History of the World works under the assumptions that all empires eventually fade and that the only things differentiating great empires from lesser ones is how much territory they conquer and how long it takes for their civilizations to disappear. To that end, the game is played in epochs, with every player handling a new empire during each yes, some empires will be stronger than others, but a few clever mechanisms largely balance that out. At the end of each epoch, players score points for all their forces (from the current and previous empires) remaining on the board. - BoardGameGeek