7 Wonders Dice
- Board's Eye View
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
Antoine Bauza's 7 Wonders first appeared in 2010. Since then there have been several expansionds, and, Bruno Cathala came on board as co-designer in 2015 for the two-player 7 Wonders Duel (Repos Production), which has proved to be even more of a hit with gamers. Tho' in our review on Board's Eye View we stressed it wasn't just a Lord of the Rings re-skin, Duel for Middle-Earth (Repos Production) was recognisably similar to 7 Wonders Duel. 7 Wonders Dice is the latest iteration of the game but this time with dice in place of cards.
7 Wonders Dice is a roll&write game played using slightly asymmetric civilisation boards. The seven custom six-sided dice are placed in a covered box divided into four sections and, each round, the box is shaken. The section where a die ends up determines its cost in coins (0, 1, 2 or 3). You choose a die, pay its coin cost by marking off coins on your board and you cross off the corresponding space on their board, provided you can also meet the construction requirements. There are six resources to collect from die rolls, and resources once ticked off as collected are never consumed so you can use them repeatedly to meet the additional requirements of the various spaces on the board. Unlike previous iterations of 7 Wonders, the resources are all interchangeable, so buildings don't specifically demand stone or timber, just a total number of resources, and you can additionally always mark off coins in place of resources.
Note, players aren't taking dice - so one player's choice of die doesn't deny other players from making the same choice. And players are all choosing and marking off their choices simultaneously, so this 2-7 player game runs for a similar 30-minute or so play time regardless of whether you are playing with two players or a full complement of seven. You just might find it more of a stretch for everyone to see all the dice in a seven-player game.
Players start off with just seven coins so you'll want to develop spaces that add to your gold reserve. You'll also want to collect all six of the resources early on in the game. That's because you'll need the resources to meet the resource requirements of the various buildings but it's also because the dice that give you resources could be 'upgraded' by another player (ie: removed from the game and replaced with another specialist die).
There's quite a bit of iconography to decipher. It'll be largely familiar to those who have previously played 7 Wonders and/or 7 Wonders Duel but even those coming completely fresh to 7 Wonders Dice will soon find they understand the various symbols.
It's a common criticism of 7 Wonders that you don't really feel like you're developing a civilisation. If you thought that about the card-based games you'll definitely think it's true of 7 Wonders Dice where the thematic veneer is even thinner. No matter. This is a very enjoyable filler-length roll&write game. Tho' everyone is developing the 'civilisation' on their own boards, this doesn't feel like multi-player solitaire. There is competition over the rewards for completing sections ahead of other players, and, as in the card games, there is interaction as players compare their military strength with that of neighbouring players. That actually steps up in this roll&write version as you are separately developing the military on your Western and Eastern flanks...
