Manage an emperor ruling the Han or Kushan empire. Features deckbuilding, a push-your-luck action system and unique battle board combat resolution. In a new nation surrounded by enemies and debt, you're the president. Can you survive?

Map

• Units may walk across a strait indicated by an arrow.
• A square symbol with an "X" in an area indicates a city may not be built there.
• A boot symbol (see Sardinia) indicates a four corners situation in which areas at opposite corners are not adjacent.
• Highlands stop movement (unless an owned city is present), marshes do not. Both put the attacker at –1.

• A nation gets 1 gold per city and land area owned.
• Submitted nations give half their income to the controlling nation, rounded up. If this puts the controller over 10, they may immediately purchase a unit which only comes on board on their next turn (place it on the coin marker).

• The movement rate is at the bottom right of the counter.
• Units must stop in a highland unless the nation owns the area and it contains a city.
• Leaders increase movement rate by 1 for units that start with them and let them ignore the requirement to stop in a highland.
• Units have to stop upon encountering enemy, but may continue (overrun) by doubling the number of enemy in the area. If a city is present, it's not necessary to double; simply matching the number is sufficient.
• Crossing a strait uses up the unit's entire movement.
• Fleets can carry up to two units per turn (plus any number of leaders). Transported land units cannot perform normal land movement if moved via ship. It's legal to board, have the ship move and then disembark from a different sea. The ship could also have moved before it embarks.

• Limit is considered at the end of movement, but not when placing new units.
• Normal rule: may have at most 2 units in a highland, 3 in a normal area.
• One wholly-owned area can be the capital and exceed this limit by 1. (In the three-player game Romans can never have a capital other than Roma.)
• However, if attacking, may exceed the above limits by 1.
• A friendly leader permits exceeding the limit by 1 more.
• A major invasion permits exceeding the limit by 1 more, thus the maximum possible stack when attacking is the normal limit plus 3.
• In a major invasion, stacking limits are not checked after the first round of combat.
• In a Campaign, there is no limit at all for the campaigning leader.
• When retreating, it's legal to exceed the normal stacking limit by 1.

• To hit, die roll must equal or exceed the number on the right side of the counter.
• When a nation submits voluntarily, it must be attacked by the subjugating power and it must endure at least one round of combat.
• Modifiers to die roll:

  Factor	Modifier
  City	-2 to Attacker
  Leader	+2
  Highland/Marsh	-1 to Attacker
  Naval supremacy*	+1
  Attack over sea or strait	+2 to Defender on first round only

  *Naval supremacy is held by the player who has at least one fleet in an adjacent sea and at least twice as many fleets as the enemy in all adjacent seas. Third party fleets do not count.
  
  
• A roll of 10 is always a hit.
• If there are multiple types of units on a side, the other side must declare which units are targeting which before any die is rolled (attacker first if it applies to both sides).
• When using Elephants every 9-10 result causes a second unit to retreat
• Instead of attacking, may Raid if a city is present. There is a single round of combat. No modifiers are used and attacker tries to pillage the city only and succeeds if at least one 7-10 is achieved. Attacker must then retreat (to sea is okay if fleet capacity available).

• Right after taking over an area may decide to pillage the city, flipping it over and earning 4 gold (or victory points if player card states so).
• May rebuild a pillaged city by burning a unit in the same area after combat (and before checking stacking limits). May not be done by the pillager on the same turn as the pillage.

• Attacker decides whether to retreat first.
• May retreat to either vacant or own areas.
• May retreat onto fleets if capacity available.
• Defender may not retreat to area that attackers came from.

• A nation's fleets may attack another's fleets in the same sea zone.
• Fleet transporting troops receive +1 on the combat roll for each unit carried.
• Non-active players may initiate sea combat. If multiple player wish to do so, they do not combine, but take turns, the one with the most fleets in the area going first. (Decide ties via dice.)

• Except where otherwise stated, points for occupation are given at the end of the general game turn, not at the end of a nation's individual turn.
• Submitted nations receive only half, rounded down, of their victory points for occupation. The other half is lost.
• On the other hand, if, say, a nation would get points for controlling all of Sicily and part of it controlled by its submitted nation, that would count as controlling Sicily.

• When a nation has a campaign, its leader and the forces he began with (no picking up, but drop offs are okay) pay 1 gold to make a move. Then each other nation in the same or adjacent area may may a free reaction move before the combat occurs (in the order listed on the Order of Play chart). This process continues as long as the leader is alive and the player has gold and desire.
• A Reaction move is either to move units from an adjacent area into the battle area (no more than 2 nations per area) or to move units from any one owned space to another space which is either owned, empty or contains both friendly units and those of the campaigning player. It is legal to run away from the campaigning leader.
• Reacting nations don't need to worry about stacking limits until their own turn.
• A campaigning leader can end a round, but not the turn, in the area of a submitted nation.
• A campaigning leader can raid as long as he has an empty area to retreat into.
• The campaigning leader can perform a Block by spending 1 extra gold and burning a unit from the leade's area. He designates an adjacent area whose units may not move. But this same area cannot be blocked two turns in a row.

• During turns 1-9, if at the start of the Romans turn Roma is owned by a nation other than the Romans, they must retreat (eliminated if unable to do so) and the city is automatically rebuilt.
• Hannibal's campaign can be supplemented by as many units as desired from Africa.
• The first time that Romans face elephants in combat, roll a die for each unit. On an 8-10 unit is eliminated. This also happens on the second and third times, but only on a 10.
• No income counts are made on turn 10.

• Foederati may defect to the Ostrogoths or the independent foederati nation if the latter are on the board on a roll of 7-10 (only 9-10 if only Ostrogoths in the area).
• Knights that have received a hit may not retreat and are automatically repaired if they survive the combat. If two knights fight in the same area, the third hit damages the second knight and fourth removes it.
• Twice per game but only once per combat the Patrimonium may cause another player's unit to defect (see the Patrimonium card).

Sample nation card

Also

• Scenario I chart
• Scenario II chart
• Britannia-style games