Strangereal flags over real world flags (Decals)

astormytrooper · October 6, 2023

If you like Ace Combat as much as I do, you'll know about the Strangereal universe and all the cool countries in it. They also have some cool flag designs. So with a combination of Google, GIMP, Acepedia, and some help from people who could better find the real world counterparts to the Strangereal countries than I could, I have used the Strangereal flags and replaced the real world flags in the game with the most fitting counterparts (note that this is for decals, not the actual flag slots.) For example:

The flag for the United States...

...is replaced with the flag for the Osean Federation.

Installation: In the Strangereal flags zip folder contains the actual decals. Unzip the zip file, click into it, and copy/cut and paste the localization folder into Steam/steamapps/common/Armored Warfare/(look for the folder with a bunch of numbers) and paste the localization folder in there. If you don't use english in the game, just rename the english folder to whatever language you use.

As for the other zip file, the libs file, follow the same path as above but instead of localization, go into your gamesdk folder. From there, use 7Zip to extract the libs folder from your GameUI.pak file. Rename the GameUI.pak file to something like GameUIOriginal.pak, and paste the libs folder in the gamesdk folder. When asked to overwrite existing files, click replace.

After that, the new flags including their UI should show up in game. I hope you enjoy them!

Replacements:

Osea - U.S.A.
Yuktobania - Soviet Union (I can also replace the Russian flag with this one)
Belka - Germany
Estovakia - Romania
Emmeria - Italy
Nordennavic - Sweden
Ustio - Canada
Sapin - Spain
Aurelia - South Korea (I can also replace Australia with this one)
Leasath - North Korea
ISAF - European Union
Erusea - France

Update: Added Non-Canon Strangereal flag designs.

There were more flag designs for the Strangereal universe but these ones were taken from fan wikis and fan art as an idea of what the flags of these nations would be since they weren't given ones in canon. I will also put the reasoning for their selected flag overwrites. (Pictures can't be shown due to limits) These include:

Amber over Greece...

The fan wiki mentions its terrain being an amalgamation of Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Southern France and Greece was chosen since Italy and France were already taken by Emmeria and Erusea.

Bulgurdarest over Switzerland...

This one was fairly difficult as not much is know about Bulgurdarest in Ace Combat. However, it is mentioned that while they do have close ties to Osea, they are primarily neutral. Switzerland immediately came to mind as they have a good and close relationship to the U.S. but still maintain a very strong policy of neutrality.

This flag was done by Chobittsu-Studios on reddit and should be credited to them: https://www.reddit.com/r/acecombat/comments/bhez3c/was_bored_so_i_made_bulgurdarest_a_flag/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_content=whitespace&embed_host_url=https://armoredlabs.net/index.php

Delarus over Iraq...

The first of the two hardest non-canon flags to assign. There has been much wonder of what Delarus's place in Strangereal is apart from an interview spot for Larry Foulke. Very little is known about Delarus other than it was the location of a major conflict between Usean rebels and the UAF during the Usean coup d'état. Eventually, Allied Forces would push the rebels back and restore sovereignty to Delarus and its neighbors. Delarus would again be dragged into conflict during the Continental War when Erusea captured it during its invasion of Usea. ISAF would retake Delarus over the course of the war and the only other thing that would happen to Delarus afterwards is border disputes with Erusea until November 2005. So where does this fit into the real world? When doing research I thought Afghanistan would make for a decent fit but since Armored Warfare doesn't have their flag, Iraq was chosen as a fall back replacement. There's probably a better replacement out there, but I have zero idea as to what that could be.

Gebet over Austria...

This one was decently easy. Gebet in the Ace Combat lore gained independence from Belka on February 8th, 1988. On March 27th, 1995, Belka started the Belkan War and Gebet was one of its targets. Eventually, the Allied Forces would liberate Gebet in Offensive Campaign No. 4101. In terms of actual war participation though, it's stated that Gebet might not have done anything in the war. Now stepping away from lore and more into fandom, I like to believe that Gebet assisted in the repairs of Belka after the events of Ace Combat Zero and it was this thought process that lead to Austria being chosen for Gebet. In real life, Germany and Austria have a very close relationship and I think Belka and Gebet (after the war of course) would be friendly to each other even if Gebet didn't share Belka's anger at Osea. The flag of Gebet also bears much resemblance to Belka's.

Kaluga over Ukraine...

Before I start, let me start off by saying there's no political agenda here. That's not why I'm doing this. These are just cool fictional flag designs that I want to put into this game and finding the real life counter parts is half the fun. That being said, I'd be lying if I said this one is.....awkward considering current events. Actual Ace Combat lore states that Kaluga borders Yuktobania and is pretty small in comparison to it. However, at some point in 1986, Yuktobania and Kaluga enter a border contest that turned into war. Kaluga's northern forces would be defeated and Yuktobania severly weakened at the Battle of Zhytomyr. What happened for the rest of the conflict is not known. While it is a sensitive topic, that's not why I chose it. Considering the scarcity of information concerning the Verusan continent apart from what we know about Yuktobania (which to be fair is a lot,) Kaluga being the "Ukraine" of Ace Combat is because this is the only other place there with history even if it is little. Sotoa, Valka, and even Verusa itself all do not have a ton of history, let alone any sort of flag designs anywhere on the internet. So, Ukraine was chosen for Kaluga to replace the flag.

This specific flag is taken from and should be entierly credited to Chellen-Lovepool on reddit. Link to it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/acecombat/comments/u89cnf/kaluga_flagfanmade/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_content=whitespace&embed_host_url=https://armoredlabs.net/index.php

Nordlands over Netherlands...

This one was easy. Little is known about it in Ace Combat lore, but their name is very similar to the Netherlands so you can see how that fits.

North Point over the United Kingdom...

The fan wiki goes into detail about North Point or the United Kingdom of North Point. Much of it's history and culture appears to be borrowed from the real life United Kingdom so, that was extremely easy. I will admit however, I at first thought this would be another Nordic country in real life.

Ratio over Poland (I guess...)

This was the second of the two hardest non-canon flags to assign. There was extremely little amounts of information and lore about Ratio to base a real world equivalent to it. All that is known is that in December of 1991, Ratio had control over a large portion of land in eastern Ustio shortly after they seceded from Belka. When the Belkan War started, Ratio was not a target and left out entirely during the war. But that's it. The only reason Poland was chosen was because Ratio's capital is named Centrum and Centrum is Polish for center......yeah not the strongest reasoning I know. But in any case, Poland was chosen to be replaced by Ratio.

Installation remains the same.

Note: I removed the decals as they didn't fit the theme of the mod. It's flags after all.

libs.zip

Strangereal Flags.zip

Strangereal Non Canon.zip

Edited December 4, 2023 by astormytrooper
Second file update and removal of non-fitting decals (see edit history)