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This mod attempts to make the flags displayed by the game as historically accurate as possible.
It only changes the graphics of the mod, so it won't effect pbem games if one player uses it and the other doesn't.
The mod only makes changes to the flags and flag roundels.
The main correction to the flags of the game was the flag for the United States, which is not easy to work with.
Throughout most of the twentieth century the United States flew a 48 star flag, and this was the flag that was used in both World Wars.
The difference between 48 and 50 stars is not merely a question of adding a couple of stars:
the 50 star arrangements are set up in a checkerboard pattern, whereas the 48 star arrangements are set up in aligned columns and rows. The two flags are visually different, and you don't have to count the stars to be able to tell which one uses 48 and which one uses 50 stars.
For those of you who come from one-flag countries and aren't familiar with these things,
most countries have two or three different flags which they use in different situations.
France, the United Kingdom, and the United States are all single flag users,
which leaves their citizens conceptually impoverished and easily confused when looking at the flags of a nation that keeps its flag functions relatively distinct.
Countries usually have a general or civil flag, which tends to get used as the short-hand symbol for everything else.
Another common flag category is the state flag, which you'll often see flying in front of an embassy or government building. A third and extremely common flag type is the War flag or military flag.
Things can get a bit confusing when the categories overlap.
Poland has an elegantly simple civil flag, and a state flag and military flag that are identical.
Germany uses the same flag as the civil flag and the state flag, but its military flag is different. Other countries with distincly different military flags are Finland, Slovakia, and Romania.
And Japan has one national flag and different but extremely similar flags for the Army and Navy.
Here are a few screenshots so you can get a sense of what this mod does:
The mod changes all of the flags and roundels in all four language versions of the Media folders. Here are before and after screenshots of a sample of the flag changes.
Before:
After:
WHERE TO GET THE MOD:
The Matrix and Steam Version:
https://app.box.com/s/qqyuzge4dds77cmt6amnghmt46hz0vj3
HOW TO INSTALL THE MOD
I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21rst century, so Steam and Matrix both use the same version of the mod.
Follow the instructions included in the mod, but basically what you do is copy and paste the Historical Flags WIE 1.8 into your documents folder in the Strategi Command WIE mod folder.
These mods get downloaded from my personal Box account.
Be aware that I sometimes run out of bandwidth towards the end of the month.
It hasn't happened in a while, but if it should happen, please mention it on these boards.
Ordinarily the solution is just to wait until about a week into the next calendar month.
In the unlikely event that the problem becomes endemic, I will set up a pair of mirror accounts in Dropbox.
There are a few niggly little flag issues that will either get cleared up by future game patches, or will get addressed by future versions of the mod.
My mods usually suffer through several versions, because I can never make up my mind when confronted with a palette of colors.
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IronX's Knight's Cross and Philippe's Historical Flags mods combined:
[In order to keep us all as confused as possible, Box recently changed the presentation of its download screen. Ignore any references to logging in -- what you want is the download button in the upper right-hand corner of your screen].
Part I:
https://app.box.com/s/6z85mfb1jle51anwdsvoif5an2ca6jgq
Part II:
https://app.box.com/s/z5aoe6tpvrjtu2mlnegef8xfhhrtihhf
Part III:
https://app.box.com/s/ylfnuk86wqfpnv0thctl68bi9yq23s8d
The combined Historical Flags + Knight's Cross mod is a large mod, too large for the bandwidth that is currently available to me.
For that reason I have had to break it into three pieces (Parts I, II, and III) that need to be put back together before you install the mod onto your computer.
Inside each of the three parts is a folder named 'Historical Flags + Knight's Cross combined' and two text files.
Reconstruct the original combined mod by copying and pasting all three parts onto each other.
It probably doesn't make any difference, but if it were me I'd copy and paste the folder in Part I to the inside of Part II.
You'll get queried about overwriting, but what's really happening is that you're putting the two pieces of the bitmaps folder back together.
If you then copy and paste the folder from Part II into the folder from Part III, what you should end up with is a single 'Historical Flags + Knight's Cross combined' with the entire mod inside.
After you've done this it's safe to read the notes and the instructions on how to install the mod.
Just to be clear, the three folders named Part I, Part II, and Part III only exist to keep their contents separate.
Once you've merged the contents of these three folders, you shouldn't allow them to get anywhere near the game (the engine won't know what to do with them and won't be able to read the mod).
