Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2
Tyranny
Disco Elysium

POE 2, Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous all have turn-based combat options. And all have good companions.

Some more ideas:
- Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
- Drakensang and Drakensang: The River of Time (not isometric, plays like Kotor and DA:O)
- Divinity: Original Sin series
- Betrayal at Krondor
- Neverwinter Nights 2

At the time of my post, I believe Kingmaker did not have turn-based combat at that time, and that Wrath of the Righteous had not been released.

Since then, I've played a bit of both games, though my time with Kingmaker was entirely in DLC3, and WotR I've only played up to the end of the prologue, to the point where you wake up in the tavern.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Divine Divinity (although they did mention a similar named game "Divinity:Original Sin"), or Konung, although the latter might not be as good. YMMV.
Also there is the Avernum series, but that's more turn-based. You can still find the original Exile series from which Avernum is a remake for free on Spiderweb Software's webpage (warning, you need DOSbox or an old Windows 9X computer), although they seem to have removed the download for the original Nethergate.

I think there was an off-hand mention of the Gold Box games, and then there is the two Buck Rogers games that used the same engine as the Gold Box games. Even if you aren't a fan of the TV show it's a great sci-fi adventure flick.

Also, I saw Drakensang, but not the old game Drakkhen. I've only played the SNES version of the latter, and I never beat it since I didn't own a Super Nintendo, only played it at a friend's house. It seemed like a good game.

Was Arcanum mentioned? What about Pool of Radiance:Ruins of Myth Drannor? I am in the minority here, but I actually like PoR2:RoMD. Temple of Elemental Evil is another good one, however PoR2 and ToEE are more turn-based, as are the Gold Box games and the Exile/Avernum series.

Sorry to get a little off topic here, but does anyone know how to get the Buck Rogers (effective) Gold Box games? I really loved those games when they came out, but no one seems to have the rights to them nowadays and I can't seem to find them on GOG or Steam. Anyone know where they can be found?

Unfortunately, I believe your only options are to buy a used copy from somewhere, or to pirate the games.

Abandonia is a great website for old games.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/23884/Buck+Rogers+-+Countdown+to+Doomsday.html

-edit- I should have provided this link:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/search_abandonia/buck+roger

What about the website Myabandonware? Do you have any thoughts on them?

My experience with these sites is probably (mainly) from 10 years ago and longer, when I was active in those circles (I wonder if you can still find alcaray posts in their forums). At that time, Abandonia was my goto. I recall Myabandonware only vaguely. There were a couple of others in the circle as well.

When I recommend them, be wary that my advice is based on experience from a long time ago. So I don't have current info on them.

Well, do you think there is a real danger of downloading malware from their sites? That's all I want to know, right now.

I've never had such a problem. The moderators/site runners took their roles very seriously. They were also very responsive to complaints about bad builds, etc.

I recall a problem with a Daggerfall (TES2) build that almost immediately after the trainer dungeon, gave you a disease but no hope of reaching a town to cure it. Every time you started a new game. And I replayed that darned trainer dungeon many times in order to prove the problem and to see if it was subsequently fixed. The poster of the build worked hard with me to fix it (after a bit of convincing that there really was a problem).

Anyhow, there were very good people there.

One other question: I may have to learn to use DOSBox to get these games to run. I used DOS in a very basic way back in the late 80s and early 90s but haven't touched it since, and I think knowing DOSBox well enough to get the games to run the way I want them may take skill I don't quite have. Is there a place I can turn for help with DOSBox? A message board, perhaps?

-edit- Oh hey. I found a much simpler example than MOO2. Skip to the bottom for a better one.

Hah! I have to figure it out every time I use it. If you set your game up right, your shortcut can launch the game without you even seeing dosbox (or having to issue any dosbox commands). A good start would be to look at any old games you have from GOG that have a shortcut. Like I have an MOO2. Properties says the command line is... "D:\DDDgames\goggames\Master of Orion 2\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosboxMOO2.conf" -conf "..\dosboxMOO2_single.conf" -noconsole -c "exit".

Wow that's an impressive list of stuff! The magic happens in the .conf files.

Here's the first bit of dosboxMOO2.conf. Note how everything is commented:

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).
# windowresolution -- Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lowest,lower,normal,higher,highest,pause (when not focussed).
# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.
# usescancodes -- Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=
windowresolution=original
output=overlay
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

I used to set these things up with only a very few lines. GOG has all the options.

-edit- Simpler example is from an old 4x called Ascendancy. Command line from the shortcut is:

D:\DDDgames\Ascendancy\playantag.bat (a simple DOS .bat file) Contents of it are:

@ECHO OFF

CLS

START "" DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe antag.exe -noconsole -fullscreen -exit

EXIT

So all it does is launch dosbox, tells dosbox to run antag.exe, tells it not to open the dosbox console, and display it on fullscreen. That's about it. Some games get more complicated and you need to add a parameter or two if you don't like the way the game is running.

Thanks for the explanation. I was just wondering if there was some kind of message board (or something) dedicated to DOSBox, in case I need more help.

Probably is one. Dunno. I like to plow through things myself, if I can. Dosbox wasn't complicated enough for me to bother with it. I never wanted to learn it. Just to get a game running.