Revision History

This first internal release, available only to a few selected people, marked the first stage of development after the decision to change Strike or Die from a light "beer and pretzels" wargame into a much deeper and realistic simulation of modern warfare. To bring the game to such a level I had to come back to the "design table" and start many things from scratch, but it was all definitely worth of it.
You can read the details of this phase in the 2002 development log.

• Major modifications and improvements of the 2D engine to properly support the new Fog of War system
• Rewrote the core routines dealing with Line of Sight and unit movement
• Introduced Field of Sight overlay
• Introduced Spotting levels
• Added terrain sets editing tool
• Added the Order of Battle menu
• New Command and Control feature
• Introduced Situational Awareness parameter
• Major improvements of the unit data structures
• Added NATO symbology
• Improved battlefield view
• Added Terrain profiler for movement and targeting modes
• New weapons management using hit chances and trajectory profile curves
• Improved weapon systems effectiveness parameter management
• Added Weapon Systems database
• Improved resource and saved games files management
• Improved font management
• Improved animation management system
• Improved input management system for a better string and text editing
• Improved menus management system with better buttons management
• Added tooltips to show long strings in menus
• Added sorting buttons in menus with lists
• Abandoned support of 640x480 resolution and added 1152x864 and 1280x960 ones
• Improved game interface buttons management
• Better custom camouflage management using high resolution textures
• Improved map creation tool
• Added Quick battle feature
• Added autosaving function
• Added None/Partial/Full Fog of War option
• Added unit exposure and stance parameters
• New units embark/disembark management
• New artillery units management
• Improved air units management
• Introduced response curves to control unit parameters variation
  

Six months of hard work and a major code rewrite changed Strike or Die from a nice Demo to show during interviews to an Alpha release of a real challenging wargame, which granted me the interest of some wargame publishers. Here's the list of the major improvements and addictions:

• Created a 2D graphics pipeline optimized to minimize transfers to video memory
• Introduced fixed point math to speed up some operations on slower PCs
  
• Rewrote Damage Calculation routines
  
• Fixed full screen redraw bug related to task switching with Alt-Tab
  
• Introduced Alpha channel for bitmaps
  
• Added squad leader names random generation during new squads creation
  
• New Pak files management
  
• New mouse cursors with shadow effect
  
• Added full content windows dragging
  
• Modified credits animation
  
• Increased functionality of height level curves and terrain types contours maps
  
• Improved map zooming routine
  
• Corrected weapons effectiveness against landed air squads
  
• Corrected Embark/Disembark routines
  
• Improved Fuel Trucks squads refueling routines
  
• Improved Land/Takeoff routines
  
• Variable squads parameters bars are updated in a smarter way
  
• Better weapon selection for squads trying to return fire
  
• Added scrollable saved games list with up to 50 slots
  
• Allowed squads rotation and repositioning during the setup phase
  
• Introduced procedurally generated menus and interface with selectable background camouflage texture
  
• New optimized squads bitmaps rotation routine with 4x anti-aliasing
  
• Added anti-aliasing to Zmap, Tmap and to targeting and movement lines
  
• Made a clearer alpha blended font
  
• Allowed multiple screenshot
  
• Allowed the use of a custom made camouflage texture
  
• New animation system
  
• Improved radar engagement rules
  
• Allowed to use squads special abilities during setup phase
  
• Improved and optimized Fog of War routines
  
• Added map selection and map creation menus
  
• Improved squads Morale and Experience parameter variation algorithm
  
• Added special effects such as missiles smoke animation and on ground explosions shock wave
  
• Added an After Action Report menu with full battle statistics
  
• Added Scenario creation and management menus
  
• Added new Basic Tutorial
  
• Introduced a new Reinforcements management system
  
• Rewrote sound subsystem and added support for soundtracks in MP3 format
  
• Improved Targeting Mode
  
• Improved Movement Mode
  
• Rewrote and completed the Replay feature
  
• Created new maps according to the new platoon level game scale
  
• Added opportunity fire for ambushing squads
  
• Added enemy squads variable parameters estimation system
• Added smart locking to the targeting line