Seven Kingdoms

Seven Kingdoms is a Real Time Strategy game, published by Enlight. This game basically puts you into the role of a king of one of the many civilizations offered by the game: Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Norman, Vikings, Mayans or Persians. You build your army, mine and manufacture goods, secure trade routes, expand your kingdom, research technologies and... send spies to your rivals to get information to your enemies or other benefits. There's also monsters named Fryhtans which roamed through the lands that you can kick in the butt and get money for it. And sometimes, it gives out the Scroll of Power, which you can use to call forth your civilization's God/Greater Being.

Later on, there's a patch which includes 3 civilizations, yet the name is still Seven Kingdoms: Egyptians, Mughuls and Zulus. It's then released under the expansion pack 'Ancient Adversaries.

There's also a sequel named Seven Kingdoms 2: Fryhtan Wars. Gone are the Mayans, Mughuls and Zulus... and the naval option that was available in the first game. Enter new Civilizations Celt, Roman, Carthaginian, Indian and Mongol, as well as civilization-specific units (such as Shaolin Monk for Chinese, Ninja for Japanese, etc) and a more close-to-myth Greater Beings (such as Amaterasu for the Japanese instead of the generic 'Mind Turner'). The biggest feature, however, is to play as the Fryhtans themselves, giving off a new gaming experience.

There's also a new game named Seven Kingdoms Conquest. According to sources... it tanked.

Not to be confused with the band.


 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Played with a twist: Cities can hold up to 99 people, forts can hold up to 18 units (whether Infantry or War Machines), but once you reach the capacity, you can just send people off to build a new city or promote a soldier into a General, and begin anew with more forces.
 * Crossover Cosmology: Qi Lin, Isis, Mithra, Amaterasu, Thor... to name a few of the Greater Beings.
 * Deus Ex Machina: By the second game, the Greater Beings can give you unpredictable miracles.
 * Excuse Plot: More like 'Plot? What Plot?': Your empire has been ravaged by civil war and the Frythans, and you must reconquer everything.
 * Fake Difficulty: In the second game, human kingdoms need money to build buildings and war machines, train enemy troops, pay workers, pay maintainence costs for war machines buildings, and hire mercenaries at inns. The only three ways to make money are to tax your towns (which gets you a few pennies), have a mine and factory to manufacture goods to sell, or kill things. Thus if you can't find a clay, iron or copper deposit to build a mine on, you're going to constantly have to send your troops into combat to make money to keep building up your forces.
 * Gods Need Prayer Badly: How to get the Greater Beings' help.
 * Horny Vikings
 * Karma Meter: The reputation meter.
 * Luck-Based Mission: A lot of missions are randomly generated, so victory boils down to being fortunate enough to spawn in the right spot with resources or towns nearby.
 * The Mole: You can train and send them in.
 * Oda Nobunaga: Being one generic Japanese hero unit (so is Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu)
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money: You send spies to enemy fort and you can bribe their generals so they join you. And with enough funds, you can actually purchase an entire enemy kingdom in the second game.
 * Screw the Money, I Have Rules: Failure in bribery (as in, bribing a loyal general with low money) will result your spy getting executed.
 * You Require More Vespene Gas: You can make goods from three different resources (Clay, Iron and Copper), and these resources are finite.
 * Zerg Rush: In the second game, most missions against Fryhtans give you a few minutes breathing room to take your army and settlers, found your opening town or two and build your first couple of forts, before the Fryhtans send almost all their forces down your throat. Survive the opening onslaught and the rest of the mission will be much less hectic.