Civil War Strategy 1.58 BETA Update

I figured I should let everyone know the status of the update to Civil War Strategy…and I’m going to include some technical details here for those who are so inclined.

1. I ran into issues converting the application directly from QuickBasic into QB64, so I abandoned the attempt to move to QB64 directly.

2. Instead, I began working within QuickBasic on the code. See the code is primarily procedural (do this, then this, then this) and uses outdated structures such as line labels to execute the code. This results in code that is not easy to understand or maintain.

3. So, through multiple rewrites I’ve been going through the code (and have had to start over several times) in an attempt to make the code operate on more object oriented principles, which are also much easier to maintain and update.

4. I think I’m getting close. I’m guessing I’ve put 40-60 hours into these rewrites and I may have another 20-30 before I complete this rewrite.

5. Once the rewrite is completed I will recompile in QuickBasic and make the updated version available via the website. It will still be a beta and there will be no new features, but I will need help making sure that the changes to the code I made didn’t cause any bugs to spring up.

6. Once the bugs have been eliminated (I’m sure there will be some) I’ll work on making some minor changes to the game (adding more leaders, etc.) and I’ll also work on converting it into a Windows application using either FreeBasic or QB64.

7. Once this has been completed I’d like to do another complete rewrite from the ground up. I should have a pretty good grasp on the code and I’ll likely write the application in VB.NET – possibly as an HTML5/CSS/.NET application – we’ll see.

So, that is the plan. If interest is high enough I hope to follow up with each of the other games and then to expand into other games as time goes on…but this is mainly for the fun of it and in my (very limited) spare time…so, it may be a while…but did want to let you know that I am still working on things.