7 Wonders - Wasted plays

When playing any game, I find that there three situations that can contribute to a win or a loss; how you play, how your opponent plays, and luck of the cards/dice/etc.  One of the reasons that I enjoy 7 Wonders so much is that it is rare that I feel that the luck of the cards is the reason for a win or loss.  Yes, it can make some difference, and it definitely affects how you play, but there always seems to be decent options with the cards you are presented. 

I often let my wife pick which boardgame we play, as it is usually me wanting to play a boardgame in the first place.  7 Wonders is one of her favourites and is relatively quick to play, which is why we have played it so much lately.  This weekend we played again, and this was one of the games where in hindsight I realized that my play is what caused me to lose, due to wasted plays.

Like many of our games, and as I previously posted about, the leaders I ended up with affected my strategy.  This time my plan was based around Phidias (one point per brown card) and Imhotep (wonder stages cost one less resource), I also had a couple of leaders that were just straight victory points.  The conflict between these card should have been obvious; one directs you towards lots of resource cards, and one away from needing them.  It is an even bigger error when you consider that the wonder I had, Olympia, has a brown resource already, only needs common resources to build its stages, and a low number of them (only two per stage).  I used my leader for the 2nd age to build the 2nd stage of my wonder; this allowed one building to be built each age for free.  Because I had so many resources, I never ended up using it. Yes it allowed the 3rd stage to be built, but for 2 cards 7 points should have been easily achievable, even in the 2nd age. 

Final card layout (me at bottom)

It should be pointed out that my wife played well, and took full advantage of her wonder, which definitely contributed to the final score of 64-53.  It just goes to show, that even with a game you have played many times before, it is important to pay attention to your strategy!