HD TrailerGame set to release in summer apparently, woohoo! Was worried they completely abandoned it.
Majesty: the Fantasy Kingdom was an unusual game. It wasn't amazingly good or polished, but it was good fun and distinct, and that was enough. You can probably find a download without too much trouble...
As the name implies, you are the ruler of a kingdom. You are first presented with an overworld map sort of thing, where you choose an area (mission), with varying challenge and contents. Plenty of fairytale clichés make an appearance, but it has its own stories as well.
At any rate, after choosing a mission you start out with just a castle in the middle of nowhere (or was it just a few peasants? I don't remember...), and can order buildings built, as with any RTS... However, you don't have direct control of your loyal subjects - they'll defend themselves from monsters they come across, sure, and some types of heroes (attracted by specific buildings, such as Rangers Glade or Wizards Tower - each one is mutually exclusive to another IIRC, so no dwarves and hobnobs in the same kingdom) will take on jobs without being asked.
Rangers will explore, Warriors will patrol, Wizards will study in a library, that sort of thing.
Most of the time you need to assign
bounties to motivate the heroes to do your bidding (explore, defend, attack), and if it's too small for their skills, they'll scoff at and ignore it.
So money makes the world go around, and in fact I believe it was the only resource.
Temples and the Wizard's tower attract spellcasters, but they also provide access to spells you can cast directly, like an explosion occuring where you click, or a select hero benig ressurected - for the right price.
More money.
...I guess I'll stop here, as a description of a game is never as fun as actually playing. Hard to forget that one mission where a [tornado fang]ing dragon attacks you within 5 minutes of the mission starting. Had to get good fast, in some missions.
If nothing else, I can recommend it as a singleplayer strategy game that was actually challenging, but not at all impossible.