7 Wonders: Architects

After a couple of abstract games this week, we ended our Board Game Arena session with a new favourite. Yep, we ended the day with what will sort first in this week’s entries – 7 Wonders Architects.

We have been playing 7 Wonders Architects fairly consistently since starting. It’s such a fun and quick game, that ending the gaming session with it seemed like a great end to the day.

There is one thing I wish you could do with Board Game Arena and 7 Wonders Architects, and that’s pick your Wonder. I got the Colossus of Rhodes twice in a row, and when playing two games that makes things a little boring!

If you were playing for ranking or the like, I understand the random distribution rule. But when you are trying to play casually, I don’t see why the random rule needs to be enforced. The ability to pick your Wonder for fun and experimentation would be nice.

Still, I have said it before and I will say it again – if that’s all that someone has to complain about, it can’t be that bad!

The original 7 Wonders still has a lot going for it, and is a game I wouldn’t mind playing again. It’s really hard to get that many players together for a game or two is the only problem.

I could try jumping on a table in Board Game Arena. Honestly, I am worried about walking into competitive play. Not winning doesn’t worry me. It’s been my experience that the competitive section enforces gatekeeping. Maybe I will try and get over that assumption during my upcoming break.

7 Wonders Architects. I enjoy this game so much, but playing with Alpal and Rabbit I have come to a realisation.

Board Game Arena believes that I am the Colossus of Rhodes. That is the only reason I can think of that I get assigned the Wonder more than half the time! 7 Wonders Architects has 7 Wonders – it would be nice to play all of them!

Playing with Alpal and Rabbit means I enjoy 7 Wonders Architects no matter what. The game goes quickly, especially being a digital implementation. The gameplay is light enough fun table talk takes priority over long strategies.

No strategy in 7 Wonders Architects has a true advantage over any of the others. But the bias for Rhodes is military, and I would like to do something different once in a while!

I get that random assignment of Wonders is in the rules, but at home or even at a table with people, you can ask to swap. Other players will generally be sympathetic to wanting to do something different. Always demanding to be a specific Wonder is different, and is the situation that the random rule stops.

I wish for non-ranked games at the very least that you had the option of picking your Wonder. Then in situations having the same Wonder first 3 games, I could switch out. I don’t know if BGA can put this in place as it’s effectively a 7 Wonders Architects house rule.

Will this stop me from playing 7 Wonders Architects again? Never! But that doesn’t mean I can’t wish for the feature!

Would it be a games day with Alpal and Rabbit if we didn’t play 7 Wonders Architects? Of course not! After the brain testing Space Base (see later), we settled in for some Architects fun.

First off, I was super happy – I didn’t see the Colossus of Rhodes at all! That’s a 7 Wonders Architects first! Not only was I not assigned it, but none of us had it the entire time. Hopefully, their randomiser got a bit of a boost and this continues!

Rabbit had a super run this week, winning two of the three games. The first round of 7 Wonders Architects was super close. The Cat Token ended up giving Rabbit the points boost she needed over Alpal for the win.

In the last game though, Rabbit romped it in. I thought we were all pretty close. Rabbit and I were one resource away from finishing our Wonders. Alpal wasn’t far behind and was only a couple of obvious points behind Rabbit.

I had the least amount of science tokens, and Alpal had a bonus for military wins but hadn’t won a single battle. As long as Rabbit didn’t finish her Wonder, I thought Alpal and I had a chance of pipping the win.

This is a large part of what I enjoy about games like 7 Wonders Architects – you can’t tell exactly who is winning. Not definitively at least.

Well, Rabbit won by about 20 points after nabbing the last resource. It was her most decisive victory to date, and right up until the last card draw we were all trash-talking each other. In a good way, I promise.

I cannot think of a bad game of 7 Wonders Architects that the three of us have had. And we played 30 games together. There aren’t many games we play that often in that short a time I can say that about.

Next week we may have a change to the mix to try player-wise. If that happens I would be pretty confident in giving 7 Wonders Architects a proper review soon.