1. Let's go on the assumption that all the background CALCnet communication and/or AI work will take enough processing power to make super-fast scrolling unlikely. I think the second one seems to have fairly universal appeal for a balance between detail and being able to see a few things at once.
2. Awesome
3. Of course!
4. Thanks for the reminder, I'll try to be careful.

@DJ Omni, willrandship, _player, Sonlen: Doors CS 4.0 was BASIC with a custom 14-function ASM library that handled program liting and execution, powering off, contrast, the mouse, and related fun stuff. However, in that context "Doors CS 4.0 optimized" does indeed mean the icon+header.

ah, regarding number 1, it doesnt have to be super fast, but faster than slow

Well, I think I can guarantee that I'll make it render faster than the BASIC version.

I would love to be a tester for this too.
I noticed calcNET in the first post on this page, that would be a multi-player thing then?

heh, multiplayer sims for the calc. epic idea

The original was single-player, but I think it would be a ton of fun to have a multiplayer RTS game for the calculators. Qazz: More like AoE than The Simms.

I had that thought not too long after I mentioned my post.

Glad to hear it. Again, I know that all of this is a very ambitious plan, so bear with me if I don't have the time to attempt any or all of it or if I decide to scale back my plans over time.

I do have a question though, how do you plan on showing the graphics? If you decide something with XLib I could work on something for you.

Nono, this is going to be pure ASM for the graphics, even if all I end up doing is re-writing the Civ Sim I rendering engine. I'd be happy to have your help creating sprites, though.

Considering how simple the sprites looked in those images, if that is close to what you want, I should be able to do that with "nice-looking" sprites at the least.

If you could get me a list of what you want and possibly a dimension they should fit in, I could get started shortly.

Well, that's the thing, I neither have a good idea what buildings and units I want to have yet, nor how I'm going to differentiate between different players' units and buildings, since I have neither color nor grayscale to work with. I would appreciate any feedback on that.

I could work on some "concept art" if you could give me an idea for the orientation of what you need, and any basic structures you want then I ought to be able to get something going.

Well, I'd like something like a barracks, a marketplace?, a farm, a farm, maybe a forest, and some stones/gold. Some of the buildings should get more advanced as they progress through three stages.

How many layers/stories, should they be angled, birds-eye, front view, etc...
Also a preferred size, monochrome/gray-scale(if so how many levels)?

or this one game that I remember in the ad's of websites. it used *imagry* to get you to play it..... cant remember the name though

Yeah, I remember that one, but I think that was more of a massively-multiplayer game.

*bump* I missed Sonlen's post:

They should follow the size and style of the middle stuff in this screenie. I can be more precise if you want.

Oh, although I still rather have the third one, I will admit I do like that greyscale you are using. (or is that greyscale? It is harder to tell in still screenies)

I think I can get that, but I do have a question, the three stages, how exactly would you like those to work out?



Those are not greyscale. :p



Here is what I have so far, from left to right are stages 1 to 3, in order:



I decided to add them to a "mock-up" screen to show how they would appear at that size in the game.