Tapestry — State of the Game
“Lead a unique civilization to greatness through cultural and technological advances.”
by Stonemaier Games and designed by Jamey Stegmaier
I was interested in Tapestry since the first time I saw previews in 2019. Andrew Bosley’s art looked inviting and promising. The box cover seemed to say it wouldn’t focus on the military but there would be some aggression, as hinted by the lead banner.
Around that time, I’d been having all kinds of fun with Viticulture, Scythe, and Wingspan, so I was eager to see if Jamey had another big hit for us to gobble up. See my previous article on the impact of Wingspan on the board game hobby.
While Tapestry hasn’t yet hit the very high levels of those previous Stonemaier releases, it does have a strong following. So much so that it’s on the verge of its second expansion release! More on that below.
Tapestry sometimes gets pushback for not being a real Civilization game. For me, that’s always been a semantic distinction but I can see why it’s not anything like Civilization, TTA, and others in that genre. The mechanics and art of building up your faction through the themes presented are deeply ingrained into the game, so for me, it works. I get the feeling I’m building something, for sure.
Tapestry remains a fun game that is pretty well-received within my own local board game group. There are some that steer clear of it, but even more that request it or are happy to play it. For whatever reason, I’ve never been too quick to rush to a negative judgement on Tapestry. Perhaps that’s because I’ve had so many fun experiences with it. I remember opening it up on a long Starbucks table with 3 friends as we figured it out cold-turkey together. You know what? It went well. The rules are well-written and the iconography is better than on most other games.
Back to the leeway part. Even during that very first play of Tapestry one of the factions felt wildly unbalanced. The Futurists started the game well ahead of all the other factions on all 4 of the advancement tracks, and got extra resources to boot! We chaulked up our feelings of being overpowered to that being our first time playing and a lack of understanding.
It turned out that others had the same experience. The Futurists were far and away the best of the best and it wasn’t even close. It felt strange that this wasn’t noticed in play-testing as we’d had that feeling from the first day. To end the non-games created by the Futurists we house-banned them and left it at that.
After many plays, the only buzzkill we ran into in our otherwise great experience was the swingy nature of the Tapestry cards. By their nature, they are better at certain times than others. Some are good early and stink later. Some stink early and are great later. Some are just weak period.
There were feel-bad games as players felt shackled with bad Tapestry cards and forced to expend precious early resources digging for more while their opponents used their resources on advancements and unlocking buildings. Few of my games played out like that because I understood the game was going to have high highs and low lows, but not everyone felt that way.
We tinkered with many ways to alleviate these random bad experiences and finally came up with a simple solution. During the income phase, when you draw a Tapestry Card you can “Draw 2, keep 1”. This gave players more interesting decision points or at least a chance to dump a terribly lined up Tapestry card. If you drew 2 bad cards…well that’s gonna happen at times but at least you could choose one over the other.
Now, the world was good again! We played and taught others and enjoyed the game. Over time, Stonemaier Games used data collected from players to evaluate the relative strengths of the factions and came out with a list of balance adjustments. These were well-received by the Tapestry community. The Futurists were nerfed enough that they returned to our game nights. Weaker factions like the Alchemists and the MerryMakers were buffed enough that they now had more of a fighting chance against some of the more powerful factions.
Eventually, we all played newer games and Tapestry came out less and less. We had explored the factions and saw the same cards so many times, but then Plans and Ploys was announced! I was hyped for this one and it felt like forever before I finally got my hands on a copy, but when I did I was not disappointed.
You see, Tapestry was the kind of game that practically begged for a “more stuff” expansion. Not because it was lacking, but because those that liked it played it so much that it started to feel repetitive. This was a result of Tapestry’s success, not from any lack of content in the base game. The core of the game is solid enough that players eventually want to try it with different factions, new cards, and the like.
Plans and Ploys added personal missions: Goals that only you could achieve, which would provide a special Landmark. This was such a great addition because it allowed everyone the chance at a Landmark. No opponent could snipe this one from you.
There were 6 new Landmarks, new Tapestry cards, new Space tiles, and many new Civilization mats to try out! I liked everything about this new expansion. It was a real gem!
Then, there was another balance adjustment for the Civilizations. This was expected as the new expansion had shaken things up quite a bit. Nothing was totally broken like the Futurists had been but there were still some offensively powerful Civilizations, especially an older one that suddenly became a menace!
As expected, the Tinkerers and Utilitarians were nerfed and to the surprise of many, the Treasure Hunters were hit hard. 2 fewer starting resources. The faction was certainly a good one, but I’d never thought of it as troublesome. A growing concern became the Historians that had gone from decent to a top tier Civilization, thanks to the new elements from Plans and Ploys. I’m still hopeful for a Historians nerf if Jamey is listening. = )
To be clear, Tapestry and Tapestry: Plans and Ploys are both well-designed and remarkably balanced for the type of game they are. I’ve got to hand it to Jamey for making all of these moving pieces work together to make such an enjoyable experience. The main takeaway is that no matter if you are the leader or far behind, you are always moving forward, making strides, improving until the very end!
Fast-forward to the last few days. Tapestry: Arts & Architecture was announced and people started getting excited again. After how well Plans and Ploys had been received, I’m really interested in seeing what new tricks Jamey has up his sleeves.
Jamey has paid close attention to what goes on in the bowels of the BGG forums, where some of us tinker and experiment with variants. One of those tinkerers, Mike Young, had come up with the fabled “5th Track”. Often spoken of but never quite realized, Mike provided a very polished Art track.
Mike had correctly noted that Tapestry lacked a proper focus on Artistic Achievements as most other Civilization games have. He took that idea and ran with it.
The Art track incorporated evergreen elements from the other 4 tracks, including access to an early Tapestry card, wild costs for advancement, and the standard locations down the track for both Landmarks and bonuses. Where he deviated from the others was with a new card type called Masterpieces: a thematic way to gain resources and take a different path than before. The final version of the Art track looks great (and VERY powerful!).
Arts & Architecture gives us 20 new Tapestry cards, new Landmarks, new Capital City mats, and (much clamored for) new Technology cards!
It’s hard to say if this new expansion will have the same impact as Plans and Ploys, but if the Art track and Masterpiece cards are reasonably balanced this should be another home run from Stonemaier Games.
I really enjoy the game. As a Stonemaier Champion, this is an automatic preorder for me.
If you have enjoyed this article please take a moment to click the follow button. This allows me to make more content like this in the future. Our hobby deserves more coverage than it gets and I plan to do my part.
-the BoardGameNerd
