7 Wonders: Architects

It was a great gaming day, and we needed a game to end the session with. So why not a favourite? 7 Wonders Architects was quickly decided to be the last game of the day.

Well, I say last game. As usual, the ‘one more go’ and quick playtime came to the fore, and we played three more games! You know a game is good when the time you have been playing is less important than one more round. 7 Wonders Architects is such a game.

Board Game Arena seems to have listened to my complaints about the Colossus of Rodes. In three games, none of us had the Wonder once. It felt a lot more random and made the repeated games of 7 Wonders Architects more fun for me.

There were a few more topsy turvy elements to this round. For example, in one game Alpal went on a science blitz – a strategy she normally follows because of accidental science draws!

Even Rabbit went on a bit of a different tack. We normally don’t concentrate on the military as a group. Alpal tends to rack up military points drawing horns, but like science, it’s normally because of random luck. 7 Wonders Architects sometimes leaves you no choice in what to pick.

Well, this time Alpal and Rabbit both went military at different times, and I became a free points station. So in the actual last game, I decided this wasn’t going to fly. I nabbed every shield I could and started as many battles as possible.

Was it fun? Only in the meta with the group. The sounds of the horn became an in-joke as I built my army, and left everything else almost falling by the wayside. Will all games devolve to this? Nope. But in the moment, we were all laughing and being silly.

One day I am going to have to pull out the physical version for a games night. In the meantime, Board Game Arena makes 7 Wonders Architects a no-brainer pick.

Another quick entry on 7 Wonders Architects. I think it’s fair to say that Alpal, Rabbit and I enjoy playing it a lot. We keep coming back to it as a ‘safe’ fun game to play time and time again.

One thing that made me laugh a lot this week was Rabbit got the Colossus of Rhodes. By itself, not incredibly funny. But it only took a few turns before she started complaining about getting jammed with the Colossus. Well, she didn’t exactly complain. Instead, the comments were like “Don’t complain when I don’t take points cards”.

She even made the joke “I don’t like 7 Wonders Architects anymore”. It was definitely a joke – we played 3-4 more games after that comment!

This is what I found frustrating when I was getting stuck with the Colossus of Rhodes. I would get a shared deck usually with Rabbit with straight points on it that if I took the points, she would jump on the better card underneath. I would then get stuck with points again, or anything but what I needed to progress or score.

When you are playing as the Colossus against others that can take cards from anywhere can be very confining. There is no magical ‘jump’ to get you out of a bad draw like a lot of other wonders have. It isn’t a huge disadvantage, but it can be frustrating during a game. If 7 Wonders Architects has a drawback, this is the only one I can think of.

Mind you, as frustrating as getting jammed with ‘bad cards’ can be, the three of us still had a great time. We spent a lot of time needling each other and joking through every game we played. Again, 7 Wonders Architects is so fast that even a ‘bad’ game is over in a few minutes.

Wonders are fully random on Board Game Arena, but physically if this was a problem you could steer away from dealing people the Colossus. Simple fix.

I need to get some people over for games again to play 7 Wonders Architects on the table to see how that goes though. I know it will take longer, but I think it will be a heap of fun.

Looking for a game to end Saturday’s board game day, we decided to go with 7 Wonders Architects. Playing on Board Game Arena means Rabbit, Alpal and I can knock over a game in less than 10 minutes. All while smack-talking each other of course! It wouldn’t be Architects without jabbing each other verbally.

I still have the one bugbear – why can’t we pick our own wonder? I can see sticking to the official 7 Wonders Architects rules for ranked games, but in training mode let us have some fun.

We got stuck in another round of having the same wonders over and over for 5 games. I got stuck with the Colossus again, and Rabbit was stuck with the Pyramid. The only one that didn’t seem to mind was Alpal, as her golden throne of Zeus allowed for some high scores!

It doesn’t stop the gameplay from being fun though. I hope that I can break out 7 Wonders Architects physically soon, or play with more than 3 players. If I am lucky, maybe both? Yes, sometimes I can be greedy!

There is a games night I have been putting off going to which could give me the opportunity. I know a couple of people there enjoy 7 Wonders, and I am hoping Architects will allow some of the lighter game fans to join in.

Until then, Rabbit, Alpal and I will continue to fight over the cat!