After seven years in development, 7 Wonders expansion Armada finally gets a release date

After the release of its long-anticipated mobile app late last year, 7 Wonders is bringing to an end an even longer wait for its next major expansion.

Armada was first confirmed as being in the works back in mid-2011. That’s almost seven years ago!

At the time, it was teased as being a sailing-themed addition to the card-drafting civilisation game, but failed to materialise in the more than half a decade afterwards.

The latest iteration of Armada can be combined with either the core 7 Wonders game or any mixture of its expansions, introducing a separate naval board for each player that sits alongside their usual wonder board.

Several new cards are shuffled into the deck, with the new rule that the purchase of any red, green, yellow or blue card means that the player can also move their ship of the same colour along the naval board.

When an era ends, each player’s naval strength is compared to all of their rivals, earning victory points depending on their ranking.

Each ship presents a different speciality, with the red ship offering pure strength, while the yellow and blue vessels rack up money and extra points.

The fourth ship, green, adds an island exploration mechanic, with islands discovered in a deck of cards based on the current level of the green ship. These cards present extra ways to build up your empire, from additional strength to resources.

Armada will be 7 Wonders’ first big expansion in four years, following 2014’s modular two-in-one Babel, when it finally makes land this October at Essen.