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Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 11 July 2026, 17:36
by TwoLambda
Recently they added the Leaders expansion, which is a great addition to an already brilliant game imo.
However, it surprises me how overpowered Archimedes is. He lets you build green cards in the first age for free. He costs just 4 coins. He is a completely no-brainer grab if you see him during the leader drafting phase, regardless of your wonder or your neighbors' wonders.
We ban him right away when playing the physical game. I'm interested to hear other people's opinions on him. Do you think he is overpowered, and did/would you nerf (if so, how?) or ban him?
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 11 July 2026, 22:34
by sad-whale390
Why ban him? Just burn green when someone puts him on table and 4 gold wasted. Thing with science cards is that everyone knows they gonna lose if they dont stop that player but still pushes their own agendas instead od stopping science guy...recent physical game ,friend puta Arch on table ,3 cards go to discard first round...he puts tablet on the table for 4 gold...not good move
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 13 July 2026, 16:27
by JawWorm
Yes, he's extremely powerful.
It would be nice to have an option that removes a few of the leaders that are seen as unbalancing, as some other games on BGA have similar options (Wingspan for instance). I'm hoping that the "game gurus" for 7 Wonders are already having this discussion.
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 18 July 2026, 20:46
by ldac89
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 19 July 2026, 13:18
by luffydude
I won a game because of Archimedes...... But only because literally no one else ever took any green cards. Science is only OP if everyone else ignores and you catch em all
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 20 July 2026, 10:45
by kgorham2
Oh Yeah!
Arch is totally overpowered as a leader. I just had a game with Arch and Ptolemy on the Roma playmate. I sweep with the game with Science victory. My final score was 20 points above the other 3 players.
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 26 July 2026, 18:02
by swibat
JawWorm wrote: ↑13 July 2026, 16:27
Yes, he's extremely powerful.
It would be nice to have an option that removes a few of the leaders that are seen as unbalancing, as some other games on BGA have similar options (Wingspan for instance). I'm hoping that the "game gurus" for 7 Wonders are already having this discussion.
The problem is this would be a house rule, which BGA never really implements. The devs abandoned Leader a while ago and never really solved its issues, even with new edition. So you have broken Archimedes, pretty broken Bilkis, absolutely terrible Sappho, and more generally a very very bad balance between different leaders.
I don't think there is any way around it. If you want fun and variety and like leaders because of that, you should not worry about balance or even strategy and competition. Go for edifice (especially 3p) in that case.
At home, however, I strongly suggest modifying leaders to your taste. There is a lot of room for that. Showing to everyone what is the general pool of drafted white cards, starting with 5 instead of 4 to have a really choice even for the 4th one, banning Archimedes and Sappho and maybe a lot other ones that feel overpowered or underpowered (or change their cost. Archimedes should cost 6 imo, he would be fine then). Have fun !
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 27 July 2026, 06:08
by Seriq
swibat wrote: ↑26 July 2026, 18:02
JawWorm wrote: ↑13 July 2026, 16:27
Yes, he's extremely powerful.
It would be nice to have an option that removes a few of the leaders that are seen as unbalancing, as some other games on BGA have similar options (Wingspan for instance). I'm hoping that the "game gurus" for 7 Wonders are already having this discussion.
The problem is this would be a house rule, which BGA never really implements. The devs abandoned Leader a while ago and never really solved its issues, even with new edition. So you have broken Archimedes, pretty broken Bilkis, absolutely terrible Sappho, and more generally a very very bad balance between different leaders.
I don't think there is any way around it. If you want fun and variety and like leaders because of that, you should not worry about balance or even strategy and competition. Go for edifice (especially 3p) in that case.
At home, however, I strongly suggest modifying leaders to your taste. There is a lot of room for that. Showing to everyone what is the general pool of drafted white cards, starting with 5 instead of 4 to have a really choice even for the 4th one, banning Archimedes and Sappho and maybe a lot other ones that feel overpowered or underpowered (or change their cost. Archimedes should cost 6 imo, he would be fine then). Have fun !
Isn't the wingspan example literally a house rule? Other games also have those.
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 27 July 2026, 06:34
by swibat
I think the difference is investment in those from the designers / publishers.
I don't know much about Hargrave, but I know for sure that Bauza doesn't do much about 7 wonders anymore (he just spent too much time on it already).
Re: Opinions on Archimedes
Posted: 01 August 2026, 13:24
by luffydude
People are perceiving the hero to be strong just because science in itself is strong when it is ignored
Take a look at this game
https://boardgamearena.com/tableview?table=892240495
I'm a noob yet my enemies, some of them good elo completely ignored my science, allowing me to get an insane score of 76 without any guild or wonder booster or hero booster
This hero is easy to counter and becomes just an expensive initial investment if you just use the green cards to boost wonder/get gold
