Essentially it is a card based version of Civilisation; wholly unauthorised of course and the designers of both games may well deny it, but that's the best and most accurate analogy I can possibly imagine. After all, each player begins by drawing a wonder to work on, which dictates your nation, strategy and confers advantages; thereafter you play through three periods of development by selecting cards from a deck that is passed around and shared by all the players.
Certain cards are free, and may add to the resources or victory points, or permit other developments later; others require resources to build in the first place, but as a result are usually more valuable, or lead to other developments. Ultimately the aim is to accrue the most points across a variety of stratagems, including science, culture and militarism.
The first game left my head spinning, but it is fast to play and you grasp a lot by simply playing it blind and following others leads, I came second out of four first time out. As that only took half an hour, we reset and played two more times, and though I never actually won, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Games like this encourage the internal narrative, as one imagines your little civilisation developing, in a way that scrabble or chess can't.
Highly recommended.
I've played several games of 7 Wonders. It's a great game. The Leaders add-on gives a new dimension to the game.
ReplyDelete