The game takes place over the five hundred years of "Spring and Autumn Period" and "Warring States Period" in ancient China, before the power structure of old age undergone total collapse and the world was eventually taken over by the First Emperor of Qin. Before the First Emperor is a euro-style game developed around two core mechanisms of "selective worker placement" and "variable resource generation". Players are provided with multiple paths to victory. In their turn, each player can place workers on one of the 12 action spaces on the main board and perform the corresponding actions, or place them in their own Domain tiles to generate resources. They can also fulfil contracts and use special powers as free actions. After 8 to 10 rounds the game comes to a conclusion. Players sum up points gained from their contracts, Virtue Tracks, Provinces, Fiefs, office buildings and the King's Favours to determine who's the First Emperor.