The realm of Kingsburg is being attack! Monstrous invaders are gathering at the borders, seeking to invade and plunder the realm! Your king has picked you to take charge of a province on the border; you will manage your province and help protect the realm. To accomplish this, you must influence the King's advisors and the Royal Family to gather gold, wood, stones, and soldiers to expand and defend your lands. However, you are not the only governor seeking the help of the advisers! The other players also look to collect the best resources for their own territories.

King Tritus is waiting. Will you be the most influent and powerful governor of the realm?

The game of Kingsburg plays over five years, a total of 20 turns. In every year, there are three production seasons for gathering resources, building structures, and training troops. Every fourth turn is the winter, where all the players must fight an invading army. Each player faces the invaders, so this is not a cooperative game.

The resources to build structures and train troops are gathered by influencing the advisers in the King's Council. Players place their influence dice on members of the Council, and each adviser awards different resources or allocate soldiers, victory points, and other advantages to the player who influenced that adviser for the current turn. The player with the least influence dice sum is the first to select where to spend their influence; this acts as a way of balancing poor dice rolling. Even with an unlucky roll, a clever player can still come out from the Council with a number of resources and/or soldiers.

At the end of five years, the player who best developed their assigned territory and pleased the King the most through the Council wins.

Kingsburg (Second Edition) has six expansion modules for use with the base game.

The new expansion included in this edition, Kingsburg: Expansion Module #6 – Alternate Advisor Rewards, was available by itself for those who have the first edition of Kingsburg.