Sides

This page should correctly be named "[Sides]"; it is wrong due to technical restrictions.

In this section of rules(md).ini, the game's side lists are located.

In Tiberian Sun and Firestorm

This section appears to be largely redundant. The game populates the sides list internally according to this section and the available house types. If the game detects a house type with a Side that isn't defined in rules.ini, it creates a new side with that name and appends it to the internal sides list. Therefore, even if this section is entirely missing from rules.ini, it has no practical effect in the game. No game element is known to refer to the side indexes, so the order that the sides are ultimately listed internally is irrelevant.

In Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge

The default YR section, cleaned, looks like this:

[Sides]
GDI=British,French,Germans,Americans,Alliance
Nod=Russians,Africans,Confederation,Arabs
ThirdSide=YuriCountry
Civilian=Neutral
Mutant=Special

The countries under GDI are the Allied countries, the Nod list sets the Soviet countries, ThirdSide sets Yuri. Civilian and Mutant set Neutral and Special, respectively, which are special case countries - Neutral is used for Civilians (hence the side name), while Special is used for combatants not owned by any of the players on a map (originally designed for TS's Tiberium Mutants, hence the name).

Note that, according to the rules' comments, GDI, Nod and ThirdSide need to stay in exactly that order, and their names cannot be changed either (i.e. changing the section to Soviet, Allied, Yuri, for example, would break the game). Also note the game ignores the side order at this point, the correct order will be derived from the countries' list.

The countries get assigned to graphics-containing .mix-files, depending on the side they are assigned to:

• All GDI countries use sidec01.mix
• All Nod countries use sidec02.mix
• All ThirdSide countries use sidec02md.mix

The .mixes, at least the first two, contain the graphics for the side-specific GUIs. ThirdSide does not get a special GUI and cannot be made to use one in the original game. This problem can be circumvented by using RockPatch.
In addition, GDI countries use the Allied EVA voices, Nod uses the Russian ones, and ThirdSide uses Yuri.

See also

• Using sidec03.mix for Yuri's GUI (RockPatch Documentation)