Review of Seven Wonders

Last night was magic nerd club and I played two games of 7 wonders and one game of Ra.  So I thought I'd talk about those games – and see what good design there is in them – and what I like.

I own 7 wonders, and when I first played it I was super impressed by it, but since then I've found myself falling in and out of love with it and I'm not quite sure why.

Quick sum of the game mechanics – you get a hand of cards, you play one, you pass the hand round – repeat 6 times –that’s' the end of an era.  3 era's and games over.  Last night saw 4 people play a game in 30 minutes – although they were cracking along – and scoring took a while.

A lot of cards require money or access to resources to play - either your own resources or you can buy access to next doors resources at a cost – or if a building 'leads on' from another one you can build it without costs (so an altar leads to a temple and a temple leads to Pantheon). 

Cards either give you resources, or money (often based on the cards you have in play), or produce military strength – which gets you VP's by beating up your neighbours, or provide VP's either a flat amount or by collecting sets of science cards, or some bonus based around.  You can also dump cards – either to get a small amount of money or to build a stage of your wonder (if you can meet the requirements).  Everybody's wonder is different – and provides a set of unique bonus – for example the Pyramids just offer vp's while the hanging gardens of Babylon offer bonus science.

What's good about seven wonders?  Well firstly the whole passing cards around is interesting – what do you pass around? What do you need out of this hand?  And it can be heartbreaking when you see three or four good ones in a single hand.  And when there's a bad hand with nothing you want – a different choice "what can I bury?"

Then there's the neighbours thing – your game shrinks in many ways to the person to the left and right.  What's likely to come your way – what must never be passed on.  Which feeds into the next thing – speed and scalability.

Card – play – resolve – pass on – all simultaneously that's how the game plays.  The game rockets along with very little down time and the game does not seem to take much longer with three or with seven players…..

It's also pretty simple – which is no mean feat for a game with seven resources – and yet deep enough – your grand strategy can really make a difference and playing to the strengths of your wonder matters.  You also need to track the people around you – what are they up to – so it's not isolated "I play my solo game – you play yours"?

So what's the downsides?  Well in large games you only ever seen a hand of cards once – and that takes a lot of the strategy out of it.  Equally well the games makes your game shrink to your neighbours – you really need to keep a wider eye then that – at least if your pursuing science and military.  It can be oddly frustrating – as sometimes – the choices of your neighbours just stop you doing anything at all.

And while – how well you pursue your grand strategy determines who wins- sometimes it feels like your don't have a lot of choice about that.  Bad cards are bad cards – and your neighbours choices can utterly make or break your game.

Scoring can be a bit tedious and long winded – but that's the price you pay for not having had to sort that out at all during the game.

Overall - highly recommended game – good design with unique elements - well balanced, well play tested, and with a good element of fun.  Not a family game I think – although it sits roughly on the boundary of what I consider family suitable play.

Ra - will just have to wait till another day.