Saturday 23 November 2013

One wonders...

Friday night, and after a lengthy settling routine involving bribery, threats, stair-climbing and much cavorting from little people in superhero/princess pyjamas, we (myself and Sally, Katie and Mark) finally managed to get the children into bed.

This protraction isn't great from a games perspective for a couple of reasons - firstly, everyone is slightly jangly and nearing exhaustion. Secondly, to deal with the jangling everyone (bar Mark, who's driving) has drunk themselves to a point of post-Wallace cogency.

Bearing all that in mind, and remembering that Joe had had success - against the odds, I felt - with it in the Berger household, I broke out 7 Wonders. It's easy, right? You just play a card and pass your hand on. Or cash that card in. Or use it to build your wonder. But remember, you need the correct resources to build your wonder (or indeed a card) so you need to get those from somewhere. Maybe your neighbour. (Not your non-neighbour) But you have to pay 2 coins. Unless you've built another card which means you pay one. Also remember the military, and the fact the science cards are scored by squaring the amount of them you have, and that the cards are revealed simultaneously and card rotation switches between rounds.

And then of course there's chaining buildings together. And each wonder's special ability. In fact, the more I attempted to convey the rules, the more I realized that it's actually quite a lot to get your head around first play, and the bafflement on Paul Jefferies face came flooding back to me when I first tried to explain it.

The best that can be said about it was that it wasn't too long. I think if we'd played it an hour earlier, I might even have been able to coax another try at it. Mark said he was getting the hang of it by the end...

Anyway I nabbed first place from Mark despite his strong showing on guilds:

Sam 48
Mark 46
Katie 44
Sally 30

Which means I stay top of the occasional KMSS leader board, but Mark leapfrogs Katie into second on the most recent result rule. I don't think I can take much pride in those '1's though, as I force everyone to play a new game almost every time.

KMSS





Points
Sam

1
1
1
1
4
Mark

2
4
2
2
12
Katie

3
2
3
4
12
Sally

4
3
4
3
14

3 comments:

  1. It's one of those games which is impossible to wrap your head round until you've finished your first game - after that you're away.

    But even then, I think it's quite a gamers game; not in terms of complexity but perhaps in terms of fun - the fun is purely in maximising your points, which we love, obviously.

    And as Andrew has noted before, playing 7 Wonders invokes utter silence at GNN - it's not a game that creates a party atmosphere. Unless maybe you play Russ Abbot's Atmosphere while playing - did you try that?

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  2. Suicaine Gratification? Great album, but more of a Ra or Traders of Genoa sound I would say . . .

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