the ocean and could have had sea access, but didn't see it or would have had to spend three or more turns losing time to move there because of forest or what-have-you.

Anyway, I've been hunting around for a mod that does one or both of these things, but without luck. Anyone know of a mod that does? If not, I'm willing to try to learn to make it myself. But I'd be starting from scratch - I mean *really* from scratch - I don't know the first thing about programming. Would the sticky guide on this page tell me 100 percent of what I need to know to make my mod? If not, what else should I read?

Sorry for all the questions, but thanks for any answers.

[LDiCesare]

The first part can be done by changing the min city distance from 1 to 2, but I can't remember which xml file it's in. One line to change only.
Start positions is way more annoying and you'll need some python. You can try to check the archipelago map script, I think it's got something inside that forces all start positions on the coast. You could reuse the function in all other map scripts you're using, but then everyone would start on the coast and you'd never start inland. To do it the way you describe (move if less than 3 plots from ocean) requires some coding so you'd need to get into python first of all.

[PennyFromHeaven]

Thanks a bunch -

I changed in my Beyond The Sword GlobalDefines:

MIN_CITY_RANGE: From 2 to 4
MIN_CIV_STARTING_DISTANCE: From 10 to 12 (so it still was a multiple of the above, though 3x instead of 5x; we'll see if it makes problems starting games)

I'll make the same changes in warlords and regular Civ 4.

Someone earlier in this forum (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=157729) was talking about tweaking AI preferences for seafood and such to make the coast more attractive - maybe it's possible to recreate that in BtS ... it was pre-warlords when it was done. That would provide a third strategy to handle it.