square tile iso engine

Iso and squared engines are exactly the same except for one point: depth. With an iso engine, you can have hills and trenches like SimCity 2000/3000.

May I suggest browsing through some of the older threads on this site - there has been plenty of discussions about Iso vs. square tiles.

MHO is that square tiles combined with various overlays offer the best performance/appearance tradeoff.

/Niels

To counteract Niels' HO, I believe that the isometric view offer better visual appeal than squared tiles at a reasonable speed penalty.

here are some of the tradeoffs between rectangular tiled iso engines (starcraft) and rhomboid iso engines (Civ, SC, AoE)

Rectangular:
You have fewer blits to do
You have to have more tiles to do the same job
different heights require more work

Rhomboid:
you have more blits (twice as many as rectangular)
you need fewer tiles to do the same job
different heights dont require as much work

Which has a more appealing UI, Simcity or Starcraft?

(If you say SimCity, we just generally disagree on what looks good and what doesn't - and since taste can be an everlasting debate, I'll let it rest)

/Niels

In my opinion, it's just the look. Programming comes second.
If programming came first, you probably would have picked square tiles.

Just decide if the look or the programming is more important.

Reaver

Starcraft is square? Looks like regulars isometrics with an overlay of a square map for use to draw ojbects on the map and places buildings during the game, but the landscape is isometric. It's a nice way of doing it.

http://www.lupinegames.com/articles/isoeng4u.htm

Heres an article I wrote on the comparison between iso and square tiles.

-Geoff