The Settlers: Rise of an Empire

The Settlers: Rise Of An Empire is the sixth in a series of Real Time Strategy games made by Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2007, the game tells the story of the Darion Empire rising to glory in a war against the Red Prince and his evil kingdom. The expansion pack, The Eastern Realm, released in 2008, introduces a new campaign and new Big Bad, Khana.

Gameplay generally consists of giving orders to build a city and watching them be carried out by the titular 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:

 * Zero Percent Approval Rating: The Red Prince and Crimson Sabatt.
 * Action Girl: Alandra, Kestral and Crimson Sabatt.
 * Anime Hair: Khana's hair is bright green.
 * Annoying Arrows: Averted. Bowmen are deadly.
 * Big Bad: The Red Prince in the orignal; Khana in the expansion.
 * Bilingual Bonus: Quite a few. Most notably, Hakim Abd-Al Sar translates roughly to "Wise One of the Hood".
 * Black Cloak: Hakim is a rare non-villianous example.
 * Blue Blood: It focuses on a group of knights.
 * Blue Eyes: Marcus and Alandra both have them.
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Thordal.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Bad guys are red, good guys are blue.
 * Combat Medic: Alandra.
 * 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 and 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.
 * Cool Horse: The Knights all have them; except Elias, who has a donkey.
 * Dance of Romance: Some of your Settlers will have these when you hold a festival.
 * The Dragon: Crimson Sabatt.
 * Everythings Better With Princesses: Once of the probable reasons for Saraya's introduction in the expansion.
 * Expansion Pack Goes Foreign
 * Five Man Band:
 * The Hero -- Marcus
 * The Lancer -- Kestral
 * The Smart Guy -- Hakim
 * The Big Guy -- Thordal
 * The Chick -- Alandra
 * Sixth Ranger -- Elias
 * 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.
 * Hair Flip: Crimson Sabatt loves doing this.
 * Hair of Gold: Alandra, though you can't see much of it.
 * Impossibly Cool Clothes: Crimson Sabatt can fight and ride in a dress.
 * In the Hood: See Black Cloak above.
 * Kid Appeal Character: Saraya.
 * Knight in Shining Armor: Marcus.
 * Large Ham: Thordal. Sabatt also has moments of this, usually when announcing her intention to crush your settlement.
 * The Mole:
 * No Indoor Voice: Thordal. When combined with Most Annoying Sound above, it's not pretty.
 * No Name Given: The Red Prince. He doesn't get one in fanon either.
 * Norse By Norsewest: Narlind.
 * 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.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: Thordal.
 * Rags to Riches: Marcus and Kestral were both commoners before receiving their titles.
 * Shifting Sand Land: Janub.
 * Shiny Midnight Black: Crimson Sabatt's hair.
 * Sim Sim Salabim: The expansion pack's setting has elements of this.
 * Stop Helping Me: See Most Annoying Sound.
 * 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.