It’s time to take the biggest buildings and monuments that the world has ever seen and make the biggest city ever! Between you and all the other builders in the world it is time to see who can make the most amazing and beautiful city the world has ever seen. Let’s see how we can all compete to be the creator the greatest city in all of antiquity!
World Wonders and the first expansion pack MUNDO are published by Arcane Wonders and designed by Ze Mendes. Graphic design by Mundus. The game is designed for 1-5 players and plays in approximately one hour.
Overview:
In World Wonders players compete by placing buildings, roads, towers and monuments on their board trying to score the most victory points. At the end of 10 rounds or if the end game conditions are met first the player with the most victory points will be announced as the winner!
Gameplay:
Players will begin with seven gold each round to spend on actions, one action at a time clockwise around the table. The actions cost varying amounts of gold but once all players have spent all their gold in a round the round ends and resets for the next round.
The different actions are as follows with the costs:
1 long road (1 gold)
1 set of short road tiles (1 gold)
1 building tiles (X gold cost on tile)
Tower (2 gold)
1st or 2nd player pedestal (1 gold)
Wonders (X gold left in the round)
Players will take the tiles, roads, towers and Wonders and they acquire on their turn and place them immediately on their board. Placement varies based on the type of tile or object being placed but there are restrictions and ways that everything is played that will need to be followed.
Based on the amount of gold spent, turns will end differently in a round. Once the round is finished the pedestals for first and second player are awarded and then turn order is done from there. Players who place Wonders need to follow the placement rules on the card but keep in mind these award a victory point or two at the end of the game making them very valuable.
Gameplay continues until one player reaches the end of the population track or you have reached ten rounds. Points are totaled and the player with the most is the winner!
Impressions:
First off, let me state that I am a polyomino gamer. I love all things “Tetris-like” in my board games and this one is right in that vein. So as you would imagine, I went into this one expecting to like it. And I can confirm that I really enjoyed World Wonders. This game is everything I love about shape placement and I really have enjoyed every play of it so far. But lets get into the details of what I liked the most.
The components. This game looks like something you would expect from a deluxified edition on a crowdfunding campaign but it isn’t-it is a full retail edition and you get some awesome pieces for that. Each of the Wonders is full color and wooden and they really pop on the player boards. A few of mine weren’t glued as aligned as they could have been but that is such a small detail that it doesn’t take away from any of the game. The poly tiles are good quality as well and everything else in the box is well done. No complaints at all on this one from my end.
The gameplay. You start with a handful of coins to use to choose actions, but players can end up spending more than other at different levels causing turns to be a little more staggered than you might expect. I love games that let you choose to pay for first player especially at a higher player count because going last can definitely be punishing. And the way you chose tiles and have very specific building requirements helps to make this challenging but not impossible. I especially like the Wonders and how those are built, making certain tiles and their resources more important depending on where you are in the game. And making a big coin sacrifice for a Wonder before your opponent can take it can really change the course of the game.
The Scoring. It can be a ton of fun to play “point salad” games where you can score so many points in so many different ways but this is not that type of game. This is a tight scoring game and while there are a number of different ways to score points you really have to be on top of every single one. Balancing your progression of the tracks will really affect your score so make sure to keep those numbers all close to one another as you grow. One great example is the extra gold option on a turn that will “only” cost you 2 points at the end of the game if you don’t pay it off. This seems minimal but in a game where players at our table have averaged 20-30ish points per game this can be near 10% of your score!
Overall World Wonders and the expansion MUNDO are an amazing addition to the polyomino space of board games. I loved the base game and the expansion just adds that much more fun with all of the new Wonders you can pick from. Everyone who has played it at our table has really enjoyed the game and many have requested further plays at future game nights. So the next time crafting an amazing community of antiquities from the past is on your list of must-do’s, make sure to get World Wonders to your table!
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