Majesty is one of my favorite strategy games; it has all the basic strategy elements, with one major difference.
User Rating: 8.4 | Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim PC
While you still build up a base and an army, a new element is that your units (heroes) can't be directly controlled. Instead, you hire/recruit heroes who do what they want to. Rangers like to explore, Theives like to loot, etc... Though, to a minimal degree, you can control these heroes by erecting reward flags. You can place either an Explore/Attack flag for a little gold to get your units to either Explore or Attack that area. Heroes can also level, get items, and gain new abilities. Thare are quite a few different classes to hire/recruit; ranging from clerics, adepts, to necromancers and druids. A few problems arrive because of these elements. The first, which has probably crossed your mind already, is when you're in trouble, you can't force your Heroes to act on it. This leads to many frustrating moments if you hadn't built your base up right. The second is, and while it might not really be a problem to you, I found it to be a little cheap at some points. Heroes can get powerful FAST, which leads to some incredibly easy missions. In one of mine, (I don't remember the exact character, but she always defended) one of my heroes leveled up quickly and killed anything that entered my base, which made me practically invulnerable. Pretty minor complaints, but that is really just how few problems Majesty has. Since Majesty is so inexpensive now, I would really recommend this game to anyone. 
