Hardcode...

[Emp.Dacosta]

Is there anyone here who knows how to break hardcode? Someone told me the only way to do this is by editing the exe file. Is this true?

[barocca]

yep, hardcode is in the exe,

it will be interesting to break though - the exe seems to be encrypted, and then wrapped,
so far all i can do is unwrap it, i can't decrypt it...
(maybe both are done at the same time?, no matter, the effect is the same...)

With the demo it was very nice to be able to read ascii strings inside the exe, it certainly made modding for the demo so much easier when we could "see" the strings, filenames and folders the exe was searching for...

afraid we may be stuck with the hardcode,
PERHAPS you might get some clues as to what you are looking for from the Demo exe?

BUT, by the same token, encryption and wrapping the exe does make life very very hard for those peeps who would want to cheat online or to pirate the game...

[Kraellin]

the definition of 'hardcoded' is basically something that is not easily changed or accessed by the end user. things like the unit stats are NOT hard coded, for the most part; we, the end user, can change those. things like how a crusade moves ARE hard coded and cannot be easily changed by the end user.

hard coded, hard wired, coded in stone, and so on, all mean the same thing. there are tools one can use that can get around hard coded stuff, like hex editors and disassembers and ram editors, but these often can wreck the game because most developers use some sort of 'check' that looks to see if the files and executables have been altered in any way. so one generally has to be pretty careful and pretty tricky to get around all these things. a lot of these 'checks' are put in specifically to prevent cheating in multiplayer games.

and yes, it's mostly the .exe where stuff is hard coded.

K.