3D Tilemap

I am quite new to Unity, but I know (game-) programming for a few years now. Until now I only made 2D games with SFML. As a start I did a Tutorial from Unity3d.com and now I want to port one of my 2D games to 3D in Unity.

The game is a Tower Defense Game which is based on a tilemap. So I want to create a tilemap on wich the camera is pointed in an about 50-70 degree angle. The map has to have different heights, which means the path where creeps walk is lower than the area where you can build the towers.
My main problem is how I can create this tilemap. I googled quite a bit for the right solution, but most of the hits where a tilemap in 2D. The other ones where a bit confusing, because they mentioned a bunch of different solutions.
Some said I should use meshes, others told me to use a heightmap or other ways.

So was is the best approach?

To make it clear, the path should be something a canal for ships, but just for creeps. And really important is, that I can lower or raise different tiles while playing. Just imagine a flat area in minecraft and for the path, imagine the player can “dig” the path into the flat area. I hope you can understand what I want to create :slight_smile:

I really appreciate any help :slight_smile:

If your gameworld is rather small, you can get by with instantiating nad destroying prefabs to create your terrain. For more complex stuff, you will have to look into mesh generation by script. Also search for procedural generation (think Minecraft).