A very simple variant to balance the first player (in every Age) advantage

[exoone]

You need conspiracies from Agora to play this variant.

In Age 1, the player chooses wonders first now chooses who to start Age 1.
After the player decides who starts current Age, the other player may conspire once for free.

Simple, thematic and violent! But for ones who embracre the nature of randomness and enjoy risk management!
Don't forget to get rid of some irrelevent conspiracies when playing without Agora expansion.

[OwnerOfTheIronThrone]

Tbh that's poor idea and even worse execution. 1st player advantage would be even bigger, because in age 1, you don't "choose" the starting player and in age II he would also get a free conspiracy. And even if you gave it to 2nd player on age I by changing the wording, it would be very random, often giving no advantage at all and often winning the game on a spot by handing out strategy or extortion for no reason. If you are playing casually, then there is no need to balance things out. If you feel the need for balance, stay away from solution which hand out compensation in a form of extremly random effect.

[exoone]

Tbh that's poor idea and even worse execution. ... it would be very random, often giving no advantage at all and often winning the game on a spot by handing out strategy or extortion for no reason... If you feel the need for balance, stay away from solution which hand out compensation in a form of extremly random effect.

Thanks for your idea and now wording changed! I guess you're kind of the people who would enjoy Pantheon more than Agora, but I like conspiracies and embrace the randomness it brings, as many other people appreciate Agora far more than Pantheon! It is sad for me that this variant is not for you, but 7 Wonders Duel is far from perfect and some minor changes will not change the first player advantage as well as some imbalanced god card (like Ra probably to you), which leads me to this wild and viloent variant after getting bored of some normie variants. By the way I already houseruled Strategy token's effect to 'represent 1/2/3 shields for 1/4/7 red cards you have' many years ago, and maybe you can houserule that Extortion only to be able to steal a non-replay wonder.

Can random effects balance the game? That's another very intereting topic, and in my opinoin definitely yes! It is totally wrong to reject randomness into competiition. If you don't like hidden informaation, just try open draft conspiracies, kind of like god cards.