Review of 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon

Blurb from the publisher: 'Obtain the favors of the Divinities or suffer their wrath!

This is an expansion for 7 Wonders Duel. The base game is required to play.'

What you get: Your USD 24,99 or equivalent will buy you 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon, and expansion for the highly decorated 7 Wonders Duel, a card-drafting, set-collection game for two players that lasts around 45 minutes with this expansion. The basic game has already won numerous accolades, and is currently the second-best ranking 2-player game in the world in BGG, falling only behind the mind-blowing Twilight Struggle. As impressively, it is ranked at #13 of all games, irrespective of persuasion.

In addition to the small-format 16-page rulebook that can be found on the company's website free of charge, the game contains the following elements: one Pantheon board, 15 Divinity cards, one Gate card, 5 Grand Temple cards, 2 Wonder cards, 10 Mythology tokens, 3 Offering tokens, one Snake token, 3 Progress tokens, one Minerva pawn, one Score notepad, and one Game Aid card.

Gameplay: Five different pantheons (Greek, Phoenician, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Roman) with three gods each come to aid the players of 7 Wonders Duel. Mythology tokens are placed face-down on predetermined face-down cards at the setup of Age I. When they get claimed a random god is placed face down on the Pantheon board. There are five spaces in the board, each offering a different activation cost per god for either opponent. The most friendly location is 3 coins for you and 8 for your opponent; the inverse is the least friendly one.

During Age II, the divinities are revealed. Offerings (one-off cost-reducing tokens to activate the divinities) will be also placed on predetermined face-down cards. The Guilds from the basic box are no longer a part of the game. They are substituted by the Grand Temple cards.

Players now have a fourth option during their turn which does not use a card from the structure: Activate a card from the Pantheon. One pays the cost on the board, takes the divinity card in front of him, and immediately applies the effect. As an example, Ishtar is equivalent to you having gained the Law Progress Token, Tanit grants you 12 coins, Aphrodite is worth 9 Victory Points, while Mars grants two shields.

The strong points: 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon fundamentally alters the core of the game by allowing a player to act without drafting a card. That is patently good since it adds an additional tactical element to card drafting. It is however the end of the road from Age II onwards, and not the beginning. I liked how Divinities are placed on the Pantheon board. The more one is willing to take face-down cards on Age I, the more he can dictate the cost, placement, and actual choice of divinity. Under no circumstances should you let your opponent handle that process alone during the first Age. He will have an enormous advantage, practically dictating the course of the game. You might follow him successfully on that premise and even win, it might not however be the game that you will feel comfortable in playing.

Finally, some (basic) strategies! The basic game provided for almost zero follow-up from one Age to another. Linked buildings are the closest that existed to it, their drafting however was not something one commandeered fully. Now choices from Age I will influence what happens in Age II and III, while increasing the otherwise limited risk-taking of Age I. The face-down cards with mythology tokens are extremely sought after. In fact, one must be crazy not to choose one if he has a choice between this and another face-down card without a mythology token on it.

The two new wonders are ok; they increase the basic game's replayability. The Grand Temples are also ok, even though they make the guilds from the basic game redundant. Interestingly enough, if one scours through the internet he will find quite some variants about how to utilize both sets of cards.

The art on the cards follows on the steps of the basic game. If you liked them there, you are very likely to like them here as well.

The weak points: Not a weak point per se, yet with the expansion added the game definitely lasts longer. Forty five minutes is not that much in the grand scheme of things, those however who liked the idea that they can cram two games within an hour might be disappointed.

The additional complexity appears to translate for some as loss of elegance. I do not agree; having the option of a 'pass' from the drafting system should have been an integral part of the engine from the get-go. I admit however that when teaching the game to new players, and in contrast to my approach with other games where I immediately incorporate existing expansions, I approach 7 Wonders Duel basic alone, without the expansion.

The divinities are not born equal. Ra allows you to steal a non-constructed wonder from your opponent, while Isis allows you to build a wonder free of charge. Compare this to Nisaba (she is worth the scientific symbol on an opponent's Green card), and you understand which will see more use and which will almost always end on your opponent's cheaper pantheon location as dead weight.

I patently dislike it when the components of an expansion invalidate the components of the basic game. That is exactly what happens here with the Grand Temples substituting the Guild cards. This comes out as patently lazy as a design, and especially when one takes the rather few components of this expansion into account.

The expansion's cards are of the same quality as those of the basic game. Meaning, they are thinner than what I would have wanted them. Sleeve them if you wish them to last. In its effort to make the size of the divinities different to the one of the wonders, the publisher opted for the French Tarot size of cards, which have hard to find and quite expensive sleeves. Give me a break!

I did not comment on the score note pad on the basic game, even though I find it totally pointless. Here however, it feels like adding insult to injury. Why? Because the expansion is extremely expensive when compared to the basic game, taking into account the amount of components it holds. Inserting something that is only marginally useful and does not affect gameplay in the least is not something that I can see in a positive light. This expansion needed either more meat or a substantially reduced price, not another pointless notepad.

Conclusion: 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon is a solid expansion. The divinities and their variable costs add additional tactics to the basic game, strategies even, while the additional wonders increase its replayability. Unfortunately, the expansion is expensive for what it offers. Frankly, it should have been incorporated into the basic game as a variant.

To find out more about 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon and Repos Production, take a look at http://rprod.com.

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