7 Wonders - Tips & Strategies

This variant makes the game much more fluid and shorter.

SETUP:

Take all cards needed to play in 3 players game set up

At the beginning of each phase, give 10 cards to each player (one card is discarded without knowing what it was)

Each player selects four cards and gives the other ones (6) to his opponent.

Each player selects 3 cards and discards the other, making a starting hand of 7 cards for each player.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES:

All the cards with two arrows on the side applied to your opponent but also to yourself

Each player can buy from the bank the resource of his choice for 3 coins (one coin reduction made by yellow cards is also applied to purchasing from bank)

The fighting phase at the end of each phase is considered as a one to one fight. During the last fight the winner recovers 5 points of victory but the loser takes as many -1 taken than the difference of shields during this battle (for example, if you win with five shields against 1 shield, the loser takes four -1 tokens)

There are so many approaches and ways to win at this game, part of it’s great design and appeal. But in my experience, going the Science route seems to guarantee competing for finishing 1st, if not usually finishing 1st.

Be sure to keep a balanced support engine of Military, Commercial, Civic, etc. But if you can get that Science train rolling, go with it!

If you can’t develop a decen Science foundation after the 1st Era, then don’t concern yourself w/ it too much in subsequent Eras. But just a couple good Science cards at the get-go can make a good start and make all the difference.

[update] I’ve tried out both Mayday Games’ “Premium 65x100mm” and “Magnum 65mm x 100mm” sleeves. The Premium sleeves are 125% thicker, and in my opinion the better way to go. They make the cards feel much more sturdy, and more easy to shuffle.

Being new to putting sleeves on cards, I think I’ll continue to go the route of using thicker sleeves. It can cost more up front, but will save having to re-sleeve the cards later since for me, the thin sleeves seem to bend and wrinkle too quickly, and then make viewing and shuffling the cards mor difficult.

[original tip] I recommend putting sleeves on the cards of this game. One reason is that if you play a lot of games with 2-4 players, the 6 and 7 player cards won’t get used much, so you’ll have some cards really worn out, and some almost new. Also, your passing cards constantly, and if you play this game as much as I do, sleeves will just make the game last longer.

Although military can be a source of points if you manage to win by a narrow margin, there will come times when your neighbors get into arms races and you can tell fairly early on that they’re going to be building large militaries regardless. In these cases, a better option is to simply accept your negative points and focus on using the situation to your advantage.

Since your neighbors are building militaries, they are using opportunities they could have used to produce resources. So what’s a good neighbor to do? Do it for them! Build resources they don’t have, and profit when they both turn to you to purchase what they need.

War may be a dirty job, but since someone’s going to use it anyway, you may as well make the best of it.

3rd Age drafting is tricky. With no additional Resources being added, you need to figure out what it is possible for you to build, and also what it is possible for your neighbors to build. Simple calculations, such as “how many Victory Points will building this get me?” are useful, but you should also be aware of how many VP your neighbor will get from something you passed (don’t build a 5VP card and pass him an 8), and what the opportunity cost is. Remember that if you give money to your neighbors for resources, you lose 1VP for every 3 gold you spend and give it to them, for a net change of 2VP. This can apply if you go under an exact multiple of 3, or if you push them into or above a multiple of 3.

Calculating the potential of each card in your head will let you best decide whether a 3rd Age build of your last Wonder stage is worth the turn — combining the denial of 5-8VP to your neighbor with building into a 7VP finish is a very strong move. Last stage military builds can take your neighbors by surprise as well, leading to a potential 9VP swing (+10 for double victory, -1 per neighbor for their defeats), but are trickier to pull off.

When you get used to these tactics, you can even attempt to plot ahead a couple of passes and consider denying cards to your neighbor’s neighbor based on likely draft picks along the way.

Even though I highly recommend not focusing too much on one thing… you don’t want to let your opponent have it too easy. For instance, with the military, you might only win one round (maybe none), but you don’t want to let anyone just take the points. So, buy a military card here and there to force them to work for the win.

This may not seem important, but if you let the opponent off easy, not only will they win at the military strategy they are focused on, but have more cards to work with in their other areas of focus.

Don’t let them off easy!

Happy Gaming!

Some cards will let you build next age cards for free. Take advantage of this. These free cards are usually worth a lot of stackable points. Cards even say what they allow you to build for free so you can plan ahead. This is how I managed a win in a 7 player game with no trading cards and only two resource cards.

If you plan to finish your wonder, make sure you or your neighbours have all the needed resources at the end of the second epoch. There are no additional resource cards in the last deck, so pay attention! The same goes for being able to use all the resources/commodities. In the third epoch there are many cards that cost many different resources, and if you or your neigbours dont have for instance parchment you will NEVER be able to grab those cards. Making sure that you have access to at least one of every available resource before epoch three begins is good.

There are certain games in which seating has a profound effect upon the gameplay itself. Stone Age comes to mind, where sitting to the right of someone you know will always purchase the “Roll 1 die per player” cards can be a horrible experience, where you’ll always get last choice of stuff.

7 Wonders can be even worse, if you don’t think ahead. Some players tend to always choose Military strength. Others will always go science, or always go nuts over blue cards. Rather than fight over who gets to sit across from the Warmonger, just take a moment and roll some dice to see who sits where. Or, better yet, take out some blue cards in numerical order, and draw them randomly for seat selection.

Choose wisely which opponent to pay. It can come back and bite you if you rush to get what you want without regard for the ramifications later.

Any money given early will only buy your opponent resources that help him grow! You can try to balance your opponents or you can pour your payments into the wealthier opponent and keep your poorer opponent away from resources!