In order to start the campaign you'll need at least four players, but the more the merrier! Once you've got your players together you need to create a map (or you could use the one on the opposite page!). You'll see that each player has their own 'princedom' shown on the map, and that each princedom is subdivided into three territories and a capital. Coastal areas, mountain ranges and areas of wilderness have been added to the map between and around the princedoms. This makes it look attractive, though they have no direct effect on play. The map and the princedoms marked upon it can be of pretty much any size, just so long as the territories within each princedom include enough space to add the important territorial features that are within them (more of which next).

Once you have made up a map with a princedom for each player, it's time to determine what important territorial features he controls. These territorial features represent settlements, geographical features and other resources which constitute the player's empire. These territories are generated randomly from the Territory chart on page 237. As noted earlier, each player also gets a capital, which is in effect a fourth territorial feature already marked on the map. The more territories a player controls, the bigger and better his army will be, and the more varied the types of troops he can field.

The players take it in turn to pick one feature and randomly generate two more. They then mark the territories on the map of their princedom (each territory can have only one feature). We've found it best to mark the features in pencil and then for one player (preferably the most artistically gifted!) to update the map so that all the features are represented in a pleasing manner. The illustration shows our map once the features have been generated and added to it. Notice that in some cases the features 'spill' outside the territory. This is purely decorative and has no effect on play, but it does mean that you don't get odd things like roads or rivers that don't lead anywhere! We've also added names to the important features on the map.