The meaning of an old mod for an old BASIC game

Back in the 1980s, I got my hands on the source code for a crude US Civil War sim in BASIC. ( The game is briefly mentioned in passing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_mainframe_games ) It bugged me that one could only play the Confederacy, so I modded a version on the PC platform so one could play the Union. As an indication of how crude the simulation was, after winning enough battles, the Union achieved negative inflation and was loaded with cash for every battle.

Looking back, it hits a bit different now, that initial design bias toward playing only one side.