How government-specific flags work

[moretrim]

For the most part and for a given TAG, HPM-derived mods uses the ideology-specific TAG_monarchy.tga, TAG_republic.tga, etc. flag. Which government uses which flag is set accordingly:

• ccHFM/common/governments.txt has the broad rules, here's for instance why absolute monarchies (appropriately) use the TAG_monarchy.tga flag:

  ccHFM/ccHFM/common/governments.txt

  Lines 70 to 79 in ed312bb

  	absolute_monarchy = {
  	liberal = yes
  	conservative = yes
  	reactionary = yes
  	election = no
  	appoint_ruling_party = yes
  	flagType = monarchy
  	}

  In contrast here's why the more exotic theocratic government uses the unspecific TAG.tga flag:

  ccHFM/ccHFM/common/governments.txt

  Lines 141 to 148 in ed312bb

  	theocracy = {
  	#which ideology of parties.
  	reactionary = yes
  	conservative = yes
  	election = no
  	appoint_ruling_party = yes
  	}

  Notice the absence of a flagType rule.

• Each tag has the opportunity for one exception in its respective history file (i.e. ccHFM/history/countries/TAG - Country.txt). Here's Scotland:

  ccHFM/ccHFM/history/countries/SCO - Scotland.txt

  Lines 53 to 56 in ed312bb

  	govt_flag = {
  	government = absolute_monarchy
  	flag = theocracy
  	}

  This is a roundabout way of using the (normally) unspecific SCO.tga for an absolutist Scotland, which looks like:

  

  (Some tags have multiple flag = ... entries in one govt_flag block which is a bug, and is tracked at Invalid govt_flag blocks #34.)

Put together:

• most countries using normal governments use 4 flags in practice
• some countries have a special rule to redirect a normal government to another ideology-specific flag, and thus use 3 or 4 flags (they can be found by searching for "govt_flag" and refining from there)
• some countries have a special rule to redirect a normal government to the unspecific flag, meaning they effectively use 4 or 5 flags ("flag = theocracy" seems to be the normal way to go about this)
• some countries have unusual governments which can fall back to the normally unspecific flag, meaning they effectively use up to 5 flags (e.g. theocratic PAP is the Papal states, with the flag to go): these governments are Autonomous Dependency, Dominion, or Theocracy