Not sure about zooming, you can drop the camera to slightly above eye level on the battle map by pressing and holding the forward-slash on the number pad (/)... or maybe it's * ? Always get those two mixed up... anyway, one lowers the camera, one raises it, they you have to move the camera's position around to look at what you'd like.
This is just MTW though, I'm not sure if those controls changed for VI...
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