7 Wonders Dice

• Designer: Antoine Bauza
• Publisher: Repos
• Players: 2-7
• Age: 10+
• Time: 25 minutes 
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/480ZMlC
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Guide one of the seven largest cities of antiquity to prosperity in 7 Wonders Dice. During the game, you will construct a wonder that defies time, make scientific advances, develop commerce, manage your resources, and handle your gold reserve prudently — all while keeping an eye on neighboring cities since ignoring them has a heavy price!  A game plays over a series of turns during which you will use dice to construct your city. At the end of the game, count up all of your points to see who has the highest score.

Each player is given a random board and a wax pencil. The board is divided into 2 areas – the top is your city and the bottom is your economy (showing the resources you produce as well as your gold coin supply). The top half has buildings of different colors, showing the actions you can take with the different faces on each of those dice.

The Forum box is placed in the center of the table and the starting dice (3 gray, 1 blue, 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green) are placed inside.  The other three dice are not yet used.  There are four quadrants in the box, each with an associated cost for the dice found within (0-3 coins). 

The game is played in a number of rounds, and at the start of each round, any player puts the lid on the Forum box and then moves it around in a circular manner to mix up the dice.  The lid is then removed to reveal the dice faces showing and the quadrants in which the dice ended up.

All players now must take one of three action options: construct a Building, construct a Wonder, or Pass.

To Construct a Building, (mentally) choose any die from the Forum and pay its cost based on location.  Then find the matching building on your board and cross off the next space in order as shown from the die face icon.  The space likely has a cost on it which must be paid.  If it wants resources, it just wants that number of unique resources.  If you are short, you pay 1 coin per missing resource. Once a space is crossed off, you will have its benefit for the rest of the game.  If you have crossed off all the spaces in a particular building, you can take one of the three bonuses found in the bottom right of your board.

• Agora (Blue) – VPs for each space; plus a bonus to the first person to complete the building
• Market (Yellow) – mostly rewards for completing other parts of your board
• Barracks (Red) – Both attack and defense against your neighbors in either direction
• University (Green) – grants access to the 3 special dice (each replaces one of the gray starting dice) – you cannot choose a special die unless you have unlocked it yourself
• Guild Court (Purple) – you must have at least as many spaces crossed off in the designated building as each of your neighbors – for large VP bonuses

To Construct your Wonder – you do not need to choose a die for this, simply cross off the next space in order for your wonder, paying the costs for that space.

To pass – simply gain 3 coins for this round.

Now, play another round. Continue playing until the end of a round when one or more players has crossed off all three of their bonuses.  Play one more final turn and then move into end-game scoring.  Add up all the VP icons that are crossed off on your board.  Ties broken in favor of the player with the most unused coins.

My thoughts on the game

Though it feels like maybe the tide of X and write games is on the downswing, there are still plenty of entries into the genre each year.  At Spiel 2025, I got a sneak peek at the game, and then it arrived here at the Gaming Basement near the end of the year.  As with its original inspiration, the game plays up to 7 players, and that will be a big selling point for some.

(I’ll have to interject that I have never felt that was a plus of the game, and I tend to only want to play 7 Wonders, and now 7 Wonders dice with 3 players.  I personally want to be in contact with the other players given the way the military works.  At least in the dice game, my issues with the drafting of cards is essentially gone as we all just pick and choose the dice we want from the magic box).

Speaking of the box, it’s a really novel way to roll and display the dice.  You simply shake the box on the table or swirl it in circles, and this motion both rolls the dice as well as moves them into the different priced areas.

As with many roll and writes, the game is filled with the possibility of making awesome chained combos – and everyone is on their honor to do their own thing as each chooses their own die, pays for it with coins, makes sure they have the resources to do their action and then does the action and all the sequelae. The rules are pretty easy to grok, and this is a good feature of the game, because it’s unlikely that players are going to have the time or desire to police what their neighbors are doing – other than maybe glancing at their military strength from time to time.  If a player doesn’t get the rules, they might off on their own doing the wrong things for a while.

The game definitely has a lot of the feel of the original with each color having its own main concept.  I have seen a bunch of different strategies win here – and while there hasn’t yet been one particular strategy that I’ve seen work, it does seem like most of our winners have chosen a specific color and really tried to maximize the effects of that to gain an advantage over the opponents.

The boards and wax pencils are well done – in fact, the pencils here are amongst the best X and write utensils I’ve seen yet in a game.  Most of the icons are straightfoward and easy to figure out, and the others are all explained on the player aid.  And as I mentioned earlier, I really do think the magic dice box is an excellent method to roll and apportion the cubic randomizers.

In the end, the question I’m sure you want to know the answer to is: Do I prefer this over regular 7 Wonders?  While I’m not entirely sure yet, I think if I had to choose one, I’d keep the original card game.   Part of that might be due to my overall decline in interest in X and Writes, but I think the lessened player interaction in the dice game makes it less interesting for me.  The turns here can get a bit fiddly, and it is not uncommon for people to get lost in the midst of a chained turn.  Also, though the game length on the box is about the same as the original game, the Dice games just feel too long for what you get.  I’m not sure why that is, but it’s rare that I’m sitting at a 7W game just waiting for it to end; that happens more often than not with the dice game.

For me, the simple elegance of draft a card, play a card, repeat just works better for me.  That’s not to say that 7W: Dice is a bad game, it just has some super tall and broad shoulders to try to stand on, and that makes the comparison that much harder for the new game.  If you’re still excited about roll and writes, it’s a great way to get a new viewpoint on a classic gaming franchise.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson (4.5 plays): I’m actually in the middle of my fifth play right now – thanks to the game becoming available on BGA. It’s a perfectly fine roll’n’write – but it isn’t going to set the world on fire. I’d agree to play it if someone asked but I don’t need to own it.

A semi-related tip for Dale: the Armada expansion for 7 Wonders (the original game) adds the military (and exploration) interaction you’re looking for, my friend. 

Dan B. (1 play): One of the most boring X-and-write games I have played in a long time. 7 Wonders is not a favorite game of mine but it’s decent and I am willing to play it, although preferably with a small number of players. The dice game removes just about all the interesting aspects of the original. There’s no drafting as such, since everyone can use a given die. The already very limited military interaction is made even more limited. The interesting wonder abilities are gone. Etc. Even just considered as an X-and-write with no connection to 7 Wonders it’s not very good – sure, you can chain bonuses, but so what? That’s been done dozens of times by now.

Ben B. (3 plays): This is an okay game at best in my opinion. There is zero tension at the table and no excitement about the roles. Whether there is someone at war next to you or not is really not a thing of tension at all either. I will give a nod to the box that you roll the dice in, its well constructed and a bit of novelty. The wax pencils on atrocious and leave marks on the re-usable player boards. 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Mark Jackson, Steph H, Craig M.
• Neutral.  Dale Y
• Not for me… Dan B., Ben B

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/480ZMlC