Based on game play mechanics Empires seems to be the precursor to games like Risk. From the rules: Empires is played on a world map; the individual players representing "Powers" which include; the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan. The object is for one player to establish a World Empire and eliminate all other players from the game. Parts include 6 pawns representing each country, 20 Markers for each player, 48 resource cards and 48 armament cards with values of 1 or 5 representing Air, Navy and Army units. Players start in the start box and move from point to point around the world map, landing on free territories (gaining a resource card), colonies (placing a marker to control and taking resources) and blockades (if owned then 2 resources are owned to the controlling player). Resources can be converted into armaments, 3 resources for 1 randomly drawn armament. Once all colonies are taken a colonial war begins and as players land on opposing colonies they may choose an armament class and announce an attack. The player with the highest strength wins the battle and takes the colony. If he loses he loses resources equal to the colonies values. The final stage is total war when all armaments are gone. The first player back to start challenges the other players to war and compares values for all armaments, winner take all. Last man standing wins.