I can think of a handful of games that, despite being games that I’ve enjoyed, never really became part of a “genre”. Do you have any like this, and if so, which?
Are they games that you’d like to see another entrant to the genre to? Would you recommend the original game as one to keep playing?
Rise to Ruins is maybe the most-similar game in terms of gameplay that I can think of. You initiate construction of buildings. You have automated characters build them (kind of like Majesty and Settlers). You can upgrade them, and they can provide equipment to characters. It has the same ramping difficulty of attackers. It doesn’t start with a map populated with monster generators the way Majesty does – instead, they show up over time. It has spells. You can build “defensive buildings”. It starts with the map covered with a fog of war. Your colony’s NPCs level up over time. You can put beefy, non-critical structures to act as something like a tank to absorb attacks while your characters make their way over to deal with a threat, kind of like Majesty.
It’s got some major gameplay differences, though:
It’s one of the “unwinnable” games – absent some ways to kinda cheese the game and win, you’re just expected to survive for as long as possible. There’s a – I forget the term, but “corruption” – that spreads around the map, making terrain more-and-more hostile, and eventually overwhelming you. Majesty is about surviving the most-unpleasant bit, but if you can overcome that, you’ll win a round.
No gold economy or NPC incentives. Well, IIRC one can create a “golem attractor” that will tend to make a that particular type of NPCs show up in an area, and you can create structures that NPCs will frequent to tend to make them hang out in a given area.
A strategic map (which some may like).
Survival aspects, like needing water and food.
Path efficiency and building roads and such matters.
The NPCs do get more-durable, but not to the extreme level that they do in Majesty, and they don’t quite work together in the same sorts of ways.
It’s got more of a maze-building tower-defense aspect.