Base price: $50.
2 – 7 players.
Play time: ~25 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 6
Full disclosure: A review copy of 7 Wonders: Architects was provided by Asmodee US.
Okay, we’re locked and loaded for a few reviews this week! I’m getting ready for OrcaCon next weekend, so trying to get a bit ahead of the curve, but we’ve got a variety of games coming down the pipe. Family memory / dexterity games, gateway games, a bullet hell puzzler, and a solo game to round out the bunch, not to mention some cool surprises closer to the end of the month that I am potently not going to talk about, yet. No need to fret on that front; we’ll get to it when we get to it. Excitingly, I think this game will make for the current Longest Gap between reviews of titles in a single franchise (almost 10 years?)! I haven’t gotten to talk about a 7 Wonders game in a hot minute, so let’s get to it! Actually, I think I reviewed Leaders a while back, so the gap is a bit less. Plus I still have to get to CATAN: Soccer Fever, at some point, and that will certainly take the cake. Anywho.
In 7 Wonders: Architects, you’re at the forefront of modern civilization! Or ancient civilization, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t call themselves ancient when they were living it. They were just modern, or whatever the word for “modern” was in their times. Oh well. What do you do when you’re at the pinnacle of society? You build something huge to be like, wow, look at this giant thing that we built. It’s nice when it’s not a tower, but it’s usually a tower of some kind. We see you, Alexandria. These are meant to inspire a profound sense of awe and wonder, as a civilization-level humblebrag goes, and so you are trying to lead your civilization to that point while dealing with all the other boring minutiae that comes with running a society, like war and famine. Casual stuff.
How the game works is each turn, you’ll draw a card from either of the face-up piles to your right or left, or take a random face-down card from the center. After you do that, various effects will occur: Military Cards boost your strength for (mostly) inevitable conflicts, Science Cards allow you to achieve Progress Tokens, which give you effects that are special and yours alone, and Resource Cards help you along the pathway to constructing your Wonder. There are also cards that give you points and wild resources, but they’re not as exciting and largely serve to advance the game, not the narrative. Still important, though! Your opponents have the same goals as you, however, and figuring out what cards to take when is going to be critical to trying to win. Each of your civilizations has a special ability that activates as you construct your wonder, so try to fold that in, as well. The game ends as soon as a player has built their wonder, but remember: being fastest doesn’t necessarily translate to winning. Will you be able to put Sid Meier to shame and build an even greater civilization?
Overall: 8.25 / 10
Overall, I think 7 Wonders: Architects is a great introduction to the 7 Wonders series! I had gotten into arguments forever with folks who insisted that 7 Wonders was a fantastic gateway game, which, I like 7 Wonders quite a bit and it’s not that. It has a tech tree. 7 Wonders is a solid way to introduce that style of gaming to folks that are already pretty familiar with board games or video games. Architects, on the other hand, cuts across that entirely and by pruning some of its more complicated familial branches manages to make a game that’s fun and casual enough that you can play it with just about anyone. I mean, granted, you can 100% get through the game just choosing cards at random, but you likely won’t see as much success as players who are more particular with their selections (and that should start to inform player strategy after a time). Having all that in a quick ~25-minute game with great storage is really good, I think. It’s a nice modernization of a classic game to broaden the hobby. It also has a significantly simpler and more viable two-player variant than the original 7 Wonders, which is great! It’s much more coherent and, again, points to a certain level of experiential wisdom that comes with seeing how the game is received and iterated upon over the years.
One thing that amuses me more than frustrates me is that even though you’re drawing one card of three potential options, you still can capture the 7 Wonders feeling of “nothing in my hand is useful for my current goal”, depending on how much your group values or devalues certain cards. I think one of the better features added in this is that certain Progress Tokens let you draw again (once per turn) after taking certain cards, so you can at least somewhat mitigate cards you don’t particularly want. Also amusing is that rushing the end of the game is not a reliable method of winning, even though you can do that here (as opposed to the original, where you just played until the cards ran out). Again, another useful way to teach the benefits and drawbacks of certain strategies and playstyles to new players. And yes, of course, if you’re a huge 7 Wonders fan, this may feel like a strategic and complexity downgrade for you, but here’s the thing: the game is so much more approachable to folks who are only marginally interested in board games, that if you play enough Architects, you might actually get them to play 7 Wonders with you, as opposed to burning them out because you decided that starting with 7 Wonders: Babel was a good idea.
I’m generally a fan of games expanding along both sides of their complexity axis, appealing to core gamers more with increasingly-complex variants, expansions, or new games (such as Next Station: Tokyo in the Next Station series) and appealing more to new hobby participants with lower-complexity variants, and I think 7 Wonders: Architects is a great example of how to do that while still preserving the core and the spirit of the game. I haven’t gotten to play 7 Wonders in ages, just because of group dynamics, but Architects gives me some confidence that I might be able to slowly build up towards it in certain groups. And even if we can’t, I still genuinely enjoy playing it! Architects is fast, punchy, and has a nice amount of player interaction without being inherently adversarial or destructive. If you’re looking for a 7 Wonders game with broad appeal, you’re trying to introduce folks to one of your favorite series, or you just like drawing cards and seeing what happens, I’d recommend 7 Wonders: Architects! I’ve had a really nice time with it.
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