150 development cards are quite a lot to expand our small empire. But, the game lasts only four rounds and the game duration is also comparable short. Only 45-60 minutes, that's not only a statement on the gamebox, that's indeed realistic, independent on the number of players. You still need all of these cards in a game with four players!

The explanation for that is the draft phase at the beginning of each round. Seven cards (ten in a two-player game) are dealt to each player. In a drafting mode – comparable to the drafting phase in 7 Wonders - the cards are taken by the players. After that a planning phase takes place in which the players simultaneously choose which of these new cards they keep for construction and which they recycle. Recycled cards go directly to the discard pile, but the players immediately get the recycling bonus of this card. This is always one of the resources or one of the two different character bonuses.

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Resources are needed for the construction of the development cards. Each card has its own cost on the left side of the card in form of small squares in different colours. The resource cubes have the same colours and must be placed on top of these squares. Once all construction squares are filled, the development card is added to the empire and from now on cares for more production in the production phase and victory points for the final scoring.

This already brings us to the production phase: for each production step we count the number of icons in our empire (not on cards that are still under construction) that match the current production step. We then take the matching resources, beginning with the grey resources and ending with the blue resources. All players can do this simultaneously, but must stop for every production step, because there is also a supremacy bonus. This bonus let the player who has produced the most resources of that type take one of the character tokens. Additionally, after each production step players immediately place the new resources on development cards that are still under construction. And if that leads to a new completely filled development, the card is directly moved to the empire area, and immediately contributes to further productions. If for example, after the second production step (black resources), a player receives two missing black resources for a development card still under construction, she or he can take the new card to the empire. And if that card produces green or yellow resources (that are produced later than the black resources), it will give the player the resources still in the same game round.

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Character tokens are another method to collect victory points, but they are also necessary for some constructions of the development cards. In the end there is a short scoring, consisting of only four steps and then the winner with the most victory points is determined.

I'm really impressed of the game. Although I already knew all of the different game mechanics from other games, it feels to be new. I played it with many different player types and number of players: experienced players, non-gamers, a solo variant on my own as well as with my two sons. All of the players were fascinated by the game. I think the reason for this is that the cards build on one another. At the beginning you feel like you will never will achieve any progress.

But then you draft, recycle cards (that's much more important than most players think) and construct new developments. And soon after you recognize that you can now produce much more resources each round. However, four rounds are not many, and so you must find a strategy to get the best out of the cards you get. Of course that is luck-dependent, but due to the drafting mode the players have more or less the same problem with “bad” cards. I can highly recommend to give the game a try, especially if you are a fan of 7 Wonders and want to find something similar with a fresh new atmosphere.