7 Wonders Board Game - Lead Your Civilization to Prosperity! Strategy Game for Kids and Adults, Ages 10+, 3-7 Players, 30 Minute Playtime, Made by Repos Production

This is an amazing game. It's rare that I've found a game that is so easily learned, with such depth of play options and balance. The base mechanics are simple. You are card drafting - each player starts with a hand of cards, chooses one to keep, pass the rest on to the rest of the players. The card you keep can either be purchased and played (each card has a cost), discarded for money, or used to build one of your cities wonders. Victory points are the main goal, gather more than anyone else to win. How do you get them? It's all in the cards: You sit in a circle with your opponents. Your direct neighbors (the person on your left, and the person on your right) are going to be your friends and enemies, and the only people you'll interact with directly. You start the game producing a single resource. You can draft resource cards to produce more, and you can purchase any of the resources your direct neighbors produce. They can't stop you from buying them, but it doesn't limit those resources from being used by that player. There are three rounds (Ages) of drafting. - Brown cards are basic resources (many are free) - Silver cards are advanced resources (used for buying later, more advanced cards) - Blue cards are straight victory points - Red cards are war cards, allowing you to battle your direct neighbors (one battle per Age, most red card values win) - Yellow cards have special benefits such as making it cheaper to buy resources from your neighbors - Green cards have one of three symbols; you will score victory points based off of how BOTH how many of each type of symbol you have (# of cards with a specific symbol SQUARED) as well as how many sets you have (a set consists of 1 of each type of symbol, and is worth 7 points) - Purple cards are late game cards that will usually conditionally help gain victory points. For example, there's one which will give you a victory point for each brown card that you and each of your neighbors has. It might sound like a lot of information to take in (even though I'm leaving many details out), but the game is deliberately paced and allows the players to pick things up as you play. By the end of the first round of drafting (the first Age), most players will have fully grasped what's going on and will be able to develop their own strategies. I've played with a LOT of beginner to intermediate players (many who refuse to go much beyond the likes of a game of Sorry) who have easily picked up the game and now really enjoy it. I can't recommend this highly enough for your gaming group! And the expansions just add additional depth and strategies, making the game more fun.

Intro: I had heard the hype over this game, but until I played it I wasn't sure what the big deal was. Wow, was I surprised! This game was not only easy to learn, but it had just the right mix of luck-of-the-draw and strategic choices without making it overly complicated. Gameplay Summary: In 7 wonders, players are attempting to earn victory points by completing stages of their wonder, erecting commercial and scientific buildings, gathering resources, and establishing guilds and cultural sites. At the start, players are randomly dealt a card to determine what their city will be and what wonder they will be building. The game is divided up into three ages, each of which has a corresponding deck of cards, the size of which is determined by the number of players. In each age, the deck is shuffled and dealt out to all players evenly until exhausted. The players then decide which card in their deck to use in their city and then pass the deck to the player to their left or right, depending on the age. This continues until the last two cards remain in the deck. Then the player chooses which card to use and the last card is discarded. This occurs for all three age decks. The cards the players decide to use will depend heavily on what's available to them that round, what resources they have available to be able to build the structure, and what their overall development goals are. Players can decide to build commercial structures, which give them bonuses to trade with neighboring cities, scientific buildings, which allow them to gather science icons (sets and runs earn big points), civilian structures, which directly contribute victory points, basic and advanced resource cards, military structures, and guilds. Players can also use the cards they choose to build sections of their city's wonder, usually granting them special abilities, coin, or victory points. Cards played in an earlier era can be used to build more advanced structures in later eras, which brings out the theme of city-state development and advancement. At the end of the third age, all points from the player's structures, treasury, and wonder are summed and the player with the most points wins. It's that simple. Recommendation: I've played this game three times thus far and every time is different. The randomization of the cards makes replayability high and the differences in wonders (and their bonuses) can certainly affect your overall strategy. The theme is strong and the synergy among buildings of different ages adds depth to gameplay. Your choices in the earlier ages can have a major impact on what you can do in the last age, where all the big points are made. This is one of the best civ-builders-in-a-card-game I've ever played. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a rich, uncomplicated "empire builder" that can be played in a short period of time.

Excellent turn-based card game. Very fast paced. Great for 2-7 people (recommend starting with at least 3 people, as the 2 player version is somewhat more complicated) and would imagine it's great for interested kids, though I cannot verify it. Since we got it, I haven't wanted to put it down. The game is quick and can be completed in less than 30 minutes with 3 people. It took us over an hour the first time as none of us had played. For reference, my favorite games include Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan. Some of this review is meant to be instructional, because truly the only drawback I can find in this game is the poorly worded, overly complicated instruction manual. This is a turn-based card game played to accrue points, which are tallied at game completion. Although it is called "7 Wonders," building a wonder is only a small portion of the game. Other important facets of the game include: resource production and commerce, military conflict with immediate neighboring cities, playing point and science cards, and strategy. As there are many ways to score points, each player may have a specific way they try to score the most. Each player is dealt a game board or city, around which they place cards that become part of their town. There are three different decks of cards, which are numbered I, II and III, and referred to as ages. The game starts when the first deck of cards (appropriately parsed for the number of players) is dealt. Simultaneously, players play their cards and pass the remainder to their neighboring players. You have three options when playing a card: adding the card to your city, putting the card in the discard pile and receiving coins in exchange, and building a stage of your wonder (which must be done in order, but at any point throughout the game). Card basics. Cards are free or have a cost to play (upper left corner). You either need to have the resources or coinage available to pay the cost, or be able to buy the resources from one of your immediately neighboring cities. Cards have a value when played, either military, resource production, trade (discount cards), etc.. Cards stay in your city the entire game. Resource basics (because I found this to be confusing). There are basic material resource in the game, including wood and clay. Your city produces one unit of resource per turn (upper left corner of the game board). The resources do not accumulate if you don't use them on a turn and cannot be stored in any way. You can acquire more resources by playing cards which produce them or buying them from your immediate neighbors. Some cards will cost multiple of a single resource to play, so you either must produce that many of that resource per turn, or buy from your neighbor who produces that resource. For example, say a card costs 3 units of X resource and 2 units of Y resource. Your town has a production of 2 units of X resource (one from your game board and one from a resource cad) and 2 unit of Y resource. To play the card, you must purchase 1 more unit of X resource from your neighbors, but ONLY if the produce it. At the end of each age or deck of cards, you settle your military disputes with neighboring cities (who has the biggest army). Then the next deck is dealt and the process completes. At the end of the game, the score is tallied and whoever has the most points wins. Scoring is relatively straight forward. A few key points. 3 coins = 1 victory point. Green-backed (science) cards are scored in an exponential fashion with additional bonus for having complete sets of three -- check out the instructions for the diagram. Good luck and have fun!

7 Wonders is a game that doesn't take very long to learn and playing the game takes between 30 and 50 minutes depending on the number of players and whether or not the players have played before. It's got a limited number of rounds which keeps the games relatively short and while the rules may seem somewhat overwhelming at first glance, they're really quite easy to learn. I only takes one or two times through the game to understand all the basics and begin working on strategies for winning. That's the part of this game I love the most - there are so many different strategies to win that could work you can try something different each time. Indeed the same strategy will not always work game after game so you need to learn to adapt your strategy to the game and the players at hand. One thing about this game that isn't made very clear is that it's designed for at least three players. While there is a two player variation it's considered an "advanced" game because the two players will take turns playing for a non-existent third player with some special rules as to who makes the choices for that "player", how cards are to be handled and what-not. It's not that much harder, but this is certainly a game that's more fun with at least three people. That said, you would be missing out to skip over this game simply because most of the time you'd only be playing with two players -- it's still a very fun game with two players. I have also played the Leaders expansion of this game which adds an entirely new dimension to the game and makes it a bit more complicated but also a lot more fun. One of the best things about 7 Wonders is because of the way the game is scored and won (adding up victory points collected in over half a dozen different ways) it's nearly impossible to tell who's wining at any given moment which means the competition never lets down. I would compare this game lightly to Dominion in that both are deck-building games. In Dominion you purchase cards from the market to build up your deck while in 7 Wonders you select one card from the hand of cards passed to you, play it, and pass your hand on so what's left is only the cards you've selected and played from the cards circling all the players. Both games are fairly quick and have lots of replay value. 7 Wonders does a better job of retaining the mystery of who's likely to win until the scores are tallied at the end and both games are fairly easy to learn even for older children (I played with my 12 year-old nephew and he picked up on it right away and wanted to keep playing after several games). If you enjoy strategy board games then this one should be in your collection. It plays up to 7 players and the more the merrier. If you've played 7 Wonders and enjoy the game I'd suggest you consider add the Leaders expansion to add another dimension of strategy to the game. Rating rationale: Durability - 3 stars because there are lots of small cardboard pieces (coins, home boards) and cards which probably wouldn't stand up too well if doused with water. Nylon card sleeve are appropriate for the deck of cards Educational value - 3 stars because while it will help teach strategy it is non an educational toy per se.

My wife loves this game. Perhaps because she won every time she played until just recently. And who beat her? Me! I’ll give you her tips when I tell you what to do since I employed them to secure victory, and she tried something different. Let that be a lesson to you: never branch out. Never try anything new, or you will suffer. This is a “drafting” game. I hesitate to tell you this since you might take your reading business elsewhere, but I only call it a drafting game because I’ve heard other’s call it that and they sounded real authoritative, so I believed them, and as I explain you’ll say, of course it’s a drafting game- you dolt. Anyway, this game gets me groaning at my own choices early in the game and I keep groaning throughout the game. But don’t get me wrong, I love playing the game and am thrilled when someone accepts my invite to play. Game Play You get 7 small double-sided gorgeously illustrated boards that you use to track completion of your wonder. There are three decks of similarly illustrated cards (one for each age.) You’ve got to fish out the cards that aren’t needed for the number of players fewer than sever that are playing. At the beginning of each age you deal out all the cards. Each person selects a card from their hand to play then passes their hand to their neighbor. You keep selecting (I mean, drafting) one from a new hand each round until there are only two left in the hand and the last one get discarded. Do this twice again and the game is over. There’s three things you can do with the drafted card: Keep the card for yourself- if you can pay the cost- some are free- you play the card in front of you- these usually help you score points one way or another. Discard it for money- an especially good idea if you are poor and it’s costing you and the card you discard is one your neighbor would like Build a stage of your wonder- that small board in front of you has spaces for cards to slide under them that represent a stage of your wonder you’ve completed. The cost you have to pay is on the board (ignore the cost on the card- try to use one your neighbor would like.) Speaking of neighbors, it matters who you are next to. If you don’t have a resource needed to pay the cost of a card? If you have some money, you can buy from your neighbor- and buying their doesn’t keep them from using it themselves- they want you to use there because they get your money. But you can only buy from your immediate neighbors (player on either side of you.) Also, some of the cards give you military presence. I use that word because you never march troops anywhere, but you get points at the end of each age if your military is more intimidating than your neighbors. So the war-monger across the table that doesn’t matter so long as you have buffer states between you. While this strategy wasn’t sound for France in World War II, it is in this game… I think that’s because the maker is French. I hate to tell you what to do but… My wife pointed out to- and I always listen when she points things out- that resources are available in the first two ages- these are what you use to pay the cost of cards or phases of your wonder (Incidentally, I’ve never seen my wife develop any stage of her wonder.) You will kick yourself if you don’t have resources to buy things late in the second and throughout third age. The Third age could profitably be focused on getting cards that get you the most points. It’s something you can do in your head. “Hrmmm… this one is worth 6 to me and that one is worth 9.” My downfall is I think , “Yeah but, even though this one is only worth one, if I got another it would be worth 7!” Think Kyle, two cards to get 7 points, one card to get 6, maybe that second card will also get you 6. “ Oh… yeah, good call.” Theme Personally, I don’t get pulled into the theme of cracking the whips that would be required to erect my wonder, despite the eye-candy artwork. I don’t even get pulled into the idea that I’m making a barracks or a laboratory, all I’m concerned about is the count of symbols at the top of the card. I’m very concerned about the symbols. Balance This game the score isn’t tracked through the game, though you could get a good idea about someone’s score by looking over their board long enough- and be annoying to the rest of the players because it takes some doing. All that to say that you don’t have an exact idea of who is winning throughout the game. You know your neighbor is a war-monger, but you know your scientific cards can answer the points they are racking up if only you could get one more tablet! All that to say, My wife, who nearly always wins, never felt like she was going to until everything was counted up. Also curious about the game is resource management as it relates to balance. While it would sure be nice to have enough resources to build some of the buildings in the last age, most are tremendously costly and you can make up for your national economies grand deficiencies not only by buying from your neighbor, but there are free upgrade paths as well. Say you get a altar in the first age, you can get the temple in the second age for free! Each card tells you what cards shortcut the cost of it, and what costs it will shortcut for you in the future. Interaction Interaction is medium. I say that because I don’t think the “Everyone chosen a card?” counts, but maybe I need to think of introverts taking baby steps. Towards the end of each age- leading up to the military comparison- accusations of war mongering escalate. But I do more talking to myself and occasional barb to the person next to me taking the cards I wanted. Sometimes I tell someone to use a science card my wife wants before they pass her the hand, but I face swift retribution. Learning Curve Medium. I say that because of the multiple ways of scoring points. Until you finish and score a game it could be difficult to conceptualize how your choices will affect the score at the end. These leads to me lamenting, “Ooooh, I see that I could have won the game. How could I have been so careless?” To which my wife compassionately responds, “Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.” Downtime Downtime is nominal because everyone takes turns at the same time. The downtime happens when the person you’d never take to Baskin Robins can’t choose between the 8 to 2 cards in his/her hand. I guess you deserve a little down time if you invite them to play this game with you. Speaking of baby steps, the indecisive will never get better if they don’t practice, so if you invite them, my hats off to you, but in the long run, the clerk as Baskin Robbins may thank you. Otherwise, it’s a very fast moving game. I have watched it be very difficult for someone with a 6 year old try to “help” them play. That was brutal. And don’t be passing a partial hand even though you know you don’t want to choose those cards. Talk about a mess to try to straighten out. What’s not to Like? I’m a prude. I confess. And I took a permanent marker to a couple of the cards. There was some of that going on in the Expansion too. But otherwise, I really like this game. Collateral Endorsement I have not tried to break this out for my kids. I want to keep the cards nice. I have been training them with other card games though. My little two year old now waits for the dealer to be done before she picks up her hand, but I digress. I did take this on vacation with me and was playing in the hotel lobby and a complete stranger asked if they could play. Something about the game caught their eye, and who can blame them? One other thought It’s taken me some time to decide why I’m so bad at this game. No, it can’t be because so many of my opponents are superior to me, it just can’t! I think it has to do with not being able to see the whole picture. That is to say, I do very well playing Puerto Rico because I can see all the available options for each player and can guess what I would do if I were in their shoes and can make plans accordingly. In this game, I see only one hand at a time. I can’t see one of my neighbor’s hand and know, oh, they are going to get that military card. Or, maybe this game I’ll let the science cards go since so many are going to ge gobbled up before I ever see them. This is not a complaint, just an observation of how the mechanics work.

7 Wonders is a game of trying to maximize synergistic effects without knowing for sure what opportunities you'll have up front. You need to strike a balance between securing resources to build more valuable structures later vs. putting more directly useful structures into play sooner. It has a variety of methods to score victory points that you'll have to mix to some extent in order to win. Some examples: - The straightforward "government" path, where you simply build structures that are worth a fixed point value - The "military" path, where you try to outrace your immediate neighbors in arms investment (by as slim a margin as possible to avoid waste) - The "science" path, which, fittingly, involves some light math based on how many of each of three types of learning facilities you build - The "builder" path, where you gain VPs from constructing your wonder (different wonders grant different VPs and other benefits) - The "miser" path, where you earn VPs for accumulated coin - ...and various other cards that give you victory points based on your (or your neighbors') other cards in play. As you can see, there is a lot of potential variety in strategies, and it's difficult to impossible to win by simply "maxing out" a single category and punting on the rest. It's also risky to go in with a rigid set strategy, since the "drafting" mechanic (each player plays a card, then passes their hand along) introduces some uncertainty about what building opportunities you'll have. For instance, you can't necessarily count on being able to one-up your neighbors in military construction on the last turn of a round ("age"), because you may not be passed any military cards. You may not be able to go heavy on science because your neighbor is doing the same thing and vacuuming up most of those structures before they get to you. The cards include some intimidating iconography at first, but it doesn't take very long to pick up the mechanics of the game. It moves quickly, since every player takes their turn simultaneously, though it relies somewhat on the honor system to make sure everyone has the appropriate resources and pays the appropriate amounts to build their structures-- nobody is going to spend the time to audit their neighbors. There are two primary drawbacks I've seen in the few games I've been able to play so far: 1. The game takes up a lot of space per player. While many cards can largely overlap, you'll likely have separate piles for resources, government cards, science cards (possibly a pile for each of three types), guilds, and more, depending on your organizational inclinations. You'll also have a "wonder" board that takes up a fair amount of space. The cards themselves are quite large, much bigger than standard playing cards. Plan on a big table if you're going to have a lot of players-- we felt cramped with six players on a roughly 4'x6' table, and I had to deal each round onto the game box in my lap, since there wasn't any table space to toss the cards. 2. You have to extract cards from the decks before each game (or session). First, you need to remove all the cards for group sizes larger than the one you're playing with, since each of the three decks needs to have 7x[# players] cards in it. The cards are labeled with the minimum group size on it, so our group of six had to go through the decks and remove all the "7+" cards. You also need to find all the purple "Guild" cards from the Age III deck and select a certain number of them for use in each game, and the selection should be randomized every game. This is admittedly a minor inconvenience, though an annoyance nonetheless. These issues aside, this game was a hit with our gaming group. Everyone liked it to one degree or another, and several openly considered buying their own copy. Once everyone has picked up the rules (and everyone was quite comfortable after one game), it moves quickly, and rarely does the outcome of a game appear to be a foregone conclusion.

While there seems to be a hundred new card games to choose from, 7 Wonders often comes up on the top of the list. That's because it is a game that can fit into many places. Perhaps the most common reason is it plays well anywhere between 2 and 7 people. I've only played with 3, but I can see how it it would. The main part of the game is choosing what cards to play from your hand. However, after you play a card, you pass your hand to a neighbor (on both sides), which creates the dilemma. You must weigh the choice of a card that helps you, or keeping a card that helps your neighbor. I found this quite fun, and if there were more people, I think it only means that there would be several 3-player games happening concurrently. The games themselves play fast, about 45 minutes for your first game, and less then 30 after you get it. The extra time isn't from describing how to play the game, its from describing the symbols on the cards and how they score. Once you understand them, they do make sense, but the first few games involve a frequent review of the symbol chart to see what each of them mean. As different sets of cards score different points at the end, I could see this part being a little frustrating for a new player in a group of veterans. You feel like others know tricks that get them more points. However, I found games ended really close, and the obvious ways to get points in the middle of the game can give people a big lead. Gambling for a special collection of cards at the end might let some catch up, but it often falls one or two cards short. I think this "one card away from winning" makes people want to play it more, and the short play time and flexibility of players handles any changes in rematches. I would highly recommend 7 Wonders. It's a quick game that's a lot of fun. It's easy to teach, and has several ways to win, which makes people want to play again and again.

Confession of a board game addict: I can't put 7 Wonders down. The time estimate of 30 minutes for this game is fairly accurate for a 3 player game, I can easily imagine a 7 player game stretching out to 45 minutes. Either way, that makes it a much easier choice than most of its peers, which average 2 hours and beyond. 7 Wonders has an excellent depth of strategy that should satisfy all ages, yet it can be played (once familiar with the rules) at a fairly brisk pace, which creates a good mix of fast paced excitement and deep thought. With that, let's get into the Pros and Cons: Pros: Time Requirement - As above, probably the aspect that contributes the most to this game's widespread appeal. Depth - Striking the right balance between military, commerce, science, cultural and resource development is extremely complex - and the "right" balance changes constantly as you react to your opponents' plans. Materials - I think the comments about the durability of the cards are overstated. I don't believe they are any more or less durable than a standard deck of playing cards. The wonder boards are very sturdy, and the built in card storage decks are a nice touch as well. Also appreciate the thick stack of scoring pads included. Innovation - the free building rule adds an interesting twist to the strategy that rewards players for focusing on a particular type of development (military, commerce, science, cultural) - an option that adds a certain "race to the finish" aspect and prevents the balanced approach from being the only successful one. Cons: THE RULE BOOK - is very poorly written, as attested to by the ample amount of "oops, we have been playing it wrong" threads that a quick Google search of reveals. Some will no doubt appreciate the very succint rule book, and handy reference sheets - but the fact remains that it is very easy to miss key rules of the game because they are hidden in a footnote on an illustration, or not included in the main rules at all, but only on the card description sheet. I had to re-read the rule book (and additional sheets) multiple times before I (think) corrected all the errors we were making. I for one would have appreciated a longer, but more thorough rule book that explains the rules in detail, though I'm sure this was done intentionally as there is a significant market share that finds larger rule books daunting. Add-ons - the Leaders expansion (a separate product) doesn't really add much to the game other than unnecessary complexity in my opinion. On the other hand, the game didn't need an expansion to begin with. Pick 7 Wonders up without reservation - it's a blast. Add on Leaders if you feel like it, but it's hardly necessary to enjoy the game.

Recommended to us, and found it very enjoyable. Will consider expansions.

Bought this game for the family for Xmas and within days we had played over a dozen times. It's a bit complicated to learn so I would recommend watching some of the YouTube videos out on the internet that will get you understanding how to play in about twenty minutes. Having said that we have two boys aged 10 and 11 and neither had any trouble grasping it. Once you know how to play the complexity is well worth it - so many different strategies and game plays that no game is the same. It's a deck building game based on different wonders you select at the outset of the game. We really enjoyed that each game only takes 20 - 30 minutes, which for a game this detailed is a welcome surprise and that there are many different ways to win.

We love this game - my brother introduced us to it. After 1 or 2 plays, you really get it and it starts to be addictive! Wish we could play with 2 players as my partner and I aren't ready to try and explain it to others lol

The game is awesome, the product quality were as expected. Over all the game is fun for 3+ players and I would rate it as more than okay for 2 players. Just the game should have enough compartments in it to store all the components as when transporting it, both cards and the other components get mixed up

7 wonders es sin duda de los mejores juegos de mesa que han sido creados hasta la fecha, y que cualquier fan de juegos de mesa debe tener. Es bastante fácil de aprender, las reglas se explican en unos 15min, la complejidad del juego es media ya que el juego presenta muchas variantes y al final es un juego de estrategia que cada decisión de cada jugador irá cambiando el rumbo de cada partida. El arte es hermoso y amarás el juego en especial si gustas de la historia antigua. Una vez te sientas cómodo con el juego base, recomiendo ampliamente comprar las expansiones para darle más variedad, complejidad y frescura al juego.