Meg and I have come to a worrying point in our 7WD games.
She has (narrowly) lost 6 of the last 7 games. Of those losses, one was military, three science and the closest others, by points.
Why?
The only difference in our play styles are the Progress tokens.
I rarely play a game where where I ignore them completely and if the “perfect storm” of re-draw options (Hades/The Mausoleum), or wilds (Law Token/Ishtar), comes about then it is a given I will have a crack, at winning a science victory or at least grab a couple of tokens.
To be honest, they are more powerful than even I realised.
Get the Strategy token and warfare is much more effective. Adding one shield each attack usually results in 2-3 more, so if you have say, a 2 shield wonder or God after playing 1-2, 2 or 3 shield cards, then you have won from “0”.
The Engineering token can sometimes be a game breaker. 1 point for any linked cards, applying to all even science and warfare cards, means you have options even late in the game. Add Urbanism and you make money while pressuring your opponent. Almost too mean.
The Architecture and Masonry tokens make building a breeze, paying you back for the lack of resources you likely suffered chasing science tokens.
These are the stronger ones, but even the less appealing ones like Mysticism or Theology can be strong at the right time in the right game (I actually got 12 VP from Mysticism purely by chance one game).
Until Meg gets a handle on taking Tokens or denying them to me, I fear the game has swung in my favour.