General approach to isometrics

Posted by MrThys on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by MrThys
Published on 2012-11-09T13:54:57Z Indexed on 2012/11/12 11:22 UTC
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isometric

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tilemap

I am currently discovering the world of isometrics, now I found out there are two approaches to creating the tilemap;

Just create 2:1 ratio tile-images and draw those.
Creating squares and transforming them to the 2:1 ratio. What is the general approach on developing an isometric game?

Now I was wondering a few things;

How do more known games like AOE1/2 do this?
What are the pros/cons of both methods?
Which method is preferred to be used in this day and age?

Edit added more general question

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