I have practically no programming experience, so eventually I decided that this was one too many complications for me, and gave up trying to learn how to mod 0 A.D.
That being said, I would be happy to help out in an advisory role. I'm no Howard scholar, but I do have some understanding of the source material, and have been slowly chipping away at making a role-playing game adaptation of the Hyborian Age, so I might be of use in selecting the best quotations and descriptions.
Another facet of my RPG adaptation is creating a 3-D Hyborian Age globe, which obviously opens the door for translation to a 0 A.D. map. I'm awaiting a reply from someone in the REH community before proceeding any further with that, though, as I know that others there have already done quite a bit of work down that path.