But not so much for actually playing them. At least not this year.
Normally
games hit the table more at Thanksgiving.
We did spend Sunday with my brother and his wife, playing two games of 7 Wonders. My son and I also managed to get in our first
game of Star Trek: Fleet Captains. The jury is still out on Fleet Captains, since it took about four times as long to play as
advertised. The game does have a lot of
moving parts, but most of that was “first play delay” issues. I have since made a player aid that will help,
and we will go at it again and hopefully soon.
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| Promotional Image |
This post I
will talk about 7 Wonders. Not only did we play it this past weekend,
but it’s also in my Top 10 lists, so I thought a review was in order. The game was published last year and was
immediately a hot seller; my copy was back ordered for four months. This is due to a combination of rare
attributes that came together in this game:
a civilization building game that plays in under an hour and the wide
range of players supported.
In 7 Wonders, each player is attempting to
build the most advanced civilization, choosing from among the Seven Wonders of
the Ancient World as the centerpiece:
the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Players lay down cards from their hand to
represent building they construct, or alternatively construct a stage of their
Wonder. The structures built provide either
victory points or more capability for construction later. Players then pass their hand to their
neighbor, and do it again. There are
three ages to build in, and six turns to build in during each age. Each successive age has more advanced
structures which are worth correspondingly more victory points. The person with the most victory points is
the winner.
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| A civilization on the rise (Photo by Igor Mustac) |
Games with
this theme have a reputation of being long games; over four hours in play time is
not unheard of. As boardgaming becomes
a more popular hobby, the demand to better fit games into a busy lifestyle has
grown. Games in general have shortened
in playing time, and seem to be targeting that 60-90 minute playing time range,
which seems to be a sweet spot. This is
also true of civilization games; only a handful of truly good games managed to
get this down to that time frame. 7 Wonders is one of two or three
civilization games that actually reduced it further: 30 minutes. This always gets gamers skeptical attention.
The second
promise7 Wonders made was to cover
anywhere from two to seven players.
Really? Many games of this type
cover three or four, and occasionally five.
Two is particularly complicated for a civilization game, since there is
normally some type of game mechanism, like negotiation, that needs three people
to work well. More players normally
means more time, particularly in a civilization game, since the interaction
amongst many players is so much higher.
To play seven players and keep the playing time at under an hour seemed
like an impossible combination.
Since 7 Wonders is in my Top 10, it’s pretty
easy to guess that it delivers. There
are three things that contribute to this.
The first is that it is a card game, which tends to shorten games to
begin with. Secondly, all actions are
resolved simultaneously. The third characteristic
is truly innovative. Regardless of the
number of players, each player only interacts with their immediate neighbors to
the left and right. Limiting interaction
and simultaneous resolution means that the play time of each round is
completely independent of the number of players. 7
Wonders does work incredibly well from three to seven players. Due to the lack of full interaction with two
players, there are special rules for this situation, which I haven’t
played. (Honestly, there are so many
great two player games that I probably never will play this game with only
two.)
A game that
plays in 30 minutes can’t be too involved.
Playing time and complexity tend to go hand-in-hand. However, civilization games are notoriously complicated
as players work out the societal, commercial, martial and technological growth
of their empire. Packing all of those
factors into a short game seems too good to be true. 7
Wonders does this by having different colors of cards, suits if you will,
which correspond to different aspects of the society. Brown cards are raw resources, gray cards are
manufactured goods, yellow cards correspond to commerce, blue are cultural
items, red represents military structures, green are scientific achievements
and purple cards are guilds. Seven suits
of cards, coupled with the plethora of icons on the cards, are where this game
does get somewhat complicated. One or
two plays, however will sort things out, since the colors aren’t as important
as the icons, and there is a system to the icons that quickly becomes apparent.
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| A couple of the cards used in 7 Wonders (Images by Julien Kirsch) |
Since my son
is now 14 and an experienced gamer, he isn’t a good gauge on how kid-friendly
this game is. My wife, who as an
educator really understands children, hasn’t played it. It certainly wouldn’t be for every child. I can’t give it a kid-friendly vote due to
the above complexity.
For older
kids and adults, 7 Wonders is a great
game that has multiple paths to victory.
Part of the fun is that “look what I built – how cool is that!” feeling
you get at the end of the game. This is
definitely a great family or casual game that can be pulled out nearly
anytime. While it would be best to have
the game taught by an experienced player, a little time with the rules and
patience in playing the first couple of games will quickly make this a family
favorite. At seven players, it almost
covers those party game situations for those who (like me) aren’t the biggest
fans of party games. It’s not quite a
must-buy, but is pretty close.
It's Your Move!
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