King of Dragon Pass... nearly impossible to find these days, though.

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DOMINIONS III is ok also and I'd say it probably has the most robust magic system but the combat engine is pretty boring. No hands on ability and that's no fun to me.
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Boring? lol I never found the battles for dominions 3 to be boring, nothing like watching 30 battle mages call down thunder and lightning all over the battle field decimating the enemy army, extra crispy.  or watch the horde of undead struggling to advance toward your army through a battle field of mud while your priests spam banishes and your mages brakes their bones...  So many things to try, it never really gets boring.

Haven't played avernum, but first three games in series are remakes of Exile series (same developer), so I can comment on them. Exile 3 was amazing, it featured vast open world, decent main storyline, tons of sidequests and plenty of secrets that awarded exploration. Exile 1 and 2 were actually very similar games, but with worse interface, that made playing them a pain in the ass. I'm guessing they fixed that in Avernum games, so it's probably not an issue anymore. All games also had plenty of puzzles, which I always liked in rpgs. In any case, if you're fan of rpgs, avernum 1-3 should be pretty decent games.

If I say it was BORING it was BORING. I don't care what your opinion of it is I'm discussing MY OPINION of it and the combat is BORING! ) Since it is BORING that moves it WAAAAYYYYY down on my list of best fantasy games. Now go back to your tinker toys and candyland. )

Dominions 3 graphics are.........bad imo, BUT the gameplay is what makes people play it for a looong time, bought it last year and just the printed manual was worth the money the game cost, I mean a manual on paper...294 pages....I mean just like the old days, but sadly not played the game so much, but just what I have seen so far is making promise myself going back to play it more.

I think they changed that in HOMM V Raruto.

Only briefly. Heroes interact more in battle, but they are still out of it.

And yes, Kings Bounty would be perfect if they would have found a way to place heroes in battle.

The game that was very promising, but unfortunately didn't succeed due to budget constraints was Heroes 4. But this is a story of what could be that never will be...

It seems that, despite hearing people mentioning MoM, you still haven't played it.

Just do it. Honestly, despite its age, it's still by far the best of its kind. Nothing comes even close to it. It HAS flaws (very unbalanced mainly, but also very bad diplomacy), but the good is so much more than the bad that it still is more than worthwhile.

It is purely unbelievable how much they could put into a game. It's like they thought about every single things they could imagine in a fantasy setting and managed to put it into the game. Magic, monsters, artifacts, standard units, heroes, races, buildings, magical roads, alternate world, really awesome global enchantments... The variety is astounding, especially for something that is, when you think about it, 16 years old. And the immersion level is very high, the whole interface sets the mood and plenty of little things keeps you immersed in the world of the game.

It's even quite depressing to see that nothing has been able to top it in such a long time.

On top of that, it's rather easy to make it run on Windows, unlike many other DOS games, so...

For me the best Fantasy TBS is by far AOW:SM. But I wouls also like to add the original AOW as well.

Elven Legacy Tactical combat is good but it is not an Empire building game inless they have released update to allow it. I just have the original. Basically you just go through a linial campaign (which I don't really care for.) No Sandbox play at all.

I actually picked up Avernun 6 yesterday. GamersGate had an offer for Avernum 5 (60% off, cost about 7 Euro) and I figured I'd get the latest version together with it. Haven't played much yet, but I used to be a huge fan of the Exile series back in the CompuServe days, and the Avernum games seem to play the same way. Takes a bit of time to get used to more simplistic 2D graphics again, since I've gotten used to state of the art visuals, but looking at how long it's been that I played a RPG with a story that actually "grabbed" and interested me, it's fairly obvious that stunning graphics alone just don't make for a good experience.

As for Fantasy TBS, I'd definitely recommend the two King's Bounty games. KB: The Legend is fairly inexpensive now and a little easier than Armored Princess, though the latter has some nice convenience features (less backtracking) and perhaps a better story. There's also KB: Crossworlds coming out in 2-3 weeks, which is an expansion set for Armored Princess. These games are lighter than Elemental, but I find them extremely playable and highly addictive.

A little deeper, and still tactical, are Fantasy Wars and its sequel Elven Legacy. I'd definitely get FW first, which is pretty much a more modern version of Fantasy General. Both titles have a higher difficulty than what most gamers today are used to, especially Eleven Legacy. They are also very pretty. The AI isn't the greatest, but the scripting is superb, so it th e computer opponent seems quite intelligent.

AoW2:SM is a classic, and probably my favourite fantasy TBS so far. Someonealso mentioned the Kohan series, which is probably the only "actual" RTS series that I truly enjoyed. Not nearly as twitchy as the typical RTS titles. Kohan: AG is the best of the three games. Also already mentioned was the open source game Battle for Wesnoth, which includes a ton of content, receives updates every so often and has a vivid community. Good AIs.

I honestly don't see MOM ever being remade with newer graphic at this point. The complexity of it is just immense and trying to recreate this whole thing for newer systems would be a very risky proposal, outside of the budget of most people. I think our best chance at this point would be a Free Software remake that stayed as true to the ideal as possible. Something like FreeOrion and UFO:AI

I've gone back to HOMM 3 and Dominions 3 until Elemental gets a few more patches. Dominions 3 is an amazing game if you've never played it. Obviously there is a demo so check if it's your style before you buy. There are no tactical battles. Basically, you give orders to your troops and they automatically duke it out. You can watch the battles and it can be pretty fun to do so. Giant battles between undead and huge gorilla men anyone?

It's definitely a deep and complex strategy game. There are many playstyles and a ton of races and pretenders(the equivalent of sovereigns) to choose from. These include a giant kraken, a lich or a stone monolith!