Before I go off designing my game document over the summer, this one mechanic has bothered me the most. And that is the actual camera perspective. Because if I ever change my mind, then my game-art could become invalid in the future. Well my turn-based strategy game is to be turn-based(and tick-based), and I've been thinking about it. Well, I want my game maps to remain as "tiles" or squares with grids. I do not want isometric or hexagonal. My game is to be 2d, because 3d would take infinitely longer to code and do art for. I am utilizing Java as my language. This has actually bother me the most, while a simple issue, it can surely alter the appearance of my game. Should my buildings(ie cities) and the units be exactly TOP-DOWN, or should they be just stiff sprites(classic-style). There are disadvantages to both. I ideally want my units to animate when they move over tiles, and my art skills say they need to be top-down for me to do this. If i have them isometric-style (like civ3), it will be difficult. So if I go with the other route, then i can cancel the entire animation part. I want to make nice terrain and such, but if my units are top-down that also means my trees are, etc. Of course I can be more symbolic with my art, i donno. If my units are top-down then they may be less detailed and I'm furious! The other problem is the way I should handle combat, I think I should have the game goto a new screen to show the combat, with all of the sprites fighting each other. Help! Also a good tile size for a game that has scalable resolutions?

I would say take a look at Bahamut Lagoon for the SNES. You have to do whatever you CAN do reasonably. If you can't do non-top down creatures, do top down creatures.

I think ill just have my units be stiff and with no animation. Ill prolly just have a special sound(s) for certain units when they move. As for combat, I think that I should simplify it to just symbolic representations of the units during combat, I will have various sounds, and you can click around and see their hp bars etc go down.

So I think My terrain will not be top-down either, ill just take my time and make it nice, just lessen the animation (besides moving cloud shadows etc), and weather effects.

I think Final Fantasy Tactics was really well done; the mechanics are great and just when you get bored, theres a cool cliff level or castle with a weird new monster or a time mage hiding behind a wall. It was square-grid, and your view was at 45 degrees so they were diamonds. There was also a high-view and a low-view if i remember correctly (i really wanna get that game again). They used animated sprites....which walked even if you weren't moving i believe. They were cartoony which was the only drawback i believe. For your game to be fun, i think you need some good sprites and interesting terrain, sorry to say. A top down TBS would basically be chess.

I think that I will use a square grid, but my terrain and units will not be top-down, but a 'nice' flat. What do you think?

heres and example of what i mean
http://downloads.render-world.com/Screenshot_2400-Sprites-Num.jpg

I think those sprites look good, and they dont even look 2d, like hideo, qbee, juni, all have depth to their stance (qbee is flying so it don't matter), so you could get away with having a very low angle. Are you going to have perspective?

Man, I dont know what to do about my game-view it can alter my dev time so much, and it can also change the entire style of the game.

Why not prototype the game using placeholder "MSPaint" graphics, or even just line art, so you can easily change viewpoints until you find the one that works best for your gameplay?