The city of Rouen is the main French port at the beginning of the XVI century. The City’s wealth is dependent on fishing and trading salted fish. Salt produced in the mines has to be loaded onto ships and used to preserve herring and cod fished in the Atlantic Ocean. Every week ships full of salt barrels leave Rouen for the fishing grounds of the Atlantic Ocean, and, once back, the goods are sold in the city markets.

The players represent City merchants: they invest in ships and City buildings to try to get rich. Who will be the richest merchant of Rouen, when Francis I, King of France, comes to visit the City?