Dragon Soul is a medieval-themed war and strategy board game for 2-4 players. It’s inspired by iconic #realtimestrategy video games like Age of Empires.

The goal of Dragon Soul is to expand your kingdom by conquering land and vanquishing enemies. Summon a dragon to help you fight. Each player’s turn is broken down into 3 simple steps:

1. Draw soldier cards or build a new castle.

2. Deploy soldier cards to battalions.

3. Move or attack. 

When battalions duel, the attacker and defender secretly choose a soldier card from their battalion and simultaneously reveal it to each other. It works like Rock Paper Scissors; with each soldier type having their strengths and weaknesses. The goal is to defeat your opponent's entire battalion, removing it from the map.

1 on 1 games typically last about an hour, however some games might be shorter. 2 on 2 or free-for-all games can be closer to two or sometimes three hours.

For the novice gamer, Dragon soul will provide a challenge a bit more than games like risk or monopoly. For the experienced gamer, Dragon Soul will be quite easy to learn.

Dragon Soul board game is a medieval-themed war and strategy board game for 2-4 players. It’s inspired by iconic real-time strategy computer games like Age of Empires and Starcraft, as well as board games like Risk, Settlers of Catan, and with some elements of reading opponents found in games like poker.

The board is modular with many different maps possible, and made up of three hexagon tiles: grass, forest, and dragon boneyards. You build castles on the center of grass tiles, and summon your dragon at a boneyard. There are a maximum of 6 battalions per player that move along the corners and middle of hexes. You can play 1 on 1, free-for-all, or team games (currently up to 4 players.

The goal of Dragon Soul is to expand your kingdom by conquering land and vanquishing enemies. Summon a powerful dragon to help you fight a pivotal battle versus an opponent's battalion that can make or break a game. Depending on the map you choose, the number of castles needed to fulfill the winning condition varies.

Each player’s turn is broken down into 3 simple steps:

1. Development: Draw soldier cards or build a new castle ( battalion must be already on center of grass tile to build)
2. Deployment: Deploy soldier cards to battalions (battalion must be on a castle)
3. Campaign: Move or attack with each battalion in order 1-6

Since players draw cards equal to the number of castles they have, each turn, players must decide whether they want to draw soldier cards or if they want to build a new castle instead of drawing cards that turn. This is a risk they gauge depending on factors such as how far away an enemy battalion is, or what type of cards they have.

When battalions duel, the attacker and defender secretly choose a soldier card from their battalion and simultaneously reveal it to each other. It works like Rock Paper Scissors; with each soldier type having their strengths and weaknesses. There are four cards to choose from (archer, swordsman, knight, and spearman) with different chances of winning depending if you are on offense or defense:

-Archer beats knight and spearman (versus archer defense wins)
-Swordsman beats archer and spearman (versus swordsman offense wins)
-Knight beats swordsman (versus knight offense wins)
-Spearman beats knight (versus spearman defense wins)

 The goal is to defeat your opponent's entire battalion, removing it from the map so you can conquer their castles with your battalions.

Dragons have no effect on castles and are used only to attack battalions. To attack a battalion, the  player with a dragon chooses one side of their coin (flame or claw) while the defending player chooses one side of their battalion coin (ballista or shield). The outcome is as follows:

flame + shield = whole battalion defeated
flame + ballista = dragon defeated
claw + ballista = half battalion defeated
claw + shield = no action

To summon the dragon you will need to draw the rare Soul Stone card. This allows you to enter the center of a dragon boneyard and replace the entire battalion with a dragon. Dragons can move to anywhere on the map but only attack a battalion that is next to it.

When you move your battalion so it is adjacent to an opponent's castle, that castle is no longer usable and is called "contested". This bears three penalties for your opponent:
1. That castle won't yield them a card on their next turn.
2. They can't deploy a battalion to that castle.
3. Their maximum battalion allowance is reduced by 1.

The main strategic element of Dragon Soul is in maneuvering battalions to conquer opponents' castles while protecting yours and build a larger army. The battalion battles are quite simple but there is some strategy, although plenty of luck. The most important decisions you will make revolves around the dragon which typically shows up later in the game.

To win, players must reach the map-specific castle requirement. These castles must be uncontested, and held until the start of the player's next turn.