Cool, i will check them out.
I was recommended King of Dragon Pass some time ago, purchased it, tried it, HATED IT.
I have played Neverwinter nights 2 - a very good game, but way, way too complicated - i could not enjoy character development, the best i could do was chose a build i like online and follow it.

In that case King's Bounty should fit most of your needs, but as I mentioned, it involves controlling an army (not that different from the way cards worked in Etherlords 1). There was a demo back in the day, I'm not sure but I think it may still be found somewhere on the net.

I dislike the way AI uses evil eyes and makes my blocking Units go 'poof'' and then still put full attack on my leader - f--ing CHEAT! Yet, if i use evil eyes, there is no option for me to make blocking unit disappear - f--ing cheat.

I can usually handle them easily enough, but i was doing the Synthet assault the castle mission just this week and getting wiped out every time. Then when i finally did win that battle, the 'defeat' screen came up anyway!!! then i remembered i had to go up the middle path!

How i defeated that super evil eyes witch... key spells;

3 x copy spells
2 x cripple spells (wish i had more)
4 x level 1 wheel rider things that drop dead after their turn 3/1
1 x big teeth thing that kills enemy it damaged 8/6
1 x bird things 3/6
3 x level 2 spanner
1 shot of ring of parallelization

Not sure if anything missing?

The main heavy hitter spell being the copy spell.... and even when i end up with more evil eyes than the witch got, she able to vanish my blocking units, while i cannot.... so defense impossible, attack attack attack is the key