That's funny, I'm just launching a 12 players pbem on a scenario I've designed on the same map !
Only land players are allowed, I've given each player 2 starting provinces only. All 15 nations will play, with 3 nations given to the AI.
To spice up the game I've scripted a quite strong Soul Gate Ermor, with 4 provinces+fort+temples+troops+items
!
So the players will have to first avoid being crushed before thinking to crush each other !
As for indies province you can populate them with anything you want. In fact the game gives whatever is scripted to "owner", and if there's no owner it's indie !
AFAIK it's the same for sites. The only thing I'm not sure of is if scripted are always considered "searched" at start or not.
