Goldener Drache
BGG rank
BGG #21,693
BGG rating
5.8

Goldener Drache

1992

Rules assistance for Goldener Drache

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 2–5 players
  • 30 min
  • 10+
  • Complexity 1.8/5

For 2 players

Rules assistant for Goldener Drache

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Goldener Drache is a board game released in 1992 for 2–5 players, 30 minutes per game, and ages 10 and up. It was designed by Wolfgang Riedesser and its main mechanics are Memory and Action Queue.

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About the game

A clever racing game from Wolfgang Riedesser of Ave Caesar fame. Players navigate flying dragons from North to South to reach the Golden Volcano. You start with a set of wind stones marked N, S, O, W, SO, and SW (Ost is German for East). You get a sloping rack in the shape of a dragon tail and at the start of the game pick the order for your wind stones on your rack, putting one stone underneath your own dragon at its starting position. On your turn, you draw the bottom stone from your rack, place it (in the wind direction indicated) next to a dragon on the board, your dragon or another player's, and move the dragon onto your stone. The stone the dragon had been standing on goes to the top of your rack, to be used again when it rolls down eventually to the bottom. You make three moves per turn and try to put the other dragons into tough situations while making progress with your own. So you generally want to play a North stone to move somebody else and the S, SO, and SW stones for your own dragon -- but there are blocks and corners, so this won't always be possible. The main strategic tip is to try to move the dragons that have been left standing on stones with southward movement so as to get the S stones onto your own rack. You also have two Storm cards (to allow 5 moves instead of 3 on a turn) and two Lightning cards (to prevent another player trying to move your dragon) to deploy during the course of the game. Although the structural underpinnings and the slight benefit of memory might make you think you're going to have a serious, thinking game, Goldener Drache actually plays out as very light and take-thatty for a fun 15 minutes and "Let's do it again!"

Categories

Publishers

  • F.X. Schmid

Questions and answers

Goldener Drache supports 2–5 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.