7 Wonders Board Game – Amazing Set Collection And Drafting

The 7 Wonders board game recently received a 2nd edition with an art update and some balance changes, but the core game remains the same. Our review is written based on the first edition of the game.

What kind of game is the 7 Wonders board game?

The 7 Wonders board game is called a “card drafting tableau” game. I know, mouthful. But what does that mean exactly? Well “card drafting” means a player gets a hand of cards, picks the one they want, then passes those cards to the player next to them, often receiving a new hand of cards from another player. “Tableau building” is a subset of engine building games where the cards (in this case) will go on the table in front of you and build upon each other. The winner is the player that can score the most points through the combination of cards they play throughout the game. That’s essentially the whole game! But let’s get started.

Setup – 7 Wonders Board Game

Firstly, each player has a player board. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, thus the name of the game. Each board has a Dayside (A) and a Nightside (B). On the Dayside, all the wonders have 3 levels, where on the Nightside some have more levels involved. Those will be explained later. There’s also a starting resource in the top-left corner. Each player also receives 2 coins. Then the first epoch begins.

How do you play the seven wonders board game?

The game is separated into three rounds called ages or epochs. Each plays the same but there’s a deck of cards for each epoch. So at the beginning of the game, we take the pack of cards with the big roman number 1 on the back and deal them to the players. The cards are marked at the bottom for how many players there are, so there will always be 7 cards per player.

Now we get to the drafting phase which is the majority of the game. You look at the cards in your hand, pick the card you want to keep, place it face-down in front of you, then pass the rest of the cards in the direction indicated on the back. The first epoch it’s clockwise, the second epoch is counter-clockwise, the third epoch is clockwise again. When everyone has locked in their decision, the cards are played.

This is what it looks like after Round 1

You then pick up the cards that were passed to you, pick a new card, and so on. When you start your turn with two cards, one is chosen and the other discarded. A card can be played in one of three ways, which we call play it, build it, or burn it.

Play it

Each card in the game has a cost in the top-left corner and a reward across the top. If you have the capacity to pay the icons indicated in the top left corner, you can play the card. Note that the cards are not “used up”. They indicate the capacity of your city to produce that resource in the required number. You only need to display the number of icons as listed, not pay them. They don’t go away. You slowly build up the capacity to pay for more expensive cards.

If there’s a name of another card listed next to the cost requirement and you already have that card in your tableau, you can play the card for free. You can never have more than one card of the same name played in front of you, but you can use them for the other actions coming up.

But what if you can’t afford the things in your hand? You can trade with the players to either side of you. Pay them 2 coins for each of their resources you use. They can’t refuse you using it and you can use their resources regardless of whether they used it this turn.

Build it

When building the next stage of your wonder, you slide the card under the allocated space at the bottom of your player board. Whatever is on the card is ignored, instead, the cost to build is printed on the space of the wonder. In the above image, the first stage of Babylon costs two bricks., no matter the card that’s used to build it. Same as with playing a card, you can use a neighbor’s resources to build it by paying them two coins.

Burn it

Discard the card to the center of the table and take 3 coins. There’s probably a fancy name for this, but we just call it “burning the card” like in Poker. This money can be used in future turns to pay for resources when playing or building. It’s also worth points at the end of the game, at a cost of 3 coins per victory point.

The End of an Age

At the end of each epoch we check military power. Some of the cards (the red ones) have military symbols on them. We compare your total number to the players on either side of you. If it’s more than theirs, you receive a military victory. With less than theirs, you receive a military loss. On a tie, nothing happens. The military victories scale based on which epoch it is. For the first it’s 1 victory point, then 3, then 5. The loss is always -1. So theoretically the maximum number of points you can earn over the course of a game is 18, and the least -6.

Military tokens. This is the worst tablecloth for closeups…

Then we deal the cards for the next epoch and off we go again! The first epoch is about building a foundation to work on. In the second epoch the cards become a bit more expensive and there are fewer raw resources (brown) and more refined resources (grey) like glass or textiles. The market cards (yellow) start giving money or even victory points based on what kinds of cards are in play. Many civil buildings (blue) and engineering structures (green) will be paid for by cards from the first epoch.

Ramping it up

The third epoch is where things get interesting. When the deck is shuffled, a certain number of guild cards (purple) are added. They provide victory points based on cards played by you or other players (or both) or how far wonders are built. Often the game is won or lost based on grabbing the right one of these when it comes up. All of them are not in every game so it’s different each time.

Endgame scoring

After the military scoring for the third epoch the final scores are tallied on the handy included scorepad. There’s also a free, third-party app. I’ve scored the game below for demonstration purposes.

• Military (red) points are scored according to the number of tokens collected at the end of each epoch. Wins minus losses.
• Money is 1 victory point for every 3 coins rounding down. There’s no remainder.
• Points awarded by building the wonder on the player board. On the Day (A) side this always totals 10 with the exception of Giza, that’s 15 because that’s their thing.
• Civil (blue) buildings are just straight victory points as printed on the cards.
• Commerce cards (yellow) sometimes give victory points based on cards played by you or other players.
• Guild cards (purple) are all different and have specific icons. Luckily there’s a sheet in the box that explains what they mean, but once you understand the iconography of the game it’s relatively easy to understand.
• Engineering (green) is the tricky one. There are three symbols on the engineering cards. For each of the symbols, you score the number of cards squared. Then you also score 7 victory points for each set of one of each. In the above example, the player had three compasses (9 points), two tablets (4 points), and three cogs (9 points). They also have two sets of all three symbols (14 points) for a total of 36.

And that’s it!

The highest score wins! As you play the game a few times you’ll learn the different card combinations that score well.

The 7 Wonders board game is a great game for larger groups because every player is playing every turn. There’s no downtime. On each turn, there are only a few cards in your hand to consider. Each card can be played, used to build your wonder, or burned for money. The resources you have available are yours, and if money permits, your neighbors on either side.

Military cards only apply to your neighbors so it doesn’t matter what other players are doing, except if you want to take cards so they don’t get them. As soon as your turn is over, you get a new hand of cards and you start the decision making process over again. With seasoned players, it almost takes longer to shuffle the cards than to play the game.

In conclusion – 7 Wonders Board Game

A few minor problems though. The subject matter is a little dry. Ancient wonders don’t appeal to everyone, and for those players, I would recommend Sushi Go Party which is similar in playstyle but has sushi with faces. Also, the first edition box says 2 – 7 players, but that two player mode is the same way that Risk has a two player mode; i.e. a dummy third player that players take turns to play for. It’s not great, however, there’s an entirely separate two-player game called 7 Wonders Duel that does the game justice and is designed from the ground up as a two-player game. For the updated second edition, the player count was updated as 3 – 7, more accurately representing the game.

FAQ

Are 7 Wonders fun?

Yes it is! Especially with bigger groups! Not many games handle five or more players well, but this one does!

What is the best 7 Wonders expansion?

It depends what you’re interested in. If you feel that in the first few rounds you don’t really have anything telling you what you should pick, add Leaders. Want more variety of play? Add Cities, which also adds an 8th player. Want players to work together but get penalized if they don’t contribute? Try Babel.

Is 7 Wonders good with 2 players?

Rather look at 7 Wonders Duel. The first edition of 7 Wonders did have a janky 2 player mode but it’s not worth it. 7 Wonders 2nd Edition doesn’t even have that option.

Is 7 Wonders duel worth it?

It’s strictly a two-player game and it works a little differently. We’ll review it in a separate article in the future and then update this one. But basically, if you’re looking for a game of only two players, then yes get Duel instead.

FAQ – Continued

How long does it take to play 7 Wonders?

Survey says… about an hour! Once you get to know the game it’ll come down to half an hour or even less.

Is 7 Wonders easy to learn?

If I did my job, then after reading this article it should be a matter of scanning the rulebook and you can play!

How can I win 7 Wonders?

The game has a few prevailing strategies that work well, provided players allow you to leverage them without getting in the way. The easiest is getting as many Civic (blue) buildings in the first age so that you can get many of them for free in future ages. A few minor tricks can be employed during play as well. Playing with the Halicarnassus board? Burn that card you can’t afford and then finish the second stage of your wonder to build it for free. There are many levels of strategy that will develop as you play.

Is 7 Wonders a Euro game?

Whoa, we try not to use that kind of language here! But seriously, the fact that there are cards that are not always the same for every game (guild cards) and thus variable information that you don’t have to base your early decisions on, excludes it from most definitions of eurogame. But really though, the argument of Euro vs Ameritrash is very 2006. You’re better than that.

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