fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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Type of Game: Light, Card Drafting
Number of Players 3 - 7 (with a two player variant)
Length of Game: Enough time to make mashed potatoes and pie. (30 mins)
Similar Games: Fairy Tale, Booster Draft
Box Art, depiction of all 7 Wonders together in the same place suggests its Las Vegas
Sometime in the heady mists of 2010 I played a game called 7 Wonders, several times, I didn't much like it and ended up rating it a 4. For absolutely no reason what-so-everI recently reacquired the game through a trade and ended up bumping it's rating up to a 7. What happened?
Ender's picture of all 7 Wonders
The Overview:
If you haven't heard about 7 Wonders by now you're either new to board games, have been living in a cave for the past two years (and have only just got broadband in your mountain range) or you really need to take your fingers out of your ears, remove your tin foil hat and stop humming.
7 Wonders is a card drafting game, at the start of each age (of which there are three) players are dealt 7 cards, they will pick one of these cards and then pass the remainder to their neighbour - in friendly circles filled with people who enjoy splashing their money on foil wrapped packs containing little pieces of art printed on cards this is known as a booster draft.
These cards will have a cost to play them (it could be free), a benefit (either more resources to play bigger and better cards, or a way of getting towards scoring points), some pretty art and a card name. Optionally these cards can be used to build segments of your Wonder (sometimes for a special ability, sometimes for points) or discarded to oblivion in exchange for some money. If you don't have enough resources to play a card, you might be able to build it if a neighbour has the resources you are missing, but you need to pay them for each one you use.
This continues over three ages and then scoring occurs. In between ages so joker adds something to the water and all the counties with armies go beat up on their neighbours (or get beat up on because their too busy working on SCIENCE). That's the game in a nut shell, draft a card, play/use or sell it rinse and repeat.
One game draws to a close...
The Winning Conditions:
At the end of the third age players total up points scored from the various categories Military, Money, Civilian, Science, Commercial, Guilds and their Wonder and the player with the highest points is declared winner of the 'Prettiest Civilisation at the Dog Show'. They are then free to celebrate by standing on the table urinating on their loser opponents (thus showering them with glory) and purchase a beer for one wet player from Belgium).
Check out the bits on that game! Yummy!
The Component Quality:
7 Wonders has a bunch of cards, a selection of Wonder Boards and some rules. It all comes in a box that's rather oversized for what you get (it could easily fit into a Carcassonne sized box) and the 1st edition has a rather naff cardboard inlay. Now I know the second edition has a neat plastic inlay but I'm going to shoot off on a tangent about inlays in the next paragraph.
I just don't understand why we can't get cardboard inlays right in the manufacturing business. I firmly believe they are a better choice than plastic ones, but no-one so far has built one that comes close to comparing with the inlays I see made by enthusiasts on BGG. 7 Wonders is no exception, it's inlay is bright and pretty, but apart from that it's almost worse than the FFG ones (and I rate them as some of the worst inlays of all time), I guess you don't have to turn it inside out and all, but why can't we get this right? Why do people have to spend an hour with cardboard and/or foamcore board to get their bits held correctly?
That's much better, calm down now...
Enough about the inlay, the game itself is gorgeous, the art is beautiful, the money in the 1st edition of game is wooden tokens (always a bonus compared to cardboard, I wish I had nails to pick it up, tokens) and the Wonder boards are a solid affair that look nice, feel great and have a second side with alternate rules for the board. I'd say the only shame is that the (A) sides are pretty tame compared to the (B) sides, nice for learning the game but once you have gotten to grips with it I can't see why you'd want to switch back to the (A) side too often (but you're free to disagree).
There's also a scoring pad, it's small and definitely useful in this game as the scoring is slightly more complex than most games, you shouldn't have a problem, but writing everything down helps.
If I had any other comments about the game it would be about the unusual size of the cards, for people who want to sleeve you can't just pick a set off the shelves. Not a big negative, but something to consider.
No, wait. Where are the dice again?
The Rules:
You know what? I don't think I need to go over the rules in much more detail than I did in the overview, 7 Wonders can be explained very quickly and with the aid of the player aids in the box (or the Universal Head ones) it doesn't take long for people to be up and crafting their own little slice of culture. I know you won't have an issue learning them, especially if you're an escapee from the world of collectable card games. Welcome home good sir, pull up a stone chair.
And admire my pyramid. Or at least the first bit of it.
The Good Parts:
I've already mentioned that the game is quite beautiful, there's always plenty to look at and if you have the table space then the game is a work of art. If you don't have the space the cards stack very well and take up little room.
The interaction in the game varies from the subtle (but essential, like taking cards your opponents need) to the overt and smash-face dealing of negative points that is Military. As you can purchase resources from your neighbours you can skip past certain resource cards and concentrate on making more points, but your neighbours are also your closest influences on the cards you get and the punishment you met out/receive via military conquest. So there's a bit of a co-operation/competition tug of war involved there and it's a nice balancing act. Although it must be warned that this interaction is not as overt as it is in many other games, it's akin to Race for the Galaxy or your typical Euro game rather than something with more conflict or back stabbing like say, Citadels.
The Wonders themselves seem relatively balanced; there are interesting strategies for each one as long as you're quick to understand what you need to be doing and where your potential choke points are (Rhodes needing 4 Ore for example means that the player will have to pick up most, if not all, of that Ore by itself and the player needs to be prepared to do that).
The 2 Player variant requires use of a dummy city to facilitate play, it's always a shame when there has to be an AI included in order to make a game work, however this time the variant is tight, it's interesting and tactical in a fashion that's not annoying. You have to think hard about what you pass up on because potentially your opponent can make two cards essential to your civilisation disappear when they are in control of the Free City/AI. It's kind of like the Free City is a bit of a douche, stealing what you need and building it, but it's also a great friend when you're in control of it. I was concerned when I read the two player rules, after playing them I'm not, I really enjoy it.
Accessibility; this game is a pretty simple concept to learn, it's also something that novice players will get to grips with quickly and more often than not, enjoy. It has that gateway status that many games cling to but don't quite manage. I have no problems breaking out this game, grabbing Universal Head's summary, bashing out a five minute speech about how it plays and then getting straight into it. I also don't feel that I have to 'hold back' when playing at the risk of ruining someone else's game, if I do have an impact on a newer player's score, it's unlikely they will be upset by it. (Not that I'm that great at the game anyway).
There were many steps and columns, it was most tranquil.
However, the largest thing that makes 7 Wonders great is the way it plays out, everything you do is influenced by the choices other people make around you, even the people sat way over on the other side of the world table feel like they have an impact on your decisions, there's not enough of any points category for everyone to do well in everything, so if you see someone on your right (therefore passing you cards in ages 1 and 3) going heavy Science, you should think twice before you try and push for more than maybe 1 or 2 sets of the science tokens. If you see a Palace in your selection and the fellow to your left seems to be leading, and is able to play it, you may consider burying the structure as part of your Wonder instead of handing him 8 beefy points and a bitching home to lord his points over you from. This is what makes it great, you can make your decisions in an island, just picking what's best for you, but if you really have game then you start making your decisions to also eliminate the highest scoring point cards that the leader(s) may be looking for. This reminds me of one of my favourite games; Race for the Galaxy in that it's easy to dismiss as 'multiplayer solitaire' but once you get past the initial surface of the game you realise that everything is influenced by everyone else, what they are doing, what they have done and what they will be doing. And that, my friend, is the essence of what makes 7 Wonders great.
Science, science, I think no-one likes it here.
The Weak Parts:
Despite all the beauty in the game, the backs of the cards are surprisingly dull, I do think that they should be simplistic in style as you don't want too much noise in the game distracting from the more important issues, but something a little more attractive on the back may have been nice. Still, it's a minor issue at best here.
The 1st Edition Inlay is rather pants, and the wooden coins, while lovely to use, are not compatible with the cardboard tokens released in 7 Wonders: Leaders, fortunately that expansion is not an essential purchase (in fact it could be argued that it detracts from the experience and should be avoided, me? The jury's out on that one). Also players do tend to default to assuming that the larger gold coins are worth 5 not 3, that can cause confusion - but it doesn't happen with the 2nd edition as the cardboard tokens are marked with their values.
The game also varies a lot in its experience depending on the number of players, this can be seen as a good thing, but it also means that it can be frustrating to switch group sizes as you have to relearn your base strategies due to variation in the card mix as you add more players and it is valid to claim that the 5+ player games do have very little interaction between the non-neighbours. Some may not like this, others will love it.
Last of all, there's the price, it's an expensive game when you look at the components and the length of game play for each game. You can justify this is you're going to play the game a lot, but it's always worth remembering that you can get 2-3 games that are almost as good for the same price. Might be worth trying before buying here.
What are the final scores?
The Summary:
This is a story all about how, my opinion got flipped, turned upside down. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there and I'll tell you how I became the ruler of a wonder in a place called Alexandria.
In West Mesopotamia, born and raised. In the throne room is where I spent most of my days, lounging about, decreeing, ruling all cool and funding some science guys outside the school. When a couple of armies, who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood. I got in one little war and my mom got scared and said you're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Alexandria.
I whistled for a chariot and when it came near, the license plate said DRAFT and it had dice on the wheels. If anything I can say this cart was rare, but I thought no forget it 'My good sir take me to Alexandria.' I pulled up to the Palace about 7 or 8 BC and I yelled to the charioteer "Thank you, have a bath on me." I looked at my kingdom I was finally free, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Alexandria.
In short: I didn't like 7 Wonders, I now do, quite a lot.
Now would the winner of this get me a drink?
For Further Limelight Reviews check out this Geeklist.
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Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Re: The Limelight Reviews: 7 Wonders: Is it Wonderfalls or Just a 3 Minute Wonder
Great review - interesting thoughts, especially about the inlays, and your summary really made me chuckle.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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Great review, thanks.
I'll add my 2 cents on a couple of things though. None of which would change the quality of the review. I don't get the rant about the insert, lol. Maybe it's not something that bothers me, but it seems to hold everything quite nicely, and even has nice little separators for the decks of cards. If you thought it could be somehow better, that's one thing. But in the catergory of worst inserts of all time? That kind of confused me, lol.
Lastly, I greatly disagree with your description of the interaction between players. I just worry someone reading this, that doesn't know about the game, might get the wrong impression. Although all of your decisions and strategies can be (and probably should be) at least influenced by the players around you, I think this definitely falls into the mostly "multiplayer solitaire" genre as much as any other game out there. I don't use that term in a derogatory sense... I don't think there's anything wrong with it in fact. I LOVE this game, Agricola, etc, but to call the interaction from subtle to "overt and smash-face".... well, I couldn't disagree more.
Again, I'm not saying one level of interaction is better than the other. I just happen to strongly disagree with the particular adjectives you used. But I'm just nitpicking for the sake of discussion.
Thanks again for the great write up!
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'The Completist'
United States
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Love the review. I still haven't played or purchased this one but I keep meaning to. I'm not sure what I am waiting for.
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Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
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Styfen wrote: The interaction in the game varies from the subtle (but essential) to the overt and smash-face
I think your InteractionMeter™ might be on the fritz.
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Ryan Kinney
United States
Ben Lomond
California
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Thanks for the balanced and thorough review. Also, I gave it a
 for the Fresh Prince of Alexandria summary. Hilarious!
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fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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curtc wrote: Styfen wrote: The interaction in the game varies from the subtle (but essential) to the overt and smash-face I think your InteractionMeter™ might be on the fritz.
Have clarified further in the review now. The scale of judgement on interaction is within the context of the game, rather than in the context of board games in general.
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Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
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So the game has "overt and smash-face" interaction relative to... itself???
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fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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It has different levels of interaction from the overt - Military is very clear on the board and can be seen coming in advance - to the subtle - burying/discarding cards that the game's current leader (or your nearest points rival) will want, they have no indicator that the card has been sunk and might not adjust strategy fast enough.
The phrasing used was just for humour's sake as military is normally considered to be aggressive.
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I agree with the fact that this game can be played very viscously if you intend to do so.
A bit like Carcassonne, which varies by game group from fluffy and nice to merciless cut-throat.
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Rusty Patterson
Saudi Arabia
Ras Tanura
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Holmes108 wrote: I don't get the rant about the insert, lol. Maybe it's not something that bothers me, but it seems to hold everything quite nicely, and even has nice little separators for the decks of cards.
I believe you are probably thinking about the insert for the second edition which is shown in the picture in the OP's review. The insert in the the first edition box certainly gets my vote for worst of all time.
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Andy Leber
Canada
Orillia
ON
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RustyInRT wrote: Holmes108 wrote: I don't get the rant about the insert, lol. Maybe it's not something that bothers me, but it seems to hold everything quite nicely, and even has nice little separators for the decks of cards. I believe you are probably thinking about the insert for the second edition which is shown in the picture in the OP's review. The insert in the the first edition box certainly gets my vote for worst of all time.
Oh, then yeah. Mine matches the picture, which I assumed he was talking about. I just realized I hadn't read the review closely enough.
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Ryan M
Canada
Saskatchewan
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RustyInRT wrote: Holmes108 wrote: I don't get the rant about the insert, lol. Maybe it's not something that bothers me, but it seems to hold everything quite nicely, and even has nice little separators for the decks of cards. I believe you are probably thinking about the insert for the second edition which is shown in the picture in the OP's review. The insert in the the first edition box certainly gets my vote for worst of all time.
I see why some people would hate it compared to the nice plastic version, but I don't mind the original cardboard insert. Yes, it's flimsy, but I have the game plus Leaders altogether in one box, plus plastic containers for the bits all stored in my copy. And the insert has held up surprisingly well. I think I will even be able to fit cities in there with not problems.
So I think there are some benefits to the 1st edition insert.
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Posted Wed Feb 1, 2012 10:22 am
