The player must gain enough money to finance a strong army. To achieve this, he trades with goods between towns, whereas he is subject to bandit attacks. Scouts increase his view range to enable avoiding them. On that map the player may also dig for treasures, conquer cities and install troops to defend that town, and later cross the large ocean and visit other islands. Within the game, you control directly only the squadron you are with, the other troops have a defense plan you may chose. The rings can be found by conquering cities, digging for treasure and a sea fight.
Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".