Gameplay generally consists of giving orders to build a city and watching them be carried out by the namesake Settlers, or peasants of your kingdom. It is possible to build extremely elaborate towns. In the later levels, millitary action becomes increasingly important as you travel into the heart of the Red Prince's territory.
Unusually for a RTS, the game has a core cast of Knights: Marcus, Alandra, Elias, Kestral, Hakim and Thordal. These characters function as special units within the game and introduce missions in the briefing room. However, they have surprisingly well-developed personalities as well as unique abilities, and are one of the more entertaining aspects of the game.
This game provides examples of:
- Bilingual Bonus: Quite a few. Most notably, Hakim Abd-Al Sar translates roughly to "Wise One of the Hood".
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Bad guys are red, good guys are blue.
- Comic-Book Time: And how. One level can take you fifty in-game years to complete, but your knights are still as young as ever at the end of it.
- Command & Conquer Economy: Partly averted. You, as monarch, give orders and your Settlers carry them out by themselves. You can't directly control any units except the millitary. You can quite safely walk away from your city and let it look after itself for hours on end if you wish.
- Description Cut: His arrest scene has the Red Prince tell you that you will be forgotten in 300 years. The people will still remember you in just twice that much of a time skip.
- Gameplay Ally Immortality: If one of the Knights reaches zero HP, they will retreat to the castle and respawn in a couple of minutes. This can be be used for both good and evil.
- Large Ham: Thordal. Sabatt also has moments of this, usually when announcing her intention to crush your settlement.
- The Mole: The Knight you play as least will turn against you towards the end of the game. Wikipedia's synposis for the game casts Marcus in the role; in fanon, it's assumed to be Elias.
- No Name Given: The Red Prince. He doesn't get one in fanon either.
- Obviously Evil: The Red Prince and Crimson Sabatt. The names and the outfits kind of give it away.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Crimson Sabatt can travel quite comfortably between Tios in level 11, to Sahir in level 12, back to Vestholm for the cutscene after level 12, and then to Montecito in level 13. And that's just one example.
- Only One Name: Elias, Marcus, Alandra, Kestral and Thordal. Alandra gets a full name in fanon.
- Rags to Riches: Marcus and Kestral were both commoners before receiving their titles.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: In the expansion, The Mole from the original game may be playable depending upon who it was.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Some of the Knights' special abilities, especially Thordal's song.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: And how. The Resource-Gathering, and what you do with the resources afterwards, is essentially the point of the game.
