7 Wonders

Prepare the decks and your cities

Use the physical English 2020 second-edition base game for 3–7 players, with Day-side Wonders for the first game. Duel, Architects, Dice, expansions and the older edition have separate rules.

Seat 3–7 players in a circle around a table. Each person needs space for a Wonder board, visible rows of built cards, coins and tokens. Your immediate left and right players are your neighbors for trade and military conflict; with three players, the other two people are both your neighbors. Put out the coin and military-token reserves, the effect sheets, and a shared face-down discard area. Keep the score pad and a pen for the finish.

Separate cards into Ages I, II and III. In each Age, keep cards marked with a minimum player count no greater than your actual count: at five players, keep 3+, 4+ and 5+, and remove 6+ and 7+. For Age III, set aside all purple Guilds, shuffle them privately, and add exactly the number of players plus two random Guilds to the other eligible Age III cards. Return unused Guilds to the box without revealing them. Each completed Age deck must contain seven cards per player: 21, 28, 35, 42 or 49 cards for three through seven people. Shuffle each deck separately.

Randomly give each player one Wonder board and use its Day side, as the publisher recommends for early games. Give everyone three one-value coins. The starting resource at the board's upper left is already available; you do not need to build a stage to activate it. Point out the cost and effect of each stage before play. Building a Wonder is optional, and its stages are not tied to particular Ages.

Deal seven Age I cards face down to each player. Keep your hand private. The first action is to choose one card you can legally use, place it face down in front of you, and set the rest of your hand aside face down. Wait until everyone has chosen before revealing.

Check what a card costs before choosing it

The cost is in the card's cost area; the effect is the benefit you receive after building. An empty cost area means free. Pay a printed coin cost to the reserve. For resource costs, show that your existing city produces the required resources, buying any shortage from your immediate neighbors. Resources are production capacity, not pieces you spend: built cards and your board stay in place, and you can use their production again next turn.

Brown cards produce wood, stone, clay or ore. Grey cards produce glass, cloth or papyrus. Your starting resource, brown and grey cards, some yellow cards and constructed Wonder stages can supply your own construction. Each production symbol supplies its stated quantity once per turn. A choice symbol with slash-separated resources supplies one of those resources, not every option. If a cost asks for two stone, you need two units of stone production; one stone symbol cannot meet both units.

Buy a missing resource for two coins per unit, paid to the neighbor who supplies it. You may buy from both neighbors on the same turn. You can buy their starting resource and production on their brown or grey cards, but not production on their yellow cards or Wonder stages. A trading discount applies only to the resource types and neighbor direction shown on its effect. Neighbors cannot refuse a legal purchase. They keep their cards and may still use the same production; both neighbors may buy it. Each individual buyer can buy a given production symbol only once that turn. With a neighbor's choice-resource card, choose your needed option independently of their choice.

Pay with coins you had at the beginning of the turn. Coins you receive from a neighbor or a newly built effect become available next turn. You also cannot buy production from a neighbor's card that is being built on this turn. For example, a card costing one wood and one stone is legal if you already produce wood and your neighbor already produces stone: pay that neighbor two coins, keep your wood-producing card, and build. Neither resource card moves.

Some Age II and III cards show a chain symbol beside their cost. If one of your previously built cards has that matching symbol at its upper right, the new building is free: no resources or coins are needed for construction. Otherwise pay its normal cost. The prerequisite stays in your city. A free chain never allows a second building with a name you already have. You may not build two cards with the same name, even if their artwork or player-count mark differs.

Choose, resolve and pass together

Read the effect, not just the card color

Blue buildings award the printed points at the finish. Red buildings add the number of crossed swords shown. Green buildings add a science symbol for final scoring. Brown and grey buildings add production. Yellow buildings can give immediate coins, trading discounts, choice production or final points; apply the exact combination of symbols shown. Purple Guilds score the condition shown, often based on neighboring cities. A Guild does not automatically score your own cards: follow its arrows and listed categories.

For a coin award per colored card, count the specified cities and color at the moment the award is built. Count eligible cards your neighbors constructed on that same turn too. For an award based on your own yellow cards, include the awarding yellow card itself. Some effects give both coins now and points later: count the later points again using the city's final state. An effect based on constructed Wonder stages counts actual buried-stage cards, not empty spaces on the board. The Builders Guild counts stages in your city and both neighbors; the Shipowners Guild counts your brown, grey and purple cards, including itself.

A four-resource or three-resource choice effect gives one chosen resource each turn for your own construction. A wildcard science effect gives one symbol chosen at final scoring. Each separate wildcard can be assigned independently to whichever symbol makes your final score highest.

A discard-recovery Wonder effect resolves at the end of its turn: take the Age-card discard, choose one card, and construct its building for free. The recovered building must have a name you have not already built. The discarded cards from this turn are available. This extra construction cannot be used to build a Wonder stage or sell a card; leave the other cards in the discard. In the base set, only one player has the Halicarnassus board, so competing discard-recovery powers from expansions are outside this guide.

Olympia's Day-side free-color power applies only to the first building in a color that is still absent from your city after the power becomes active. If you already have a blue building, later blue buildings do not become free. Each newly introduced color can benefit once across the whole remaining game, not once per Age. Free-building powers do not pay for Wonder stages.

For Night-side play, a first-card-of-the-Age power means the first chosen card from that Age's original seven-card hand; using it for a stage or selling it uses up that opportunity. A last-card power means the normal sixth chosen card, not the unused seventh. Babylon's last-card power lets you play the normally unused seventh card as an extra turn after everyone else's sixth action, under normal cost and action rules, in every Age after the power is active. Resolve that extra turn before military conflicts. Keep the included effect sheet handy for each board's exact symbols and costs.

Count points and finish the game

After the Age III military conflicts, use the score pad to add seven categories for each player: points on constructed Wonder stages; one point per complete three coins in your Treasure; the total value of all military tokens, including negatives; printed blue-card points; yellow-card final points; science points; and purple Guild points. Resource-production cards do not award points merely for being resources, though another card's scoring condition may count them. Do not count unused Wonder stages or immediate coin awards a second time.

Science scores two ways, added together. Count your cogs, tablets and compasses. Square each separate count, then add seven points for every complete set containing one of each type. With two cogs, one tablet and one compass, you score 4 + 1 + 1 for matching symbols and 7 for one complete set: 13 science points. With two of every symbol, you score 4 + 4 + 4 plus 14 for two sets: 26. A symbol can contribute to both its square and a set. Choose wildcard symbols before calculating, comparing the possible assignments.

The highest total wins. If totals tie, compare the total value of coins still held, not the physical number of tokens and not just the coin-scoring points. If tied players also have equal coin value, they share the victory. An unfinished Wonder does not prevent winning. For another game, return all cards and tokens to their reserves, reset everyone to three coins, and prepare fresh shuffled Age decks with a new hidden Guild selection.

Help everyone make their own decisions

Start by showing one card's cost and effect, then a reusable-resource purchase. Explain all three card actions before the first choice, and give the science example before anyone commits to a strategy. Leave each player room to decide: check whether a play is legal when asked, rather than selecting their whole turn for them. Keep built effects visible so both neighbors can check trade and military strength.

Early production can open later choices, but buying from neighbors is a normal alternative. Compare your next Wonder-stage cost with the production around you. Check neighbors' science symbols and military totals before passing a hand. If you do not need a strong card, using it beneath your own Wonder can keep it from the next player while advancing your city; pay the stage's normal cost. This is tactical advice, not a required strategy or an extra reward.

Settle cost disputes from the city as it stood at the start of the turn, the printed card or stage, and the effect sheet. Do not bargain for a different trade price, refuse a legal purchase, move a neighbor's production card, use money received this turn, or build a duplicate-name card. For an unaffordable or duplicate building discovered before hands pass, this guide suggests a house correction: sell that already chosen card for three coins, reversing its unpaid building effect, rather than secretly selecting a replacement from the old hand. If hidden information has already moved, pause and agree a consistent repair before continuing; the publisher does not prescribe a general rewind penalty.

Players need to inspect small symbols and maintain private hands. Choose lighting and seats that let everyone read their cards and reach their city. Keep the included rulebook available for edition-specific questions. The full game ends through three Ages and scoring; a first teach may take longer than the box's advertised play time.

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