Quote Originally Posted by khelvan
Eh, true, but I didn't think anyone had cracked the game mechanics hard code yet.
Technically, they have, at least for 1.1. No-CD hacks, of course, remove the encryption on the EXE and convert it to easily disassembled machine code; one person took advantage of this and removed the hardcoded limit on cheat usage. Unfortunately, the mod is rather hard to find, because it required a no-CD hack and therefore the major RTW sites rightfully refuse to allow discussion of it. In any case, 1.2 hasn't been cracked, to my knowledge.

The main problem with cracking the EXE is that CA will undoubtedly not take kindly to it, simply put. They don't want people looking at their code, even compiled, or modifying it. I don't think anyone's actually bothered to ask, but I'm pretty sure that's what their answer will be.

If we do get their blessing, of course, we could probably find someone who can crack the program easily enough, and then it's all assembly-code editing—enough to make relatively superficial changes, at least, that could prove quite valuable (e.g., maybe removing or raising the hardcoded limits). Stuff like AI will probably be out-of-bounds, except maybe for the most minor tweaks, but there'd be a lot we could do.

Too bad it's never going to happen.

-Simetrical