Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars

Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars is a real-time strategy game blending history and fantasy, developed by Enlight and launched in 1999. It follows the original Seven Kingdoms and its enhanced version, Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries. The game stands out for carrying forward key features from earlier titles, including the need to juggle a strong military with a stable economy.

Gameplay

In gameplay, players manage Gold, Food, Reputation, Population, Loyalty, and Espionage, much like in Ancient Adversaries. Human populations can be assigned to tasks such as farming, construction, research, spying, mining, factory work, or military service. The game offers both single-player and multiplayer modes. Single-player includes random map skirmishes, built-in scenarios, and a campaign made up of dynamically generated scenarios.

Civilizations

Twelve human civilizations appear: Normans, Celts, Vikings, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and Mongols. Seven Fryhtan species are also present: Minotauros, Exovum, Kharshuf, Kerassos, Bregma, Grokken, and Ezpinez.

Human kingdoms have unique military units with slightly different stats, as well as distinct gods that grant special powers from "seats of power," which also provide unique bonuses. Differences among basic unit types, seat bonuses, and summonable Greater Beings set each nationality apart. Humans can also build siege weapons like cannons, ballistas, and catapults, which have no combat score and remain equally effective from creation to destruction, though they cost more to build and maintain.

Human kingdoms focus on population, diplomacy, and economy, while Fryhtan kingdoms (called Kwyzans) rely on military units supported by a simple economy, with almost no diplomacy or espionage. Humans can construct many buildings—mines, factories, forts, camps, and war factories—but most Fryhtan species can only build a lair for breeding and one additional structure tied to their unique abilities.

Fryhtans gain gold by enslaving human towns and "life force" by killing units, which is needed to breed more Fryhtans. Human kingdoms often contain multiple nationalities, and Fryhtan kingdoms can include multiple species. Mixing both humans and Fryhtans in one kingdom is possible but tricky, as reputation issues can cause human townspeople to rebel.