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

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!

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.

We have been playing board games with our closest friends since before we had kids (almost 8 years ago now.) We have played everything from Settlers of Catan, Power Grid, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Pandemic, and everything in between with as many expansions as they will pull out. As we have had children, the time necessary to play some of these games (like Knights of Catan) has become a real challenge given time constraints. 7 Wonders is a game with a quick setup, a shorter game play (30-40 minutes) then many of the other great games out there, and one where everyone can still have a chance to win. I won't go through the mechanics of the game play (because it's been covered here and elsewhere). I am a rather strategic gamer, but my wife is more about the fun. Our closest friends fall in-between both of us. This games allows us all to come together where I can still use some strategy, but do not feel like if my wife wins, it's all luck. We currently own four expansions of Dominion, but the downside of that game is it isn't as interactive as 7 Wonders. At least with 7 Wonders you get to use coin to acquire needed resources or can take cards out of the game (by using them to build you wonder) to prevent a neighbor from getting something they need. There are subtle strategies that you be employed and they change with each game. The Leaders expansion is well worth it - although I would recommend playing the base game at least 5-6 times through before trying to bring them in. Further, the Cities expansion has shown a lot of added value and has been an enjoyable addition to the game and really only adds another 10 minutes to the play time at most. In the past 3 months we have played 40 games (4 players), and the wins have gone 14-11-8-7. Everyone has a chance to win, and that makes it a great game. Some games there are clear winners near the end, but most of the time the scores are close and the last couple plays determine the outcome. I can't say enough about the continued enjoyability of this game and it's expansions and continue to look forward to new expansions coming out in the future.

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.

We're a game playing family. With 84 board/card games and counting, I feel like something of an expert on board games. This was an exceptionally good game. Unlike some strategy games, there doesn't seem to be any one strategy that's going to always work. You have to be flexible, depending upon which wonder you end up with, the cards you get, and the strategies your opponents are using. You have to pay particular attention to the strategies of your nearest neighbors on either side because many actions and many cards play off of them. No cards or actions play directly off of an opponent who is not your neighbor. That, too, is a nice feature. It's not that you shouldn't watch what the people across the table are doing, but it's more important to know what the guys to the right and left are doing. Especially when you're dealing with higher numbers of players, that makes it easier to keep up with. That's a big part of why it works as well for 7 players as it does for 3. That, and the fact that game play is simultaneous -- no turn taking! So there's very little down time and the games moves quickly. The only reason I didn't give this game 5 stars is that the game comes with rules for a 2-player variation that I do not believe is very good. I was hoping that this would be a game I could play with my husband after our (young) kids went to bed, but after trying several times we both agreed on two things: 1) There are much better 2-player games. 2) This game is much better with 3-7 players. For those reasons, we will only pull it out when we have friends over. But it really, really is a top-notch game for the right number of players. I mostly wrote this review to caution people who are considering buying it more for it's two-player extendability than anything else.

I bought this game over a month ago and I can honestly say it has jumped to my second favorite game of all time. And I mean ever. Now that I have given it an unbelievable hype that you will probably dispute with me if you ever buy the game, let me explain why I feel this way. Card games probably always rank a little higher to me than board games in general. And this game is primarily a card game. Yes, you do have boards in front of you which give you different stats and strategies for each game. But ultimately it is a card drafting game. Which is sweet in and of itself. So why is this game so great? 1 – Drafting. Drafting is super fun. It involves some chance because you might get a hand of sub-par cards. But even that gives you a chance for a good play experience. Because can you come up with the best pick? 2 – Shorter play time with great strategy included. This in itself is amazing. You can play this game in 30 minutes easily. And why this is so awesome is because it doesn’t suffer when it comes to strategy. I’m impressed that so much strategy is crammed into such a small play time. 3 - Beautiful components. Asmodee did not skimp on the quality. The tokens, cards, and boards are all on nice stock and will hold up for quite a while. 4 – Replayabilty. I have never played this game with anyone who at the end of the game didn’t immediately say, ‘let’s play again!’ With each of the seven boards having two sides, and the cards always random each time, you can keep playing this game and never have the same experience twice. Now in all this awesomeness there are two cons. 1 – Learning curve. All the cards have different symbols and you need to have at least a basic idea of what they all do before you even begin. This is a bit of a beast. Because there are a lot of different cards. Teaching someone the game can be a little rough. And there will be a lot of asking about what different stuff does in your first few games. On the plus side, once you get this out of the way, it plays really fast and smooth. 2 – Sleeves. The game is durable. But not that durable. Unless you want to replace your game (the cards wear out) in a couple months, you are pretty much stuck with sleeving the game. Also those cheap penny sleeves won’t work because the cards aren’t the standard size. I bought these and have been happy with them. Mayday Games - 80 Premium 7 Wonders Sleeves 65x100mm. Just note there are only 80 sleeves included so you will need to buy 2 for the base game. BOTTOM LINE: A moderate learning curve can’t diminish the excellence of this game. It packs so much strategy in 30 minutes that you will be playing multiple times when you pull it out for a game evening. Well worth buying.

My Family and I are Settlers of Catan Fans. We play every Holiday. Wanted to try something new. This is a great game. Compared to Catan it's very quick game play, especially once you get the hang of it. We played four times, once we learned the rules. You win the game by getting the most points. There are three rounds, called era's. You each get a wonder (Era) card at the beginning; this is your game board. You each get seven cards and get to choose one card each play then pass the remaining cards to the next player. In each round (of the three eras) you play the seven cards until the last one, which gets dicarded. You get to either buy a resource, keep a free card, buy a trading card that gives you other options,collect science cards (they earn you a certain amount of points at the end of the game) or collect shield cards. You can also forgo using a card and get three coins from the bank. You also have an opportunity to build your wonder, which gets you a certain amount of points at the end of the game. You must collect a certain amount of resources to build your wonder. Each wonder, once built, gives you a different number of points. There are many ways to collect points; this is where the strategy comes into play. Depending on the decisions you make, what cards to keep, what cards to pass on, is what makes the game fun. Once you get to the last round (Era III), you need to have enough resources or money to buy the more expensive cards, which may help you get more points. You have to develop good strategies by round three, because there are no more resource cards to earn in the last round. There are many ways to win, which makes it challenging. It's a very fast, fun game that changes every time you play. I was very happy with my purchase. We played with three people from age 20 to 59 and we all loved it!