ACAT – All Creatures Are Traitors – an April Fool's mod from 2022.

By the way, 7zip rarely corrupts files.

Regarding recreating paths, I haven't worried about it for a long time. I just take folders from mods; for example, you can extract the path to characteristics from any NCF mod, but you'll need to delete all folders in GameMechanics except for creature, and rename the faction folder.

For me (I don't know why), WinRAR simply breaks the game if it's not configured properly. It just won't launch, but that doesn't happen with 7zip.
And you're right about the structure, but it's convenient to do it this way when you have experience. You have a lot of things at hand, but when you're just learning, nothing is clear. :)