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Against Rome Modifier

Warning

This modifier is still in testing. Please backup your original files before using it. (這個修改器還在測試中，如果要使用請將原始的檔案進行備份。)

This is a Windows Forms modifier for the real-time strategy game Against Rome. It is built with C# on .NET 8. Public builds do not contain original game data; the modifier builds its restore baseline from the user's own installation when an optional local Backup.zip is not present.

Maintenance Documentation

• TechDoc.md: Current Chinese technical specification (integrates the AI-agent handoff checklist, debugging history, failure cases, and verification steps at the end).
• TechDoc_EN.md: Current English technical specification.
• docs/reverse-engineering/: File formats, offsets, patch bytes, evidence, and the local Ghidra workflow.

Project Origin & Author's Note

The author of this project is a devoted player who loved Against Rome many years ago. This tool was created with AI-agent assistance and is maintained as a research and personal modding project.

Core Features

• Maximum-Population Unlock: Modifies map team.dat files, raising the population limit up to 1600 when enabled.
• Play as Romans in Endless Mode: From Resource & Combat Upgrades, changes the five endless-map team-0 defaults to Romans and safely patches the endless-only dlg_volk selector so every faction flag starts as Roman. Runtime-verified; it affects new games only. Romans have no priest or glory skill tree by original design.
• 20x Housing Capacity: Reversible switch to scale every positive population-building wohnwer value in objdef.dau by 20x.
• 10x Construction Speed: Reversible switch to accelerate construction, upgrades, and repairs in objdef.dau by 10x (shortens building build/upgrade times by 10, which automatically boosts the per-second repair rate; successfully runtime-verified in-game).
• 10x Storage Capacity: Reversible switch to scale storage capacities of Town Halls (Hau structures) and Warehouses (Lag structures) in objdef.dau by 10x (successfully runtime-verified in-game).
• 10x Town Hall HP: Reversible switch to multiply hit-points (HP) of all Town Halls (Hau structures) in objdef.dau by 10x (successfully runtime-verified in-game).
• Endless-Mode AI Ultimate Mode: Reversible, bounded BCI patches for the five ENDL_* maps. The current safe military configuration is 20 units per reinforcement party, 5-second respawn timing, and an active-party limit of 8; original loop pacing and the two settlement-cleanup safeguards remain intact. It never uses the previously rejected unconditional gate bypass. See endless-mode-ai.md for evidence, legacy migration, and runtime limits.
• Free Construction & Production: Free construction, production, upgrades, and spell costs through ress.ini modification.
• 5x Spell Damage: Reversible cl_script.ini patch for six configured active-spell values; successfully runtime-verified in-game.
• Unit Stat Editing: Adjust only HP, damage, VW, AW, sight, and cooldown through objdef.dau. Movement speed, attack range, spell radius, and priest sight/casting distance are deliberately owned by the independent experimental modifiers, not by custom troop layers.
• Experimental Stat Modifiers: 3× ranged range (with a built-in accuracy fix — doubled impact radius and zeroed lead-aim scatter so shots still land at the longer range), 2× unit movement, entire-map priest casting distance, 3× spell effect radius, and higher projectile arcs.
• Troop Presets & One-Click Control: .artroop exports use the six-field HP,Dmg,VW,AW,Sight,Relt format. Legacy nine-field imports remain readable but their removed fields are discarded; one-click buttons enable or disable all registered features.
• Loss-Focus Background Execution: Patches Against_Rome.exe to allow the game to continue running when it loses focus (is minimized or inactive).
• Entire Map Construction Range: Replaces the construction range limit via a synchronized Against_Rome.exe setter trampoline, allowing building anywhere on the entire map (successfully runtime-verified in-game, including the red dashed frame).
• Embedded dgVoodoo2 Integration: Optional integration that installs the bundled 32-bit D3D8/DirectDraw wrappers from dgVoodoo2 without overwriting existing unmanaged DLLs.
• Path Auto-Detection: Automatically detects game directories and supports launching the game with a single click.
• Save Game Management: Save backup, restore, and history management.
• Embedded Technical Documentation: Built-in viewer for easy documentation reading.
• Local Reverse-Engineering Workflow: Retains generated Ghidra function index and pseudocode inventory kept under the ignored re_workspace/ folder.

Playing Romans in Endless Mode

1. Select the game root containing Against_Rome.exe.
2. Enable Play as Romans in Endless Mode in Resource & Combat Upgrades and apply changes. Enable All includes it.
3. Start a new endless game. Any of the three faction flags enters as Romans; no highlighted flag is an expected visual limitation.
4. Uncheck and apply again, or restore, to return new games to their original faction. Existing saves keep their embedded team data.

The original Options swi_volk control is a separate player-driven path and can still manually change the faction back to a barbarian one.

Technical Architecture

• src/Program.cs: Application entry point, DPI setup, and UAC elevation.
• src/Core/GameLZSS.cs: Game-specific PFIL/LZSS compression and decompression.
• src/Core/TroopConfig.cs: Known unit IDs, unit categories, field indexes, and balance rules.
• src/Core/Features/: Registry-backed feature definitions, PatchProfile, category restores, detection, and per-file patch planning.
• src/Core/Services/PatchEngine.cs: Thin transactional orchestrator; FoodHealing and Endless AI share the BCI cache and are committed by one SaveAll.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.cs: Main UI layout and embedded documentation view.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.Data.cs: Backup loading, data inspection, TGA icon parsing, and display formatting.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.Patches.cs: Converts the centralized feature-toggle map into a PatchProfile and starts transactional apply/category-restore operations.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.DgVoodoo.cs: Embedded dgVoodoo2 extraction, managed installation, conflict detection, and removal.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.SaveManager.cs: Save backup, restore, and cache handling.
• src/UI/ModifierForm.Presets.cs: Actions to enable or disable all features at once.
• src/UI/TroopPresetForm.cs: Troop stat preset editor.
• tools/Repair-LanguageBackup.ps1: Validates and repairs a local language overlay backup after an interrupted or incomplete migration.
• docs/reverse-engineering/: Structured reverse-engineering notes.
• data/game_schema.json: Tool-readable file format and patch metadata.

Embedded Resources

• Backup.zip is optional and intentionally not committed to GitHub.
• If Backup.zip is embedded or placed next to the executable, it is loaded as the restore source.
• If no Backup.zip exists, the modifier builds an in-memory backup from the user's selected game installation directory.
• TechDoc.md is embedded as TechDoc.md.
• TechDoc_EN.md is embedded as TechDoc_EN.md.
• Game payloads are decoded as code page 1251 where required; project documentation is UTF-8.

Reverse Engineering Data

The project keeps reverse-engineering notes in docs/reverse-engineering/. The same facts are mirrored in machine-readable form in data/game_schema.json so future UI and patch code can avoid hardcoded indexes.

Current coverage:

• SYSTEM/DATA_MP/DEFAULTS/objdef.dau: Unit stats and weapon fields.
• SYSTEM/ress.ini: Construction, production, upgrade, and spell costs.
• SYSTEM/cl_script.ini: Villager delay, spell radius, and morale parameters.
• MAPS/**/team.dat: Population limits, player faction, and banner version semantics; Roman Endless changes only team 0 in ENDL_* maps to ROM.
• MAPS/ENDL_*/SCRIPT/ak_level.bci: Bounded AI Ultimate Mode patch; the active-party limit is 8 because the runtime has 20 NPC-job slots.
• Against_Rome.exe: Focus-loss patch, runtime-verified village construction-range expansion and Roman Endless selector patch, restore-only handling for the rejected legacy four-site range/red-frame candidate, and a full local Ghidra function inventory.

The generated Ghidra output is local research material, not original source. Unknown FUN_* functions are not treated as understood until the call path or runtime evidence is documented.

Development Environment

• Language: C# 12
• Target framework: .NET 8.0 Windows
• UI: Windows Forms
• Platform target: x64

Build Steps

1. Install .NET 8.0 SDK and Visual Studio 2022.
2. Backup.zip is optional for public builds. Keep it local only if you have one.
3. Open AgainstRomeModifier.slnx or AgainstRomeModifier.csproj.
4. Select Release and x64.
5. Build the solution. Output is under bin/Release/net8.0-windows/.

Public Build Behavior

The GitHub repository does not include original game files. Users must own and install Against Rome, then select the game folder in the modifier. The modifier uses those local files as the clean restore baseline before applying patches.

The following content is intentionally local-only and covered by .gitignore:

• 遊戲原始檔案/, Original game archives/, Backup.zip, and extracted game trees such as MAPS/, SYSTEM/, SAVE/, and ToEng/.
• .codex/, .agents/, re_workspace/, build output, IDE state, dumps, logs, and private audit handoff files.
• Generated Ghidra inventories and downloaded analysis toolchains.

Small reproducible analysis scripts under tools/re/ are source material and are intentionally published. The bundled dgVoodoo2 files are also intentional: the upstream redistribution terms permit individual files to ship with a game or game mod; see ThirdParty/dgVoodoo2/REDISTRIBUTION.md.

Maintenance Tools

• tools/Repair-LanguageBackup.ps1 — Out-of-band repair for the English language overlay's backup baseline (.against-rome-modifier-language-backup inside the game folder). Use it only when the modifier reports a missing or corrupted language backup manifest: it rebuilds the baseline by hashing the active overlay against a clean original game tree. It writes directly into the game install directory, so read the script's validation steps before running. Defaults: -GamePath 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Against Rome'; the clean original tree is auto-detected under the repository root.
• tools/bcitool.py — Python reader/disassembler for BCI0 script bytecode. Its PFIL LZSS decompressor is a port of GameLZSS; keep the two in sync if the C# algorithm ever changes.
• tests/verify_split_patches/ — Manual golden-value verification harness for the Endless AI patches. Requires a local 遊戲原始檔案/ tree. Run it before and after changing any P1–P19 patch constant.

dgVoodoo2 Integration

Enable the dgVoodoo2 switch and apply changes to extract the bundled v2.87.3 files directly from the modifier. No network connection or separate download is required. The modifier installs only the x86 D3D8.dll, DDraw.dll, dgVoodooCpl.exe, and dgVoodoo.conf. Uncheck the switch and apply, or restore compatibility/all settings, to remove files owned by the modifier. Existing unmanaged DLLs are never overwritten, and a user-edited configuration is kept.

Upstream source and redistribution terms:

• dgVoodoo2 v2.87.3 release
• Official redistribution terms

Disclaimer

This modifier is developed for academic exchange and personal modding research. The intellectual property rights of the game belong to the original rights holders. Do not distribute original game assets or decompiled source code.