@Primal_Savage: Thank you for your inspirations! I will take a look on the weekend on number 3.
But my biggest "problem" are the units: In the cloth map every unit has a colored base, but not in the 3D map. It needs a color on the ground only, this would be cool.
If I understand what you are wanting correctly, that may be an issue. Seems you are wanting the actual tile to light up with the color of the occupying unit. If so, the problem is multiple units/armies can occupy the same tile from different factions.