title: 3D engine for iOS board game?
body: <p>I in the early stage of developing a small board game for iPhone and I would like to show the board in 3D with textures, from a user-selectable point of view. The 3D view is expected to stay rather static, with the occasional animation when a move is played to show the played piece move on the board.</p>
  
  <p>I am looking for suggestions for a 3D engine to use to do so. Wouldn't something like Unity be totally overkill for such a limited 3D use? Would it still be a good choice, even though I am probably going to use a very small subset of its features?</p>
  
  <p>I realize that other similar questions have been asked, but as far as I can tell, they were about animated games, not board games, and I think that changes the context significantly.</p>
  
  <p>A significant plus is for the final choice to support an easy path to an Android version.</p>
  
  <p>The options I have been able to identify so far are:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>use OpenGL directly</li>
  <li>Unity: Pro: many, including Android support. Con: a tad expensive</li>
  <li>ShiVa3D: Pro: Android support. drawback: requires using Windows</li>
  <li>Cocos2D: pro: mature, large user base. Con: not 3D!</li>
  <li>cocos3D: pro: adds 3D to Cocos3D. Con: ?</li>
  <li>SIO2: pro: supports Android.</li>
  <li>iSGL3D. pro: open source, native Objective-C. Con: no Android support.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>And I omitted a few more obscure (to me) ones.</p>
  
  <p>I feel overwhelmed and I would appreciate some advice.</p>
  
  <p>My background : I have significant experience with iOS development, but very little about 3D (though I have a strong math background).</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>