[Endoperez]

Wouldn't Conquest Of Elysium 2 be a good choice?

Besides being free and having been made by Illwinter, the games can be over relatively fast, but can take very long if he keeps exploring. And there's lots to explore. Including dragons that have taken over gold mines. And sometimes there's a huge, gigantic moose guarding an ancient forest. There might be elephants in the jungle. Vampires in abandoned castles, a graveyard filled with ghosts. Perhaps an eldritch horror in a swamp. Some dwarves living in a mine in the mountains. A king holding his court in a castle.

The mechanics are relatively simple for some nations. Some magicians are more complex. There are necromancers and demonologists, which could end up being embarrassing (my dad's teaching me to summon demons!), but without knowing how to micromanage the resources he's likely to get frustrated with them (I don't want to summon demons! no one likes you if you do that, and then they don't pay their taxes!).

The recruitment screen doesn't have those helpful images that'd let him identify the troops, but the numbers tell him something about the units' quality - 5 for 50, 4 for 50, 10 for 70 and so on.

I don't remember if the AI continuing to play after the player has died has been fixed. That could be troublesome.