How to play 7 Wonders Duel

7 Wonders Duel is a two-player head-to-head civilization game by Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala. Over three Ages you draft cards from a shared face-up layout — but only cards that aren't overlapped by others are available, so the structure slowly opens as play progresses. Each card you take is also a card your opponent cannot have.

Three paths lead to victory: storm your opponent's capital with military might, collect six different science symbols, or outlast them on raw victory points at the end of Age III. The tension between building your own engine and blocking your rival's runs through every decision, keeping a full game sharp and decisive in about thirty minutes.

Never tried an open draft? There are no hands of cards here. Each Age, twenty cards are dealt into a shared overlapping pattern — some face-up, some hidden — and on your turn you simply take any card that nothing else covers. Taking a card flips newly exposed ones face-up, so the display keeps changing. That's the whole engine: every pick is at once a purchase for your city, a reveal for both players, and a denial of your rival.

What's in the box, and what each piece does at the table:

• 1 game board — the military tug-of-war: 19 spaces in 9 zones, with each player's capital at the far ends. It also hosts this game's five Progress tokens and the four Military tokens.
• 23 Age I cards, 23 Age II cards, 20 Age III cards — the buildings. Each Age lays out exactly 20 of them in its structure; the extras go back to the box unseen, so you can never be certain which buildings are missing this game.
• 7 Guild cards (purple) — end-game scorers that reward whichever city is bigger in a category (most yellow cards, richest treasury…). Only 3 random Guilds are shuffled into Age III each game.
• 12 Wonder cards — oversized projects drafted 4 apiece during setup. Building one consumes a drafted Age card as material, and only 7 of the 8 in play can ever be completed — someone's last Wonder always dies on the vine.
• 1 Conflict pawn — the single military marker both players push; every shield you build shoves it toward the enemy capital, and reaching a capital ends the game on the spot.
• 4 Military tokens — looting penalties on the track: the first time the pawn enters those zones, the defender loses 2 or 5 coins.
• 10 Progress tokens — green science powers (extra shields, cheaper Wonders, victory points…). Five sit face-up on the board each game, and you claim one whenever you collect a pair of identical science symbols.
• 31 coins (14 of value 1, 10 of value 3, 7 of value 6) — pay building costs and buy missing resources from the bank; every 3 coins in your treasury is worth a point at the end.
• 1 scorebook, 1 rulebook, 1 helpsheet — the helpsheet shows each Age's layout pattern, and the scorebook walks the final count.

Players alternate turns — nothing is simultaneous here. On your turn:

1. Take an accessible card from the structure — one not even partially covered by another card.
2. Do exactly one of three things with it: - Construct the building — pay its cost and add it to your city. Resources are never spent: your brown/gray production just has to cover the requirement, fresh every turn. If you're short, buy the missing resources from the bank at 2 coins + the number of that resource your opponent's brown and gray cards produce — your rival's economy literally sets your prices. If a building in your city shows the card's white chain symbol, it's free. - Build a Wonder — pay the Wonder's cost and slide the drafted card face-down beneath it as material; gain the Wonder's effect immediately (several grant an extra turn). Only 7 Wonders can be built in the whole game: the moment the 7th is finished, the last unbuilt one is returned to the box. - Discard it for coins — take 2 coins, plus 1 per yellow card in your city.
3. Reveal what you uncovered. Any face-down cards now fully exposed are flipped face-up.

Effects bite immediately, not at the end of an Age. Every shield you build pushes the Conflict pawn toward the enemy capital, and the first time it enters a Military-token zone the defender loses 2 or 5 coins. Collect a pair of identical science symbols and you claim one of the board's Progress tokens on the spot.

When the structure's 20th card is taken the Age ends: the player behind on the military track — the one whose side the Conflict pawn is on — chooses who opens the next Age (if the pawn sits dead center, nobody chooses: whoever took the last card of the Age simply begins the next one). Deal the next Age's pattern and continue.

A few turns in practice. Ana takes the uncovered Garrison and builds it with the clay her Clay Pit produces; its shield pushes the pawn one space into Beto's first zone — that innermost zone carries no Military token, so nothing is looted yet, but the next shields will start costing Beto coins. Beto answers by taking the Library — its quill matches the quill on the Scriptorium he built in Age I, and the pair lets him claim the Law Progress token from the board. Two turns later Ana draws a card she has no use for and slides it under one of her Wonders instead, paying the Wonder's resource cost, taking its bonus — and playing again at once, because that Wonder grants an extra turn.

You can win instantly at any point in two ways: push the Conflict pawn all the way into your opponent's capital (Military Supremacy), or collect six different science symbols (Scientific Supremacy). There are seven symbols in the game — six on the green cards and a seventh on the Law Progress token — so science stays live even late.

If neither supremacy lands by the end of Age III, count victory points: your military position on the track (0, 2, 5, or 10), your buildings (blue, green, yellow, and purple cards), your Wonders, your Progress tokens, and your treasury (every 3 coins = 1 point). The higher total wins. A tie goes to whoever scored more points from blue civilian buildings alone; if that also ties, the victory is shared.

Watch both instant-win tracks at all times — a single unchecked science pair or military push can end the game before points are ever counted. Drafting is as much about denial as construction: sometimes the right move is paying to bury your rival's sixth symbol under your Wonder.