The Advanced tips for 7 Wonders guide will help experienced players with tips to win more consistently and crush other civilizations. 7 Wonders is a drafting tableau building game where each player develops their civilization over the course of three ages. Follow these tips to become an expert faster. This guide will work for the first and second editions of 7 Wonders equally.
Check out our article on rules resources to learn how to play. Visit our Surviving 7 Wonders article for beginner tips.
Wonders
Your wonder is the key differentiator for your civilization. For first edition side B is more complicated than side A. In the 2nd edition night side is more complicated than side day. This doesn’t mean the alternate sides are more powerful. However, In the right hands side B & night side can extend reach, increase options, and be leveraged for more rapid points accumulation. Play to your strengths to maximize the value.
- Babylon Side B / Night: build the “play the final card” tier as soon as possible. Every round that passes without it wastes points, as the final card can always be sold for three gold for a point. This is much more easily done in the second edition.
- Alexandria: Getting access to the resource tiers early will be a massive help to your economy and allow early access to most cards. Pair with Caravansery & Forum to have very cheap resource availability.
- Halikarnassos: Do not build the “build from discard pile for free” tiers of the wonder before the final card of Age 1 unless someone has sold a card to avoid wasting the free building. By building each tier as your final action, you’ll avoid trading a higher tier card for a lower tier card.
Resources
Dominating resources forces neighbors to buy from you. This not only saves you a great deal of money, but generates a ridiculous amount of coins that can be your single largest point gain.
It is possible to avoid spending time building resources by focusing on the free chain ability. This is a particularly useful strategy for science, which opens free chained buildings to other point dense cards in science, military, and monument card types.
Military
Keep military one point above your opponents. This is risky play that is prone to being rushed suddenly, but also allows your investment allowing gaining points elsewhere. Avoid a sudden rush by keeping only one building’s worth of points ahead (1/2/3 in age 1/2/3 respectively).
If military building focus is the strategy you’re using, ensure you win all military victories with spending this minimal amount of resources. If you’re not building a military, ignore military cards all together. Three coins from a discard is more valuable than a possible avoidance of a loss token.
Science
Focusing entirely on science is a viable strategy. However, if too many people build the science cards, it blocks science from adding substantially to your point total. This is particularly bad if you’re stuck with a science based civilization like Babylon.
An alternative science strategy is to build all cards for a single science symbol. Added with Babylon and the Science guild, this set would be worth 36 points, which is half of a respectable victory. Couple this with monuments, warfare, or a great economy/trade set, and you’ll glide to victory.
Value Each Age 3 Card
In Age 3, always play the highest value card. It is easy to measure the value of cards in the third age, and speculative purchases should be avoided at this time.
Outside of the obvious measures of raw points; Add 1/3 points for each gold gained and subtract 1/3 points for each gold paid in trade. Stolen military victories can net you 5 points each.
Each individual science building is worth 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 depending on if you have 1/2/3/4/5/6 copies of a single symbol. +7 points if the card completes a set. Normally there are only four possible copies of each science symbol. With Babylon and the Science guild, you could have 6 copies of a single science group.
Check This Out Next
If this guide helped you master 7 wonders, check out the video version.
If you enjoyed mastering 7 Wonders, check out their awesome expansions Leaders, Cities, and Armada in the links below.
