I can't remember the name of this game: It was a fantasy RPG/ turned based game, where you were a hero and had a small band/fellowship of other heroes/character/mercenaries with you. With your band of heroes you explored the world map and engaged in battle in forests/ruins/castles (battle map was loaded when u engaged). Both exploration and battle used isometric view. In exploration u could view 4 (four) members of your band (although u could have more than 4, probably 6-7) forming a square formation (in the same tile/hex) and enemies/allies in the exporation map were shown the same way, revealling in this way their general numbers. It used a weird turn based system, were u didn't have to press a button to end the turn, but instead u could move like simulating real-time, but in fact when u moved your band and enemies were nearby/visible, they moved right after your move (So turn could look like a quick chess game, if you knew were u wanted to move. In battle, one character of your played and after he finished his actions an enemy right away, then u could play another character of yours, then again an enemy, etc)
I didn't finish the game (i played the demo, cause i remember that i couldn't pass over a bridge to other area, due to restriction) back then.
Your characters could die, be poisoned, etc, and were leveling up. Various monsters were encountered, like wolves, skeletons, kobolds... I can really faintly remember that items had a great variety and you could use probably even "rope"-item so as to escape from dungeon battles...
It was probably published between 1999 and 2004.
To cut it short, it looked like Age of Wonders, but it wasn't a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game, cause u only had control over that band, not an empire.
Thanks in advance.