"Bidding game for 3-5 players. Each player is an Imperialist Power in the late Nineteenth Century trying to get a piece of China." Each player plays one of five Imperialist Powers: Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan. Each country has a unique special bonus.

The game is played using two shared card decks - the Territory Deck and the Imperial Deck. The game ends when there are no cards left in the Territory Deck. The winner is the player having the most Victory Points, as determined by the combined point total of the Territory Cards in the player's Victory Pile.