In general, languagetext.txt is your friend. It has the entire
on-line help file contained in it (So you don't need to start the game
to check out something from the manual, just look there) and it has the
integer value of every text string in the game.
The downside is the internationalization. You can't just search through
the .exe for a given text string like "Townhomes". Instead, you have to
go to languagetext.txt, find the integer value of that string, convert
that to from base 10 to hexidecimal, then search on that value in the
.exe.
There's all sorts of juicy files in data/db that look interesting.
but so far even what should be straight forward files like
dbPalaceEnhancements have not been decoded in meaning by the hex editor
crowd yet.
For example, the Palace pool is token value "43129" which is a879 in
hex.
So off you go searching for a879. You find it a few places in the
executable. At least I don't see it where I expected to see it,
in dbPalaceEnhancements.
So that's where I'm stuck at the moment.
I made friends with someone who creates secondary market programs for
car engines that does this stuff all the time. He pointed me to the IDA disassembler
Using IDA I came across this bit:
.rdata:008D78C8
aTownhouseDScor:
; DATA XREF: .text:0059764Do
.rdata:008D78C8
unicode 0, <Townhouse %d score components: common %g, lu>
.rdata:008D78C8
unicode 0, <xury %g, servants %g, enhancements %g>
Exactly what we expected: Townhome status is Common Goods, Luxury
Goods, Housing Enhancements and Servants. Believe "servants" really are
farmers. As opposed to those other
servants.
