As my entry for the 200 Word RPG Challenge (which I wrote about previously) I created "HISTORY BUILDING WITH 7 WONDERS DUEL". It was my way of giving myself something fun to do while playing 7 Wonders Duel with the wife, but I haven't really tested it yet.

After lots of conversations prior to the start of our Story Games Glendale meetup, I co-opted David into playing it with me.

You start by defining your fledgling civilization. Mine was was:

Civilization: Saurian Empire
Capital: Liz'Kit
Leader: Tarsisus Bloodskin
Aspects: Dense jungles, equatorial weather, extreme variations of genes, biology-based technology

The game itself consists of taking turns building resources, structures, science improvements, and military conquests. You can win through might (taking the other players capital), through science (by building 6 different science symbols) or with victory points at the end of the game.

It looks roughly like this:

An example of 7 Wonders Duel (from the net... this wasn't our game specifically). You can see the types of cards: Brown resources, Green science, Yellow economic, Blue improvements, Red military, etc.

We didn't finish the game, but it was enough to get a feel for how (or if) this would work. Our history ended up looking like this, by the year number:

0: (Initial event) Massive volcanic eruption has strong effect on regional weather patterns, and creates a tenuous land bridge between two continents
3: (Build: Stone resource) Mass extinctions force Saurians to use non-biology technology; they learn how to work with stone.
7: (Build: Stone Reserve) Etruscans enslave a race of mountain dwellers, securing a stone reserve.
14: (Build: Clay resource) Saurians commit genocide on a human tribe and take their clay-working knowledge.
22: (Build: Wood resource) Etruscans train and begin to uplift an ape species to log wood for them.
23: (Build: Altar) Saurian priests state that sacrifice of humans is necessary to please the lizard gods in lieu of this non-bio tech use.
25: (Build: Tavern) Etruscans discover a breed of poppy for its mind-altering properties.
29: (Build: ?) Saurians take more human lands.
32: (Build: Glass resource) Etruscans harness desert lightning to make glass.
40: (Trade 2 coins to Build: Writing science) Saurians trade with the Heptosians, providing brick for paper, with which they begin to create a prolific writing system.
41: (Build: Theater) The Etruscan princess spurns the throne so as to build a theater to encourage her chosen art form.
43: (Build: Wood resource) Saurians raid and steal uplifted apes, improving them and gaining wood working ability.
45: (Build: Clay resource) Many apes run from the Saurians and bring back clay technology to the Etruscan kingdom.

And that's where we ended. I got the notion we were starting to get somewhat antagonistic, which is sort of the point. I think it's interesting to start on your side of the fence, and then slowly build with more oppositional stuff. We only got half-way through the first "age" of the three ages you play in the game. I got the impression that the second and third age would be fun with many direct skirmishes or outright wars. Also, in this test game there was little battle because no Red battle cards even showed up (which is unusual).

One aspect I was happy with was the speed at which it played. The whole point is to quickly build a sentence which describes the results of the year. This was partly due to me expecting to play it myself during a game with the wife, so it couldn't be time consuming. That said, you could easily spend more time fleshing out a more involved story, if that was your thing.

All in all, a successful test run!