I loved X-Com another game with the squad/turn + movement points)-based gameplay would be awesome! If the game were to be 100% the same gameplay, but with swords, arrows, magic(different spells), etc... that would be really cool. Storming castles would be really interesting... Towers, etc... the level design would be something. What would you do for the 'World' portion of the game? You could make it like Warlords Battlecry III or kind of like Command & Conqour Red Alert(where you can choose multiple paths). Then again there is good ole Master of Magic and make it into a empire building type game.

Quote Originally Posted by {MSX}
Quote Originally Posted by cairnswm
1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?
Simply becouse usually 3D animated character are easyer to draw
Also, nice effects like spells and explosions could be better..

Here an example of a possible "essential" style (taken from an old work of mine):

http://www.lugato.net/msx/screen1.png
Hmm... why not make the tiles for the isometric flooring 2D and the characters 3D OR just makes 3D pre-rendered sprites? You can still use 3D for the particle effects.

I would strongly suggest using OpenGL, though for multi-platform availability(more potential players).