[falcolas]

Well, not quite. StarCraft and WarCraft II used 2d sprites, but those 2d sprites were generated from 3d models - its what gave them so much depth for their time (and also made them look muddy compared to hand-drawn sprites).

[logfromblammo]

If I recall correctly, in WC2, the entities were modeled in clay/plasticine, photographed from several (8?) distinct fixed angles, and then artists hand-painted cels over the photos. The cels were then scanned and digitized into 2d sprites. The maps were flat images with hidden metadata layers to define land and water boundaries.

I also recall that you could replace the peons' wood-chopping sounds with fart noises, which was hilarious for almost 30 whole minutes.