Imperial is a German-style board game designed by Mac Gerdts in which the object is to accumulate wealth in the form of bond holdings in successful countries and cash.

Players take on the role of international financiers who purchase government bonds in the six pre-World War I empires of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia.

The principal bondholder of a nation gains control of its government and can order importation or production of armaments and ships; maneuvering of military units; construction of factories; and taxation.

The players of Imperial are wealthy banking families who surreptitiously control and exploit European governments from behind the scenes.

Money left in a country's treasury at the end of the game does not count toward helping any player win.

In the taxation phase, a country's treasury receives 2M for each unoccupied factory, plus 1M for each tax chip, minus 1M for each military unit.

Players' bond holdings in each country are public knowledge; current cash on hand is allowed to be kept secret.

Each imperial power has a railroad network within its borders by which its armies can rapidly deploy to the battlefield.

[4] A reason is that a player with three armies at his disposal has the alternative of shutting down three factories, which can immediately severely hamper an opponent's ability to raise funds and military units needed for a counterattack.

Another disadvantage of destroying factories is that the three invading armies are lost, and therefore are unavailable to be recalled to defend the home country.

The current bond values are as follows: At the end of the game, victory points are tallied up to determine the winner.

[7] A house rule promulgated by the designer allows a player who controls no countries to collect 1M from the bank if he chooses not to invest when the investor card is activated.

The game is generally regarded as "broken" under this set of rules[citation needed] because a player can have their country bought out from under them in the first turn, and end up sidelined from the action before he has even had a chance to act.

The advanced rules call for a series of opportunities for each player in rotating order to purchase one bond of any available value from each country at the start of the game; a player can still end up in a situation where they control no countries, but is less likely and presumably involves an error in the initial bidding.

The playable countries are Russia, China, India, Brazil, the United States, and Europe (i.e. the European Union).