Isometric game with heights - like Roller Coaster Tycoon 2

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By Leartin

Basically, I want to display a grid where each node is vertically offset by a height value. It’s also important to me that I know which tile the mouse is pointing at. It’s done in games like roller coaster tycoon 1 and 2, in transport tycoon and I think in simcity.

So far, I tried tilemaps, but those can’t do height levels. I could do the landscape with a bunch of them stacked on each other, but that would only work as long as everything is ‘flat’ not with something ‘buildt’ on a tile. (Also, I wanted to support many height levels, soooo…)
I was able to just draw everything on a canvas, both using a spritesheet and with triangles. This method would also work with stuff being placed on the tile, even several things on the same tile. However, I have no idea how I’d know where the mouse is pointing at.

I’m not out of options yet. I would check out if I can raytrace my mouse position if my isometric landscape is actually 3D. And if that does not work, one option is to use several tilemaps for the landscape just so I can pinpoint the mouse position on them, but then place everything else manually. Still, it seems I should ask if anyone has ever done something like that before, or at least what those who know what they are doing would do.