I played 7 Wonders last night, for the first time since TT Day 2014. I hated it when I played it then; the rules were explained hastily and I didn't understand them. It was my intro to drafting, so that was new. And there were a ton of icons and symbols, and a ton of choices and ways to earn points. People were passing me hands of cards and I was just picking one at random and trying to play it. So when we finished playing, I was completely lost as to what happened and what I had been doing, especially when scoring began.
It was a bad experience but I eventually bought the game either later in 2014 or in 2015. I figured "I hated it but most other people seem to think it's a great game, so I'll add it to my collection." It's been sitting around in the shrink since then. I heard that 7 Wonders Duel was a fun 2P game and after reading the rules bought that early this summer and played it. I liked Duel a lot and thought 'Maybe I should return to the OG game at some point soon, especially since we are getting more and more people showing up to game night.'
We've had 6 to 7 people at game nights a lot recently, so yesterday I decided to learn the game. I read the rules online and watched a couple vids and thought 'Oh wow, this is a lot easier than I thought it would be.' I think my experience with Duel helped out a bit, knowing that Science and Military power are ways to victory, more coins = more VP, and more.
I took it in last night and we had 7 people total. Everyone was interested in giving it a shot, so I began explaining it. It was tough, because I was trying to touch on a lot of important things and a couple players were urging me to start the game. There are a couple people, mainly the host, who are really big into "Let's just start and we'll pick it up as we go." I tried to hold off for as long as possible and stress how lost I was when I first played it because of inadequate rules explanation, but we had to eventually start at some point.
We began and it seemed like everyone was lost for the first few turns, but people began understanding what I was trying to explain earlier to them. Only one guy at the end was like "I had no clue what I was doing," and he was in last place, so I felt bad for him. I didn't do so hot myself. I had a lot of fun with it though, so I'm really glad I broke it out. I think some others enjoyed it too, but I don't know if the host will be too hot on trying to again soon. I did try to tell them all that playing it a few more times should have everyone spun up and the game should go a lot smoother. Hopefully I get to play again soon. I could have honestly played only it for the rest of last night.
Games played last night were: Exploding Kittens, 7 Wonders, two games of Resistance with the Commander and Assassin role added from the expansion, Bang: The Dice Game, one game of Resistance Avalon, and three games of Endangered Orphans of Condyle Cove.
Endangered Orphans ended up being a hit with the two other people I played with. We had played a couple "Take that" type games that night but we don't usually play a bunch of them. The game plays really fast too, which was welcome for the players taken out quickly (which was me in the first two games). It almost plays too fast with three, so I added in all of the 4P cards and it was a better length. That game saw the other two players draw a boogieman one after the other, which was awesome too. I'm really glad I got it, now that I was able to try it.
Strike showed up today. A UK ebayer sold me a French copy that had been ordered from Amazon.de (and shipped to me in the German Amazon box) for almost twice the NA MSRP, so it was all a bit weird, but I am so glad to finally have a copy of it. I can't wait to try it out when my daughter finishes her homework. Odds are that now that I've overpaid for a copy, Ravensburger will announce a reprint (they ignored multiple emails asking if there were even tentative plans for a possible reprint down the road). If that happens, then you are all welcome. That would just about be my luck.
On the topic of 7 Wonders: What expansions do you guys recommend? I did a bit of reading and know that Leaders and Cities are more popular than Babel, but both of them have some things that people don't like (Leader telegraph your strategy, some people don't like the black cards, Cities has some kind of negative penalties that are disliked). The Wonders Pack seems like a no-brained, to get 4 new Wonders. I was wondering what some of you play with.
