History of the World

History of the World is played on a historical world map divided into lands, seas, and oceans. The setup begins by placing a neutral Sumerian empire on the board, followed by players rolling dice to determine turn order, where the lowest roll goes first. The game spans seven distinct turns called epochs, each represented by a separate deck of empire cards. Players secretly draw or receive cards for the current epoch, choosing which empire they will play based on its strength, starting territory, and special capabilities like navigation.

The core objective is to conquer territories, expand your empire's borders, and score the maximum number of victory points across seven epochs. Players must balance aggressive military expansion with sustainable positioning, as future empires will inherit the board and score points based on past accomplishments as well as current ones.

Each turn begins with players in reverse order of empire strength (least strong to most strong) picking and secretly revealing their chosen empire card. The player places their capital in the designated starting land and distributes strength point markers across adjacent lands. Players can expand into neighboring territories, navigate across permitted sea zones using ships, build fortifications, and initiate combat against enemy forces by rolling dice in battle.

At the end of each turn, players tally victory points using the Victory Point Table, which assigns points for every region where they have presence (at least one land), domination (majority of lands), or total control. Additional points are awarded for holding capitals, cities, and monuments, with certain regions like India and China offering increasing rewards in later epochs.

The game ends after the completion of the seventh epoch. All final regional presence, domination, and capital points are calculated and added to players' running totals. The player with the highest cumulative score wins the world conquest.