At the start of the game a player shuffles and deals out all of the cards. Each cards has either a country or a territory on it. When each player receives their cards, they put a soldier on their countries or territories. After they do this, they get a number of soldiers, cavalries and cannons to spread around according to which continent they want to conquer first. Then they hand their cards back and they put them all face-down on top of each other. Then the game starts.