So it’s been a long time. I (Dave Mackey) started from the original source code W.R. Hutsell provided me and made a minimal number of changes to the code to get it to compile in QB64. I ironed out a few bugs that popped up in the transition and believe this is a solid baseline off of which to build future enhancements.
I’m looking for a few folks to play through a few games and let me know if you run into any bugs or find any functionality missing. You can download the latest release here.
Download the zip file and unzip its contents into a folder. Then double-click on CWSTRAT.EXE and the game should launch in all it’s old glory.
To make the game full-screen press Alt+Enter. You may want to do this a few times as it will cycle through various ways of displaying the game and one option may look better on your monitor than another.
Good luck!
Yay. Ill download today and play some after work.
I downloaded the game and did a playthrough as Union. Here are a few things that seemed odd.
The first time I tried to relieve a general, Banks was listed twice at the top of the list of available replacements.
A.S. Johnston attacked Pope in Indianapolis. CS lost 1,600 of 11,600; US lost 1,400 of 12,500. Rebel victory?!
Rebels built 1 ship in the opening round and sent it to Philadelphia. I brought my starting fleet (4 ships) back to Philadelphia. I lost one ship and almost lost a second. I suppose that has always been possible with unlucky RNG, but it seems like it shouldn’t be.
In Nov 1863, the game threw me a series of errors:
Line 2433 (in main module)
Subscript out of range
Continue?
I clicked Yes, but kept getting the same error with a variety of different Line numbers.
Howdy! I recently made a Gemini capsule for Hutsell’s games, unawares of this site. I’ve been a fan of CWBS for over 30 years, and am ever so happy to see your presence for him here. Please thank him for all of us he has educated and delighted to this day. I shall indeed give your updates a grateful whirl!
Shufei from Smolnet
CWS loads and plays fine via dosbox on RaspiOS Linux on a Raspad 3 (Raspberry Pi 4B inside). I shall try to give a more detailed inspection later. But the fundamentals load and play better with a touchscreen and softkeyboard in a window in RaspiOS LXDE than many GTK programmes (cough).
After a crash in my first game (Union), subsequent games have gone smoothly, both Union and Confederate.
One issue that I think is a bug carried over from the original is that the “no January campaigns” option is enabled it doesn’t work consistently. Some armies can still move in January, some can’t. Sometimes it seems to depend which direction the army moves.
Thanks for the feedback Joshish, both here and in your previous comment. This is just the level of detail I need to track these bugs down!
Can’t find the guide…only a table of contents. I recently found CWS, but I don’t know what some of the options do or mean. I can find the TOC on this site but nothing else. Is it somewhere?
I’ll need to make this better soon, as it isn’t entirely intuitive. For now, rest your mouse over Help, then over Civil War Strategy Manual, you should see another menu appear and that contains links to the various chapters.
I did find it, but thanks! It’s a fun game, I’m a fan to TBS.
Will this work on an android phone?
Not this version. You might be able to get the DOS version to run on Android by using DOSBox.