Honest opinions on 3p edifice

[ElJeffo17]

Hello, I'm writing to ask two things:

1) what do you think of this new arena format? Do you think it's good for competitive play or not, and why?
2) do you have any advice on how to play?

Without tavern it looks like you have to sell very often to be able to participate in building an edifice, which honestly kinda defeats the purpose of playing optimally when you're not Hali, but maybe that's just me

[losbrugno]

1)
I honestly think that 3p edifice is the closest thing to a competitive environment that this game could ever offer. 3p is already pretty good for semi-competitive games but the edifice expansion adds a lot of decision making in every hand, because you can't just play mechanically like in a casual game if you wanna win, you need to pay attention to gold management and edifice rewards otherwise you'll usually end up with ~ 30 points.
2)
As I said, watch out for gold and edifice rewards, the difference with last season 5p edifice is that here you have sooooo much more control over the edifices building, and you can play around it a lot more. Throwing a card is often a good play and gives relatively more value than doing it in vanilla 3p, and don't be scared of Hali and rhodos... The latter I think is arguably the worst wonder in this setup for several reasons, while Hali suffers from success if you force them to play resources and not green by clogging up the discard pile.
General rule, I think that there are heavily underrated edifices and moderately overrated ones, and sometimes not participating could also be a play

[goldlicht]

I look at the player numbers for arena since arena is edifice and the signs seem to be clear: the most casual player base plays less. Btw I got no idea why this season doesn't include leaders.

I'm curious to see the numbers at the end of the season, it's far better than 5 players last season.

[swibat]

I already said it in the past and I stand by it : this is the best version of the game, period.
Some people don't understand it because it's unforgiving. Some good players will tell you that it's "more random", LOL.

If you like 7 wonders and what it can offer strategically, 3p edifice is the way to go.

[Mike62]

I believe that in a competitive game, the standard version should be used rather than various expansions. It’s like introducing new rules in a chess tournament. Personally, I disagree with the decision to use the expansion. If things continue this way, I won't play anymore—though I suppose that doesn't really matter much.

[Mike62]

The number of players has also decreased.
I think this is the best answer.

[dabears51]

I believe that in a competitive game, the standard version should be used rather than various expansions. It’s like introducing new rules in a chess tournament. Personally, I disagree with the decision to use the expansion. If things continue this way, I won't play anymore—though I suppose that doesn't really matter much.

I fully agree. I like three players just fine, but Edifice is one of the weaker 7 Wonders expansions. It becomes a game of trying to make your Wonders at the right time, to gain something or avoid a penalty, rather than playing things your way. What if I don't want to make my wonders? Not a viable option. Want to have a strong economy instead of cash at hand? Wont work, because you have to pay into those projects. It forces certain strageies, in a game that allows so, so many different ways to play. The diminished player count says it all. Cities and Leaders would be a much stronger option, or the base game.

[losbrugno]

I believe that in a competitive game, the standard version should be used rather than various expansions. It’s like introducing new rules in a chess tournament. Personally, I disagree with the decision to use the expansion. If things continue this way, I won't play anymore—though I suppose that doesn't really matter much.

I fully agree. I like three players just fine, but Edifice is one of the weaker 7 Wonders expansions. It becomes a game of trying to make your Wonders at the right time, to gain something or avoid a penalty, rather than playing things your way. What if I don't want to make my wonders? Not a viable option. Want to have a strong economy instead of cash at hand? Wont work, because you have to pay into those projects. It forces certain strageies, in a game that allows so, so many different ways to play. The diminished player count says it all. Cities and Leaders would be a much stronger option, or the base game.

After playing quite a bit I'm actually tending towards this, I mean I don't think edifice is a weak expansion, but it's very impactful on 3p tables. Resources are very very scarce and so is the gold, so as I previously said discarding cards becomes a really strong play, but to be fair it's a disrupting play, so it doesn't really help table's economy or specifically your position, it just gives you a little edge for edifices. Looking deeply, I've noticed that in vanilla 3p I used to always play with such limited gold it was actually embarassing, and now I'm kinda forced to play in a different way.
I probably over evaluated 3p edifice as a competitive environment, it surely is very strategic in different ways and it's also a very different approach to the vanilla game, so you either like it or not, but looking back at last arena season, I think edifice works a lot better when more resources are spread around the table, so for example the 2 taverns in 5p are excellent for this reason. I ultimately have to say that I hate both the 2 gold age 1 edifices, they are so cringe it's unbearable, and the penalties are excruciating. There's the one that gives 1 shield if built whilst the penalty is a grey card, while the other is 2 points for each brown-grey combo and the penalty is a yellow card; both of them are incredibly hard to build and they both disrupt the table economy a lot, so you either go all in for it and avoid the penalty or straight up ignore it, and this types of aut-aut are in my opinion really bad for this game.

[biidow]

I believe that in a competitive game, the standard version should be used rather than various expansions. It’s like introducing new rules in a chess tournament. Personally, I disagree with the decision to use the expansion. If things continue this way, I won't play anymore—though I suppose that doesn't really matter much.

I fully agree. I like three players just fine, but Edifice is one of the weaker 7 Wonders expansions. It becomes a game of trying to make your Wonders at the right time, to gain something or avoid a penalty, rather than playing things your way. What if I don't want to make my wonders? Not a viable option. Want to have a strong economy instead of cash at hand? Wont work, because you have to pay into those projects. It forces certain strageies, in a game that allows so, so many different ways to play. The diminished player count says it all. Cities and Leaders would be a much stronger option, or the base game.

After playing quite a bit I'm actually tending towards this, I mean I don't think edifice is a weak expansion, but it's very impactful on 3p tables. Resources are very very scarce and so is the gold, so as I previously said discarding cards becomes a really strong play, but to be fair it's a disrupting play, so it doesn't really help table's economy or specifically your position, it just gives you a little edge for edifices. Looking deeply, I've noticed that in vanilla 3p I used to always play with such limited gold it was actually embarassing, and now I'm kinda forced to play in a different way.
I probably over evaluated 3p edifice as a competitive environment, it surely is very strategic in different ways and it's also a very different approach to the vanilla game, so you either like it or not, but looking back at last arena season, I think edifice works a lot better when more resources are spread around the table, so for example the 2 taverns in 5p are excellent for this reason. I ultimately have to say that I hate both the 2 gold age 1 edifices, they are so cringe it's unbearable, and the penalties are excruciating. There's the one that gives 1 shield if built whilst the penalty is a grey card, while the other is 2 points for each brown-grey combo and the penalty is a yellow card; both of them are incredibly hard to build and they both disrupt the table economy a lot, so you either go all in for it and avoid the penalty or straight up ignore it, and this types of aut-aut are in my opinion really bad for this game.

I believe that the three-player setup offers the most competitive mode in the game. In my opinion, adding the *Edifice* expansion doesn't necessarily make the game better or worse, but it does require a greater command of decision-making and an understanding of table dynamics, as well as the ability to anticipate the actions and options available to one's neighbors.
Discarding a card for coins, or deliberately choosing not to construct a building, becomes an integral part of the strategy and can sometimes result in a significant advantage or disadvantage for an opponent.
I think that, due to this added strategic complexity, top-tier players achieve more consistent results with *Edifice* expansion 3p, as elements of chance can be better offset by mastery of the gameplay.

[TeeBo]

The numbers don’t lie Edifice has killed 7 Wonders arena! Only 40k games in the last season down from over 100k in the previous two. I boycott very quickly and will continue to do so. I imagine 3p stats will make interesting reading. Surely multiple arenas can be setup to accommodate base fans and expansions if the demand is there.