As seen on A. Bauza blog

Antoine Bauza intentions: Cities

If Leaders was the first expansion released, it is actually the second I started designing : a prototype then named Crime was already playtested when work began on Leaders. The hazards of development being what they are, Leaders grew much faster than her older sister. So Repos Production asked me to finish it first. I came back to Crime later, with fresh ideas that leads the  prototype to be renamed Cities. It is currently under development while other ideas for other expansions patiently waiting their turn …

First objective : Cities will offer a wider variety of cards for players who have practiced 7 Wonders a lot and are now looking for diversity and a greater turnover. Cities will propose 27 new cards (black), all different, which will be added to the decks at random. Some of these may have an impact on the finances of players, which is a secondary objective of this extension, ie make money management more tense. Others will respond to a request for frequent players, namely to extend the interaction between players beyond its direct neighbors. New Leaders, new Guilds and two new Wonders will complete the box. Best of all, it is now possible to play as a team (of two) and up to 8 players simultaneously with this variant.

The challenge is big, because I have to save the features that make 7 Wonders a success: simple rules (Cities demand the assimilation of new effects / pictograms but virtually no new rule) and short game time (the addition of the extension will lengthen the games of 2 or 3 minutes, and, once assimilated, the length will remain the same). We must not forget the compatibility with the Leaders expansion which is of course featured !

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7 Wonders draft variants for Leaders.

Since the release of the first 7 Wonders expansion, Leaders, several people approached me on fairs or by email to offer alternative draft in order to add more control in the game. First you must know that we have tested several drafts with the Repos Production’s team during the development and we finally decided that the simplest only should be the official rule. This choice reflects my current position on game design : proposing the simple rule as possible to keep the game accessible to as many people, expert players can add options to their liking. Well, it turns out that most expert players do not take freedom from the rule, probably out of respect for the author (thank you for that, guys :p).

In short, here are two alternative drafts, very simple:

Draft L01

Expansion’s official rule.

Draft L02

Each player receives 5 Leaders cards, discard 1 (face down) before giving the 4 remaining cards to the player on his right. The draft then continues as L01 and each player will end up with 4 Leaders cards to start the game.

Draft L03

Each player receives 5 Leaders cards. The draft goes as L01 but when players receive two cards from their neighbor, he chose one and the second is discarded (face down). Each player will end up with 4 Leaders cards to start the game.

L02 and L03 precision: if you play 7 players, you need 7 x 5 = 35 Leaders to distribute excluding Leaders needed by the « Rome » and possibly « Brussels » (A) if is placed next to « Rome ». To avoid shortages, the Leaders discarded during the draft (L02 and L03) are returning to the deck and can be reused by « Rome » and « Brussels » during the game.

Thanks to Roland who has tested these variants in his gaming group and encouraged me to post this little article (to be completed as needed …)!