[TheDeadlyShoe]

its cheaper in $$ terms. much cheaper, for what you get. The requirements are of course higher. One curious example of this is the original MechCommander; the graphics were done with 3d models that were used to generate many many frames of 2d animation. This kept the requirements low and the game fast and had really quite excellent graphical quality.

you'd be surprised what can be done with relatively low poly models and low quality textures; the game "Dawn of War" can scale pretty far down and still look good, for example.

One bonus of this game is also that it won't have to be rendered at 30 FPS; that's an arbitrary requirement. A game like this could be perfectly servicable at 10 or 15 FPS; only the truely dedicated are likely to start combats that drag it down to 3 or 4 FPS.

Furthermore, there is always the recourse of computer-calculated combat, which is what will presumably used for multiplayer (and probably for truely large battles) regardless.