Yeh I agree I think Sketchup is the way to go. As for the render thats not required, the game engine will do that. IMO Maya is just not made for things like buildings....its WAY too cumbersome and doing things 5 times over just to get walls in...is a pain. Yeh murambi I use cm then scale up to metres just before export to the engine.
cheers bullet
bullet1968
"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes