The Seven Wonders Game: Rules, Editions and Spin-Offs

What the seven wonders game is

7 Wonders is a card game about building an ancient city over three rounds, called Ages. Each player leads one of seven cities from Antiquity, and each card is a building: a sawmill, a temple, a barracks, a library. You build by picking cards from your hand. Then you pass the rest of your hand to the next player, and they pick from what you left them.

That's called drafting, and it's the heart of the game. You're never just choosing what you want. You're also choosing what your neighbor gets.

The designer is Antoine Bauza, and the publisher is Repos Production. The game has been through more than one printing. This page covers the New Edition, which is the base game listed on Amazon US in our data, and the expansions that name it.

The box facts from the New Edition listing:

• Players: 3 to 7
• Ages: 10+
• Play time: 30 minutes
• Mechanics listed: drafting
• Competitive, not co-op
• Base game, not an expansion

What's inside, per the New Edition rulebook: 7 Wonder boards, 148 Age cards (49 for Age I, 49 for Age II, 50 for Age III), 78 coins, 48 military tokens, a score pad, 3 effect description sheets and a list of cards and chains.

Repos Production's page makes one point I want to pass on. Every card color also has a matching symbol, so colorblind players can read the cards. That's a small detail that matters at a big table.

How the 7 Wonders board game plays

The rules here are in my own words, from Repos Production's English rulebook for the New Edition. If you own an older printing, the core idea is the same, but check your own rulebook for details.

Setup

1. Everyone takes a Wonder board at random and picks a side. The rulebook calls them the Day and Night sides and suggests Day for your first few games.
2. Sort each Age deck by the player number printed on the cards. Keep only the cards for your player count or lower. For 5 players, you keep the 3+, 4+ and 5+ cards.
3. From the purple Guild cards, draw the number of players plus 2 at random and shuffle them into Age III. Box the rest.
4. Everyone takes 3 coins. The rest go in the middle.
5. Put the military tokens in the middle too.

Your Wonder board also gives you one starting resource. That's your first brick, so to speak.

A turn, all at once

Each Age has 6 turns. Every turn has the same three steps.

1. Choose. Look at your hand, pick 1 card, and put it face down in front of you.
2. Play. When everyone has chosen, all of you reveal and act at the same time. You can do one of three things with your card: build the building on it, use it to build the next stage of your Wonder, or sell it for 3 coins.
3. Pass. Hand the cards you didn't pick to your neighbor. In Ages I and III you pass left. In Age II you pass right. The arrow on the card backs reminds you.

Your hand shrinks by one each turn. On the sixth turn you get 2 cards, play 1, and discard the other with no coins for it.

This is the part that sells the game for big groups. Seven people take their turns at the same moment. Nobody waits for six other people to finish thinking. Lucho's take: "Seven people, one turn, nobody waiting? That's the only meeting I'd show up early for."

Building costs

A card can be free, cost coins, or cost resources. Resources come from your Wonder's starting resource, your brown and gray cards, some yellow cards and some Wonder stages. You don't spend resources when you build. If your city makes one wood, you have one wood every turn for the whole game.

You can also never build two cards with the same name. The rulebook is firm on that one.

Buying from your neighbors

Missing a resource? Buy it from the player on your left or right. Each resource costs 2 coins, paid to that neighbor. They keep their card and can still use it. You can buy from their starting resource and their brown and gray cards, but not from their yellow cards or their Wonder stages.

So the neighbor who builds a quarry early isn't just helping themself. They may end up running a small business on your side of the table.

Chains

Starting in Age II, some cards show a small symbol. If you built an earlier card with the same symbol, you build the new one free. The rulebook's example: build the Theater in Age I, and the Gardens are free in Age III. Chains are how a careful player gets a lot of buildings for very few coins.

War at the end of each Age

When an Age ends, everyone counts the shields on their red cards and Wonder. You compare with both neighbors, one at a time. Beat a neighbor and you take a victory token: +1 in Age I, +3 in Age II, +5 in Age III. Lose and you take a -1 token. A tie gives nobody anything.

Since you only fight your neighbors, a player across the table can ignore your army entirely. Your neighbors can't.

Scoring and winning

After the war in Age III, add up seven things on the score pad: your Wonder stages, coins (1 point per 3), military tokens, blue cards, yellow cards, green cards and purple cards. Highest total wins. On a tie, more coins wins. Still tied, you share it.

Green cards score in a way I'd put on a quiz. For each science symbol, count how many of that symbol you have and square it: 1 symbol is 1 point, 2 is 4, 3 is 9, 4 is 16. Then add 7 points for each full set of three different symbols. My seventh graders call squares "the times-itself numbers." The score pad doesn't, but it agrees with them.

7 Wonders editions and spin-offs on Amazon US

Our data for this page lists 6 boxes on Amazon US as of October 2026. The table above shows the players, age and play time each listing states. Here's how the shelf splits.

The base game: 7 Wonders (New Edition)

The Asmodee listing names it the New Edition, with 3 to 7 players, ages 10+ and 30 minutes. It's the box the rules above describe and the one every expansion below needs. If you're buying one 7 Wonders box for a group of 3 or more, this is it.

Expansions that need the New Edition

All three are marked as expansions on their listings, and all three name 7 Wonders (New Edition) as the base game. Each lists 3 to 7 players and ages 10+.

• 7 Wonders: Cities lists 40 minutes and drafting as its mechanic.
• 7 Wonders: Leaders lists 40 minutes and drafting as its mechanic.
• 7 Wonders: Edifices lists 30 minutes.

The listings don't spell out what each one adds to the rules, so I won't describe new cards I haven't seen in a rulebook. What I can say from the listings: two of the three add 10 minutes to the box's play time.

7 Wonders Architects

Architects is a separate game, not an expansion. The listing says 2 to 7 players, ages 8+ and 25 minutes, with drafting as its mechanic. Repos Production's page describes it as a simpler, quicker game where you build a single Wonder one stage at a time. On your turn you take one of three cards and use its effect right away: resources for your Wonder, science, soldiers, gold or points.

It's the lowest age in this family on our list, and the only one here that lists 2 players. If your youngest player is 8 or 9, this is the 7 Wonders to start with. First game, not best game, and that's fine.

7 Wonders Dice

Dice is also standalone. The listing says 3 to 7 players, ages 10+ and 30 minutes, and it isn't an expansion. Repos Production's own page lists 2 to 7 players and about 25 minutes, so the listing and the publisher don't quite match. Go by the box you get.

The publisher describes it as a dice version of the game: dice are shaken in a shared box, everyone picks a die at the same time, pays for it, and marks the matching building on their own city sheet. Each of the seven cities has its own board.

Which 7 Wonders box fits your table

My one opinion for this page: get the base game to the table a few times before you buy an expansion. An expansion adds rules to a game you're still learning. The listings back this up. Cities and Leaders both push the play time from 30 to 40 minutes, and all three need the New Edition base game to work at all.

Quick matches, from the listings:

• 3 or more players, ages 10+: 7 Wonders (New Edition)
• Younger players, or a mixed group with 8- and 9-year-olds: 7 Wonders Architects
• Exactly 2 players: 7 Wonders Duel, which is built for two
• You own the New Edition and play it often: one expansion at a time, Cities, Leaders or Edifices
• You'd rather roll than draft: 7 Wonders Dice

Who should skip 7 Wonders

Skip it if your game nights are usually 2 people. The base game lists 3 to 7, and the New Edition rulebook has no 2-player mode. Look at Duel or Architects instead.

Skip it if your group wants a game with no symbols to learn. Every card has a cost, an effect and a chain icon, and the first game leans on the effect sheets. The symbol system becomes second nature, but not on night one.

Skip the base game for now if your youngest player is under 10. The listing says 10+. Architects at 8+ is the softer start, and nothing on this page lists an age below 8.

Check the age label on the listing. Toys with small parts are a choking hazard for children under 3, and the coins and military tokens in these boxes are small parts.

If you like 7 Wonders, look at these

Pages chosen by what they share with 7 Wonders: drafting, strategy or a big player count.

• 7 Wonders Duel: the two-player game in the same world
• Strategy board games: more games that reward planning ahead
• Sushi Go: another pick-one-pass-the-rest card game, in a smaller box
• Party games: when the group is 7 and the mood is lighter
• Splendor: building an engine from cards, for a smaller table

Deal seven, pick one, pass the rest. That's the whole job.