Nippon: Zaibatsu

To set up Nippon: Zaibatsu, place the central game board in the middle of the table, populated with action spaces, regional areas, and demand tracks. Each player receives a player board, a set of worker meeples, initial currency, and starting factory tiles. Resource markers, influence cubes, and contract cards are sorted and placed on their designated board locations to ready the game for play.

The main objective is to build the most successful industrial conglomerate in Japan. Players compete to amass the highest prestige by establishing factories, acquiring raw materials, producing finished goods, shipping products across regions, and fulfilling lucrative government and private contracts.

During a player's turn, they select an action space on the main board, place their workers, and execute the corresponding action. Actions allow players to build new infrastructure, hire or move workers, acquire materials, and manufacture goods. Careful management of worker fatigue and operational costs is crucial for maintaining efficiency.

Scoring happens during designated evaluation phases and at the end of the game. Players earn victory points based on their established industrial network, completed contracts, successful shipments, remaining wealth, and majorities in specific regional development categories.

The game concludes after a predetermined number of rounds or once a specific end-game trigger condition related to the board state is reached. After the final round, a comprehensive end-game scoring phase tallies all remaining points to determine the winner.