Will the camera be fixed, or can we rotate it and move it up and down, as well as zoom?

Much of AoW2's graphics are still 2D, so some camera movements would look really really bad...

Zooming in and out is the only one of those controls that is useful in our engine, so you can do that...

JOSH:
Both Black and White and Etherlords allow to use the wheel mouse button to zoom, I suggest you to do the same (besides you already said you 'live' by that little wheel.)

How about rotation or camera angle in Simcity 2000, which is primarily 2D, too? But, if it's too expensive to create images for all angles of each item, we may well live with what we have now. Maps still look great.

Isn't rotation in 2D games (like SimCity, Stronghold, and city-builders like Caesar 3, Pharaoh and Zeus) so that you can see behind tall structures? I don't think that there will be such a cluster of high-structures that you couldn't see behind them.

Partly for that and partly (in SC2K at least) because it can be difficult to zone or build on elavated terrain otherwise. I not sure how applicable that is to AoW as it's not AFAIK going to be much of a building game, but it might be nice to be able to view the global map from differnt angles, particularly if the screen map aspect ration isn't sqaure. As for the sprites, unit images already exist in all orientations and cities etc should not have to rotate unless the map images change to reflect their installed infrastructure so that shouldn't be a problem. Still that's a far cry from the general camera angle and elevation changes seen in more fully 3D games. Compare for example the same city viewed in SC2K to SimCopter. Then realize that in SC2K you can change building tiles at will (a 'good' thing for making mod packs) but in 'Copter you can't. Given the choice, I'll take the 2D sprites on 3D terrain in this case.

When I saw the first screenshot of the main overland view, I commented of how it reminded me of the settlers graphics: 2d sprites on a 3d landscape. Since we won't be able to change the camera angle, I think that like settlers, there simply won't be any need for it; units can never hide behind hills and such because the fixed camera angle is steep and the mountains slopes are somewhat gradual.
That's fine with me. It should allow for a very efficient and highly optimised 3d engine, that requires only a little CPU power. Should give the AI more of the CPU's time.

For better microing needs.

no

Rotation would be great, could be done in increments of 45 degrees.

(But then they'd have to replace every building in the game.)

we will never see rotation camara in Ron because the biuldings are made of Bitmaps its not possible.

Maybe in the future we will see a BHG game in full 3D

the thing is do u really need rotation? most RTS tries to put that in as at the start, even EE did. but it was generally found to offer little use.

i played an RTS with rotation (Braveheart) and let me tell ya its more confusing then its worth.

I only use that camera to have some sort of movie battle view, at the level of the soldiers, but like this I cant really manage my units