Minor princes pit bands of vassals and fickle mercenaries against one another in a struggle to possess the largest and most valuable tracts of land. Later, the princes build and upgrade castles to secure control of their expanding realms. The player whose weaker prince has the strongest, most valuable fiefdom wins. Petty Fiefs is a game for the piecepack played in two phases: Lay of the Land, where players lay out the tiles to make the starting provinces and places the princes and warlord into them; and Contention, where players fight to gain control of the provinces by moving their princes, placing vassals, bidding for control of the warlord, placing mercenaries etc. and then secure control of their provinces by building and upgrading castles. The game ends when there are no uncontrolled provinces and players total up the values of the provinces for each of their princes and the player whose lowest scoring prince has the highest score wins. —description from the publisher