Be the last player who has not gone bankrupt. Play runs from 1933 to 1945; after that the historical deck stops, and what follows is a slow ruined recovery that lasts until one player is left.

RM is ordinary money and holds its value. MEFO is government credit. It is redeemed at the Reichsbank rate, which starts at 1.50 RM per MEFO in 1933 and falls to almost nothing by 1945. A player can be enormously rich in MEFO and unable to pay a bombing bill.

Roll, move, resolve the space, buy if you wish, and draw a modifier card for anything you bought. Doubles let you roll again; three in a row sends you to detention.

Your whole portfolio pays out every round: military property pays MEFO, civilian and infrastructure pay RM, political property pays Political Power. Income therefore arrives on the same clock as bombing, so you can see directly whether a property still pays for itself.

Passing GO pays a 120 RM salary on top.

There are only two places to turn bills into money, and you choose between them.

Passing GO puts you at the window: cash all, cash half, or hold, at the posted rate. The two Reichsbank spaces are the counter proper and pay the posted rate plus 0.20 — but you have to land on one.

So every lap asks the same question. Cash now at the posted rate, or carry the bills and hope to reach a counter before the year turns and the rate falls? The prompt shows you next year's rate so the gamble is an informed one. Early, when the rate holds steady, carrying costs you little. By 1943 it falls faster than any counter can make up.

There is no way to cash bills from anywhere else — if you are ruined while holding them, they are sold off automatically to cover what you owe.

Each property carries exactly one modifier card, drawn when it is bought and redrawn if it changes hands. Fixed Government Contract locks that property to a 0.50 redemption rate — dreadful in 1933, excellent in 1944. Wartime Conversion turns a civilian plant over to MEFO from 1939.

From 1940, raids charge every player a fixed sum per property owned: every 5 rounds at 20 RM in 1940, rising to every round at 140 RM in 1945. A large empire earns more and costs more to keep alive. The raids stop with the surrender in 1945.

From 1946 the bombers are gone, but what is left is a ruin. MEFO is worth nothing at all, there is no state left to honour it, so anything you were still holding is a dead loss. All output is halved. Armaments plants reconvert to civilian goods and start paying RM instead of MEFO, and ruined property changes hands at half price, so a wrecked empire is worth rebuilding even if a pile of bills is not. Anything that would still pay you in MEFO is sold for scrap at 0.30 instead of piling up unusable, but MEFO you were already holding when the regime fell is simply lost, which is the whole point of converting in time.

Against that stands the occupation levy, rationing, requisitions and the cost of being occupied. Every surviving player pays it every round, including anyone sitting in a cell, and it climbs every year: 25 RM in 1946, 60 in 1948, 100 in 1950, 130 in 1952 and rising. You can rebuild, but never quite fast enough.

Political Power comes from political and landmark property, modifiers, events and the Parteitag space. With 20 Political Power and 750 RM you may seize the position of Führer (Unless you're an anarchist). The position gives +15% income and −30% bombing costs, against 20 RM every round you hold it, and a Führer card drawn every lap that may enrich or ruin you. Anyone with 5 more Political Power than the current Führer can depose them. Holding the position is not a win condition.

The longest lasting Führer will have to pay higher post-war reparations

Until the regime falls, whoever holds power is the Führer, whatever their politics, the office described above, and nothing more. From 1946 the office is named for its holder instead (A Communist or a Socialist rules as General Secretary, a Capitalist as Chancellor, the Wehrmacht as General, the Regime Aligned as Werwolf, and a Strasserist as Führer)

Until 1946 the country has one leader. The claims open only once the bombing has stopped, so nobody is handed a postwar office just in time to be bombed for holding it. From 1946 there are three separate contests, each returning one leader at a time, so up to three rivals hold power at once:

• Communist vs Socialist -> the General Secretaryship

• Strasserist vs Capitalist -> the Führership or Chancellery

• Regime Aligned vs Wehrmacht -> the Werwolf or the General

Holding office no longer costs Political Power. Each office has its own terms instead:

• General Secretary — seizes any property it lands on with a roll of 6, and pays Soviet reparations every round. If a Communist holds it, the Capitalist's three advantages are reversed against them for as long as it lasts: property costs 10% more, RM income falls 10%, and MEFO redeems 5% worse.

• Führer (Strasserist) — seizes on a 6, and pursues the 25-point Programme once a lap: on a 5 or 6 it nationalises the largest owner's best plant.

• Chancellor — pays the cost of reconstruction every round.

• General — the owner of any property it lands on is requisitioned for its full sale value.

• Werwolf — raids the property it lands on: a 1 and the raid is caught and its leader detained, a 6 and the property is taken outright, anything else robs the owner of half its sale value.

A Strasserist who takes power after 1945 rules as Führer (The old regime's title, and its methods, in a country that has had enough of both.) While he holds that office, every double he rolls is an attempt on his life that he survives at a cost of 100 RM, and two doubles in a row is one that succeeds: he is killed outright, with no bailout and no detention.

This is the price of the office, not of the politics. A Strasserist who never claims it is never a target, and nobody is assassinated before 1946 — while the regime that invented the title is still standing, its Führer is whoever holds power, whatever their politics. Every other role is merely sent to the cells on a third double.

Short of cash, you redeem MEFO automatically, then sell property to the bank at 60% of listed price up to 1945, but only 35% from 1946 (When there is nobody left who wants ruined property.) Beyond that the state bails you out with 600 RM and restricts you to one die for 8 turns. A second bailout lands you in Gestapo Detention, where you need a double six to leave. A third failure is bankruptcy.

The same collapse cuts both ways: from 1946 property is bought at 60% of list and sold back at 35%

2,800 RM, far beyond any starting fortune, and commissioned directly from your holdings panel rather than by landing on it. It lifts your entire empire's income by 10% and pays heavily in Political Power. It is bombed like everything else.