Another thing to consider is if you know where the camera will be you could use an image plane in place of some of the distance objects, I have done this before by creating a model and then rendering it, and then using that as a texture for a plane thus reducing that item to a single poly, helpful if the thing is a background made up of 2 bookcases with multitudes of books in them plus a fireplace, and paneled walls, reducing all that to a single poly helps a lot.

And I know someone once used to create entire armies this way, all the background figures would be single poly planes, with only the foreground figures actual humans... or in his case, orcs.

You have to be consistant with lighting, but it saves oodles!

Measure your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)

Fran's Freestuff

http://franontheedge.blogspot.com/

http://www.FranOnTheEdge.com