Im doing a RTS influensed by age of empires, stronghold and the battles of) total war.

Since i cannot do the graphics and animations for ALL units and buildings I want, I'm going for a abstracted style with static images instead. Also the scale is larger than classic RTS:es like AOE.

-Units replesent small groups of 10-20 soldiers and cover one tile. They are static pics seen from the side. They might have actual remaining number instead of healthbar (like regiments in total war) They flash when attacking or is damaged and arrows are drawn in realtime as they fly.

-Buildings (keep, quarry, barracks, towers, markets etc) are also a single tile in size and drawn as icons rather than realistically looking little structures. Also seen from the side.

-The board looks more "maplike" than realistic.

Would this work? Is it wierd and too far from what players expect? Would it feel boring and stale since you expect fully animated units?

Early screenshot:

Hi, for me the style is not really important. I find the game deep is more important. I like to handle much resources in Games. Also, combat System should be complex.

The screenshot looks nice

As long as the style keeps consistent I usually have no problems. You can always redo high quality sprites later, when you got a working game and an artist who would like to join. But keep it consistent, and when redo redo the whole thing, not just a couple of sprites.

But the static sprites sliding over the board could work? Even for a realtime game? It's not commonly used that way.

Screenshot looks fine for me. Like arka80 says as long as the style stays consistent it shouldn't matter if the sprites are static or not.

I know it was a 3D RTS but didn't Darwinia use static sprites?

Wesnoth uses static sprites too if I remember, and it's quite a succesful game

Wesnoth is turnbased. In turnbased it's very common. In realtime, it hardly exists at all.

It looks neat. However:

If you do this only because you don't know how to draw- then don't.

Artwork should be part of the game design, not a choice of "I don't know or I don't have the resources yet"

You better go with silly free animations rather than a decision that is not by game design.

Why?

When I see this kind of graphics I immidietly think of chess and turn based games and not a real time strategy game.

If you find this kind of graphics interesting, try to experiment with your game design to get the best experience.

Of coruse don't forget to test your game with the opinions of RTS players! From a picture I can't really tell if the game is fun or not. (or challanging).

-Units replesent small groups of 10-20 soldiers and cover one tile. They are static pics seen from the side. They might have actual remaining number instead of healthbar (like regiments in total war) They flash when attacking or is damaged and arrows are drawn in realtime as they fly.

This reminds me a LOT of Command HQ, one of the first RTS games.

I've played a few RTS games over the years with un-animated NATO symbols. Mostly static symbols can work, just define a suitable art style in which such an un-animated sprite icon works and communicates the game state as needed.