WestWood coders were total morons. Yeah, so what else is new?
This time I'm extremely pissed over their country listings.
Here's a recap of what we know so far:
* The flag order is hardcoded (#1 is usai.pcx, #2 is japi.pcx, etc.) Those names are hardcoded in the .exe.
* The country list is not hardcoded - it builds a list of all countries in the order you list them in the [Countries]. No apparent problem here, but hold on, it gets better.
* The tooltips ("Britain can train Snipers, USA can drop paratroopers, etc") are hardcoded. Actually, the csf file data names are. (#1 is loadbriefshort: USA, #2 is loadbriefshort:korea, etc.) It does not obey the [Countries] ordering.
* The loading screen's top string name is hardcoded the same way. #1 is name:apara, #2 is name:beagle, etc. If you modify the units, you need to modify these strings too.
* The lower string in the loadscreen is also hardcoded. #1 is loadbrief:usa, #2 is loadbrief:korea, etc.
* The loading screen image is also hardcoded. #1 is ls800ustates.shp, etc. Same for the palettes.
Now for the newsflash:
* The country name in the lower right corner of the lscreen is hardcoded. It does not follow the [Countries] ordering. #1 is always name:americans, #2 is name:alliance, etc. After spending 45 minutes to sort out all the string/shp problems after moving Korea and Cuba to Yuri's side, I notice this.
Gawd, I hate those lazy morons.
To conclude, it is impossible to reorder the [Countries] list and have no visual bugs. You need to resort to changing the strings and ownerships much more than you would need after the [Countries] reordering.
P.S. All the previously mentioned "harcoded" items can be modified in the exe.
For example, it is possible to patch the exe to take different flag names (even flg0.pcx, flg1.pcx etc.. would be better IMO) , [which is a 10 second job], and different csf strings.
But this way, you need to distribute a patcher with your mod, which bites. And can interfere with The Project's patcher, or uninstalling the mod.
If you think this can be used as a tutorial somewhere like modEnc, go ahead.
Country problems - be advised (long post)
