Funny story…..
Last night Meg beat me twice out of 3 games in 7WD, both military victories.
The words I had committed to only the same week came back to haunt me.
Ignore warfare at your peril.
I lost one game mid Second Age. Quite a feat. She said it was like I was in a world of my own and she just pushed and pushed with no response. I even had a chance to save things last moment, but was so wrapped up in my own plans I failed to notice the problem. One thing I did well/badly was to buy Neptune, hopefully dissuading her in her militant quest, but what it actually did was switch me off from watching her.
Game 2 saw me getting it together, winning a decently tight game that looked closer than it was (about 60 vs 50 points).
The last game and second military win was even crueller.
I was on top in every way. I had progress tokens (one of the ideal synergies of Engineering and Urbanism) netting me a fortune (we had to break out the spare coin), plenty of points of all types, a host of “A” grade Gods (including Aphrodite, The Pyramids and both 7 point civil cards) and a general feeling of wellbeing (smug superiority). I had so much going on I was running out of table space!
What I was not ready for was a multi hit of a 3 shield build (revealed), a Wonder with money and a repeat turn leading to Mars and another 3 shield build (also a reveal) all in the space of 3 turns! There were only 4 cards left on the table. So close.
What was even dumber was the unbuilt and free to build wonder (Colossus) sitting in front of me :0.
In Meg’s own words, a military victory was not even in her thoughts at the start of the Age.
Moral of the story;
Read what you write, practice what you preach and remember, 7WD is a game of balance.