Review for the board game families - 7 Wonders

[hsmom27]

My 9yo DS got the game 7 Wonders for the holidays and we're playing it all the time. We really love this game, so I thought I'd post a brief review for the gamers on the board.

 

It's a quick game to play (~30 min.), can handle 2-7 players, and everyone takes their turn at once! That means no down time for the 9-11yo crowd. There are 7 mini game boards, one for each of the 7 ancient wonders' cities. Each board is slightly different and two sided. The 'A' side is slightly more uniform across cities and easier to play. The 'B' sides vary wildly.

 

Despite the boards the game is mostly a card game. There are 3 different Ages and 6 rounds per age. The player with the most victory points at the end wins. Victory points are awarded for use of various strategies (military strength, forwarding building and commerce, inventions, creating a wonder, etc...) at the end of the game.

 

At the beginning of every age, each player is dealt 7 cards and given a small amount of money. Each player selects one card to play on their board and pass the rest of their cards to their neighbor. Then everyone plays their selected card and buys resources from neighboring cities as necessary to play their card. There are several different types of cards from which to choose or you can opt to trade a card in for cash or to build your 'Wonder'. Sometimes you'll play a card just to prevent someone else from using it. At the end of the round everyone picks up the cards that have been passed to them and repeats the process.

 

Ages II & III proceed the exact same way but with different cards. At the end of each Age players assess their military strength in relation to their neighboring cities and are awarded some points at that point. At the end of all 18 rounds you tally up everyone's victory points to see who's strategy resulted in the greatest score.

 

My only criticism of the game is the actual cards. The artwork is great, but if you really like the game and start playing a lot, you might want to invest in card sleeves to prevent the nice graphics from getting scratched up. I can't think of anything else at the moment. I'm not a great writer, so if I confused everyone lmk and I'll try to clarify. HTH

Edited March 11, 2012 by littlewigglebutts
typos

[aggieamy]

We really enjoy this game also. I think your review is spot on. Thanks for posting it.

[cottonmama]

We like this game a lot, too. Another reason to sleeve... the "Baths" card depicts women bathing at the public baths... nothing explicit but the more conservative among us might want to cover that artwork. Other than that, I agree, the game is excellent.