I take it you've played Shining Force, Fire Emblem and all that sort of console stuff as well? Final Fantasy Tactics wasn't bad, but not exactly deep either.
Nope; I haven't owned consoles since the original Nintendo system!
If you liked Master of Magic play Warlock: Master of the Arcane (and Warlock 2: The Exiled). They're basically the same game but with a hex grid and different army management.
I have both, and didn't really like either. In fact, I've played both to pass the time until the next game I liked came out!
If you loved Master of Magic, Worlds of Magic might interest you. It is basically just a modern clone of MoM, all the original weaknesses and good things are still in.
I've played Worlds of Magic; and the devs seem to be over their heads, to be charitable.
Have you given Endless Legend a shot, fantasy-TBS-wise?
I played it and then a whole whole bunch of Age Of Wonders 3. Comparatively, Endless Legend has fewer dials to turn, but is a lot less of a slog towards the endgame. EL is also less war-focused and more Civ-like.
I actually haven't; but Endless Legend seems to not have much of an actual tactical combat element to speak of. That's why I had stayed away. But I may give it a go.
Arcanum is a good one. It's something like Baldur's Gate mixed with the original Fallout games.
Lords of Magic is kind of like Lords of the Realm in a magical fantasy world. I don't like it; you might.
Here are some good classic dungeon crawls. I don't know if it's exactly what you are looking for but it's worth a look:
Eye of the Beholder
Stonekeep
Anvil of Dawn
Legend of Grimrock (this one is newer)
Dark Designs (a trilogy of early DOS era dungeon crawls made by John Carmack. Relatively primitive, but not bad for an early effort)
Thanks for the Arcanum reference; though I generally do not like games that are too old (they were fun for their time, but they likely won't be fun now), this one may be worth a second look. And yes, I've played Lords of Magic and enjoyed it in its time.
While we're on subject of dungeon crawls, I can recommend Wizardry and Might and Magic series. They are pretty much all good (with the exception of M&M 9, which was half-finished), and I can guarantee you that going through all of them would take you more than a month, at a good pace.
Thanks; I will look to them.
Dungeons of Dredmor is one of the best turn-based RPG graphical-roguelike dungeoncrawlers in the under $10 range
Played that back in the day as well (damn, I really have played a lot of TBS and RPG games!
).