7 Wonders

I grabbed this game yesterday on the recommendation of Mavis Cruet of Stormy Port Games and played a couple of games of it last night with Eve and Emma.

We set the game up and started to play, only pausing to watch a Youtube video when we were stumped by the commerce section of the game. Other than that it seemed quite an easy play with only a few areas where the things weren't clear. That said the rules weren't very well translated in places, that's why we went looking for the Youtube video in the first place.

The goal of the game is to build an ancient civilisation. You select a, or draw, a wonder to build, which varies in difficulty. The pyramids of Giza are more difficult to construct than the Lighthouse at Alexandria for instance, but you're rewarded with more points when you complete the wonder if it's harder to build. The game can function without trying to build a wonder though - in the second game we played Emma didn't even try to build her's and focused on building her city and army up. Whilst she didn't win (I managed to pip her to the post thanks to a couple of cards I played late in the game), she scored about 37 points that way which doesn't seem to sloppy.

Game play is interesting, the idea that you play a card and then pass your hand left or right is interesting because it means you never know what's going to come your way and you don't really have time to plan - everything has to be done on the spur of the moment. That doesn't mean that tactical play is impossible, I think all of us found ourselves either devoting cards to our wonders or discarding them in return for coins because we didn't want them in the game; my gut feeling is that there's quite a few levels of play from the simple building to a level where you're actively working to screw the other players.

All in all I very much enjoyed playing the game and I'm looking forward to playing it again, hopefully soon.