So.. I was having a problem with Anno 1800, where every launch was constantly buggering me about having to install the VS2015 redist (the thing was probably failing because I already have the new unified runtime).
I started to look for wherever they keep track of installed dependencies, and unlike Steam (which uses the registry) they seem to employ the aforementioned file in the root of each individual <path-to-game>.
It exists in a kinda mixed binary/strings format though.. And I really couldn't find anywhere where actions such as EULA-Denuvo, clearshaderfolder and uplay_firewall\Anno were physically defined. Anyway, moving away the file had a new one regenerate that solved my problem. By comparing them, I could get some (very stupid) glimpse into the syntax.
It seems like every entry's name is preceded by 3 bytes, with the middle one always being 0A. As for the redist entry ("redist" being the first 6 bytes here), the original one was 72 65 64 69 73 74 10 02 2A, fixed is 72 65 64 69 73 74 10 02 18 02 2A. In bold the part where the magic happens.