⚡Quick Start Guide

New to 7 Wonders Duel? Here's everything you need to play your first game in 60 seconds:

The Loop

1. Pick any accessible (uncovered) card from the shared card structure.
2. Do one of three things with it: build it (pay the cost, add to your city), discard it (take 2 coins + 1 per yellow card you own), or sacrifice it to build a Wonder (place it face-down under your Wonder, pay the Wonder's cost).
3. Pass the turn. Repeat until all 20 cards are gone — that's one Age. Play 3 Ages.

How to Win

• Dominate militarily — push the Conflict Pawn all the way into your opponent's capital (9 spaces). Instant win.
• Dominate scientifically — collect 6 different science symbols. Instant win.
• Outscore — if neither happens, count VP at the end of Age III. Most VP wins.

Key Numbers to Remember

Chain Building (Free Cards)

Many cards show a small symbol in their cost corner. If you already have the matching card in your city, you build the new card completely free — no resources, no coins. Always check your chain options before paying.

🏛 Overview

7 Wonders Duel is a 2-player standalone game set in the world of 7 Wonders. Players take turns drafting cards from a shared card structure, building their city across three ages. The game can end in three ways:

Each player begins with 7 coins and a hand of Wonders to build.

📦 Setup

1. Place the Conflict Pawn on the central space of the Military track.
2. Place all Military tokens (2, 5, and 10 VP penalty tokens) on their matching spaces on the Military track.
3. Shuffle the Progress Tokens and randomly place 5 of them face-up near the board. Return the rest to the box.
4. Each player selects their Wonders: shuffle all 12 Wonder cards. Reveal 4 at a time; the first player drafts 1, then the second player drafts 2, then the first player drafts 1. Repeat with the next 4. Each player ends with 4 Wonders.
5. Each player takes 7 coins from the bank.
6. Arrange the Age I card structure (see your rulebook for the exact layout — 20 cards in a pyramid-like face-up/face-down pattern). The player who most recently visited a real monument goes first.

🔄 On Your Turn

On your turn, choose one accessible card from the Age structure and do one of the following:

• Build the card — pay its cost and add it to your city.
• Discard the card — take 2 coins + 1 coin per yellow card in your city.
• Build a Wonder — pay the Wonder's cost and place the card face-down beneath your next unbuilt Wonder.

Resource Costs

Resource cards produce resources for free for their owner. If you lack a resource, you must buy it from your opponent: the cost is 2 coins + 1 coin per copy of that resource your opponent has. Coins go to the bank — your opponent earns nothing (unless they have the Economy progress token).

When an Age Ends

When the last card is taken from an Age structure, that Age ends. If neither supremacy has been triggered, set up the next Age's card structure and continue. After Age III ends, proceed to final scoring.

🃏 Card Types

Red — Military

Generate shields. Each shield moves the Conflict Pawn toward your opponent's city, potentially triggering coin penalties or Military Supremacy.

Yellow — Commercial

Provide coins, reduce trade costs, score Victory Points, or grant special commercial bonuses. Also used for discarding income.

Blue — Civilian

Score flat Victory Points. The backbone of a civilian VP strategy — no special rules, just pure end-game points.

Green — Scientific

Provide science symbols and VP. Collecting 6 different symbols triggers Scientific Supremacy — an instant win.

Purple — Guilds

Score VP based on cards in both players' cities. Powerful but situational — their value depends on the game state when taken.

🪵

Brown / Grey — Resources

Produce raw materials (wood, stone, clay, ore) or manufactured goods (glass, papyrus) for free each turn to satisfy building costs.

Military Conflict

Each red Military card you build moves the Conflict Pawn toward your opponent's city by 1 space per shield symbol shown on the card.

Military Tokens (During the Game)

When the Conflict Pawn crosses or reaches certain positions, your opponent immediately loses coins. These effects trigger once per token.

End-of-Game Military VP

If neither player achieved Military Supremacy, the final pawn position awards VP to the player whose side the pawn has advanced into:

Science & Scientific Supremacy

Green Scientific cards each show one or more science symbols. There are 7 different science symbols in the game:

Science symbols also come from certain Progress Tokens (e.g., the Law token). These count toward supremacy just like card symbols.

Progress Tokens

At the start of each game, 5 randomly selected Progress Tokens are placed face-up in the supply. When a player collects their second copy of any science symbol, they immediately choose one of the available Progress Tokens to keep.

Progress Tokens provide powerful one-time or permanent effects. The full set includes:

Wonders

Each player begins with 4 Wonders selected during setup. To build a Wonder, use any card from the Age structure as the build card (placed face-down beneath your Wonder board). Pay the Wonder's resource and/or coin cost, then apply its effect immediately.

At most 7 Wonders total can be built across both players in a game — if 7 have already been built when the 8th Wonder would be constructed, that Wonder may not be built.

Common Wonder Effects

Wonders can provide: large VP bonuses, extra turns, coins, destruction of opponent's cards or tokens, science symbols, or even the ability to replay a turn. The 12 available Wonders include famous structures from antiquity such as the Pyramids, the Colosseum, the Mausoleum, and the Lighthouse.

🧮 Final Scoring

If the game reaches the end of Age III without a supremacy victory, tally Victory Points across all categories:

Category	How to Score
Military	Based on final Conflict Pawn position: 0 / 2 / 5 / 10 VP to the leading player. See military table above.
Treasury	⌊ coins ÷ 3 ⌋ — every 3 coins in your treasury equals 1 VP. Leftover coins count for nothing.
Wonders	Sum the VP values printed on each of your built Wonders.
Civilian	Sum the VP values printed on your blue cards.
Scientific	Sum the VP values printed on your green cards. (No quadratic formula — direct VP only.)
Commercial	Sum the VP values printed on your yellow cards. (Not all yellow cards give VP.)
Guilds	Each purple Guild card scores based on a condition involving cards in both players' cities — whichever player has more of the relevant card type.
Progress Tokens	Sum any VP granted by your collected Progress Tokens (Philosophy: 7 VP; Mathematics: 3 VP per token you own, etc.).

⚠️ Most Commonly Forgotten Rules

Even experienced players trip over these. Keep this list handy for your first few games.

Card Accessibility

Trade Coins Go to the Bank — Not Your Opponent

The 7-Wonder Cap

Science Supremacy Triggers Mid-Turn

Progress Tokens Count as Science Symbols

Military Tokens Fire Immediately

Discard Income Uses YOUR Yellow Cards

Not All Yellow Cards Give VP

Wonders Are Drafted, Not Chosen Freely

Second Identical Science Symbol = Progress Token

📋 Quick Reference

📜 History of 7 Wonders Duel

Origins: 7 Wonders (2010)

7 Wonders was designed by Antoine Bauza and published in 2010 by Repos Production. It became an instant modern classic — a card-drafting game for 2–7 players built around simultaneous play, resource chains, and wonder construction in the ancient world. It won the Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur Game of the Year) in Germany in 2011, one of the most prestigious awards in board gaming, and catapulted Bauza into the upper tier of game designers worldwide. Millions of copies have been sold across dozens of languages.

The 2-Player Problem

Despite its massive popularity, 7 Wonders had a known weakness: it plays awkwardly with only 2 players, relying on a "ghost hand" to simulate a third player. Fans loved the theme and mechanics but wanted a proper head-to-head experience. That gap led to 7 Wonders Duel.

7 Wonders Duel (2015)

7 Wonders Duel was co-designed by Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala — one of the most prolific designers in the hobby, known for Five Tribes, Kingdomino, and Shadows over Camelot. Published in 2015 by Repos Production, it was built from the ground up as a 2-player standalone game rather than a variant or expansion.

Rather than simultaneous card drafting, Duel uses a shared face-up card structure where players alternate turns, creating genuine tension and direct interaction that the base game lacked at 2 players. The addition of the Military track, instant-win conditions, and Progress Tokens gave it a distinct identity while keeping the DNA of the original intact.

Critical Reception and Awards

The reception was immediate and overwhelming. 7 Wonders Duel won the International Gamers Award for Best 2-Player Game in 2015 and claimed the Golden Geek Award for Best 2-Player Game on BoardGameGeek the same year. Within months of release it climbed into the BGG Top 50, and it has remained consistently inside the BGG Top 25 two-player games of all time ever since — a rare achievement for a game to sustain over a decade.

Expansions and Legacy

The game's success spawned two major expansions. Pantheon (2016) introduced gods and divine interventions that can dramatically shift the game state. Agora (2019) added a Senate and political influence track, creating new paths to victory and interaction. Both expansions are fully compatible with the base game and with each other, giving experienced players a significantly deeper experience while the base game remains a perfect entry point.

7 Wonders Duel is widely recommended by designers, critics, and enthusiasts as the gold standard for what a competitive 2-player card game can be — demonstrating that a faithful spiritual adaptation can surpass its celebrated source material for its target audience.