Yesterday I got to play Tapestry again with Jeff.

I deviated from the usual setup and dealt 3 civilisation cards to each of us to choose from instead of 2. I thought why not? There was just the two of us, and we had a better chance of hitting a civilisation we liked the look of.

I chose the Heralds who were based in the mountains, whilst Jeff chose the Merrymakers who were based in the tropics.

The reason I went with the Heralds was because I liked the idea of instantly being able to put out my tapestry card and start reaping the benefits. Plus being able to make use of When Played tapestry cards during my income age.

It was a risky decision I thought. It relied on me top decking a good tapestry card to start with, and Jeff and I to hit and play tapestry cards with the when played ability.

Sadly the cards were not in my favour. I really couldn’t utilise my initial tapestry card, I really needed to get a tapestry card before I went to my second income age. Jeff never played any tapestry cards I could potentially use. I didn’t get any great when played cards to use. But that was the risk, and it might have worked with more players.

Although Jeff’s Merrymakers weren’t very merry with their expansionist ways and conquering all over the place. Whilst my Heralds decided to keep their good news to themselves!

I had a 40 point lead after taking my final income round. I knew Jeff would close that down and win. The question was now how big would that victory be? In the end Jeff stormed home to a great victory.

I think next time I play Tapestry as a 2 player game I’ll try the included variant rule that adds a simulated third player. I’m curious to see how that works.

But I had a blast playing Tapestry, good company and great hosts (The Luxe Cinema).

Yesterday afternoon at The Luxe I got to play a 3 player game of Tapestry. Jeff and his son Jonas had very kindly agreed to meet up and play.

Unlike Friday where Gavin and I scanned through the civilisations and chose one from them. This time I went with the official way of dealing 2 to a player and they chose one to keep and play, discarding the other (Some online have suggested a mulligan option to supplement this rule).

I went with the Isolationists, which encouraged me during the game to explore and conquer. Jeff went with the Historians, while Jonas went with the Traders.

Tapestry is just a stunning looking game. From the art to the hand made landmarks. Tie that in with the usual high production values for the components of the game and you have yet another beautifully produced game by Stonemaier Games.

The boards (Civilization, Capital City, and Player) have a lovely rough texture to the front of them. Jeff liked the effect but felt he should be striking a match on them! Surprisingly the super thin 4 page rule book didn’t use the same paper that was used in Wingspan.

The game once set up takes up a lot of space. Not just the board. But the play area needed by players. Things can get quite wide. Especially when you start getting technology cards, and possibly additional civilisation cards.

I do like games that have a table presence, and look a bit theatrical on the table. They draw players in, and give a wow factor. I think Tapestry has this, and unusual for a game (or I can’t think of one at the moment) particularly on the player boards with the capital cities when they get buildings and landmarks added.

Friday there was no teaching of the game. Gavin and I had both been watching YouTube videos before hand, and had a pretty good grasp of what to do. So yesterday was the first time I had to teach the game. For a game with basically 2 actions that you can do, it still took about 20 minutes to teach. Which still isn’t bad.

Tapestry is all about developing your civilisation over 5 eras. Hence why it identifies itself as a civilisation game on the box. But does that theme come across while playing? To some extent yes, and also a big no.

This is a very euro like game, where you are building an engine. The purpose of that engine is to get you resources and victory points. The more resources you get the more things you can do. And that engine building bit doesn’t feel very thematic.

It’s little touches like when you place a building and reveal the space underneath has a word/technology that you have just developed like VR or video games. And the story your tapestry cards tell for your civilisation through the eras, and the technology that your civilisation invents, and the tracks you advance on. Although I think Jonas’s civilisation explored space without developing any technology! It’s that weaving a story/narrative for your civilisation that feels thematic.

The actual action of advancing on one of the four tracks, allows you to conquer, explore, develop technology, advance on a track, get tapestry cards, place buildings, plus on certain spaces pay for an additional benefit. The nice thing is that the main action theme for a track like exploring for example is only possible to do a limited number of times.

I like the simplicity of conquering a tile. Plus the random element of the dice rolls, where you then have to decide between points or a resource. It’s quick and easy to teach. In fact you probably take longer deciding which die result to take than the conquering action itself. There is a way to avoid having a tile you control conquered using a Trap tapestry card. The aggressor still gets to roll the dice, and places a toppled token on your tile. But you remain in control of it. With the basic rule of a tile can’t have more than 2 tokens on it of any kind. It locks down the tile so you can’t be attacked again on that space.

I love that each era you are trying to eek out the most value from the limited resources that you have. Which gets harder and harder as the further you advance on a track the more costly it becomes to advance and do the more powerful actions. It’s also fair to say you start off doing a handful of not so powerful things, and as the game progresses you get to do more and more, and the stuff you do is getting more and more powerful.

It’s this side of things, the engine building and the next point that makes Tapestry dry euro game like. Add in the capital city board and the trying to complete rows and columns (for points) along with 9×9 grids (which give you an instant resource of your choice when done).

I can see for some that doing their fifth and final income round, and having to sit and watch others continue playing may be an issue. Especially if the other players have a lot of actions they can still do. But I do like the fact everyone does their income rounds at different times, and you have that decision of when the optimal time is to take it. Sometimes it may be forced on you because you have no more resources or not enough left to take actions.

There is also the random nature of the tapestry cards that some may find clouds their enjoyment of a game. It’s possible to get cards that don’t synergise with your civilisation, or would have been better earlier in the game. But that’s not an issue for me, it’s a challenge to overcome.

I like Tapestry, can’t wait to play it again. It’s not replaced Scythe as my favourite Stonemaier Games game. But it’s good, real good.

Each year my friend Jeff holds a boardgaming day to celebrate his birthday. I’ve been to the last two (not including this one). And as you will have guessed I was invited to this years celebration.

These game days are used as an excuse to get one of the “big” games to the table. By that I mean games that take possibly lots of table space, but require a few hours to play, such as Twilight Imperium (we played the third edition last year) or Memoir 44 (not usually a long game) as a multiplayer overlord game (the first time I was invited).

This year there were two or three candidates to play depending on the number of players able to attend. The final decision was made Friday evening by Jeff. We were playing five player Civilisation.

I was real happy with that decision. I hadn’t played Civilisation before, and was a game I had wanted to try. Especially with Tapestry going on pre-order in just under 2 weeks time (4/9/19). So when I bore you all with my thoughts on Tapestry I’ll be able to compare the two games.

As you can tell from the photos below Jeff’s copy of Civilisation is a few years (decades even) old. It’s aesthetics have that retro feel to them. And frankly it added to the games charm.

Early on I struck a deal with Jerry agreeing not to attack each other. We were right next to each other and I didn’t want to waste time and resources fighting on that front, when we both had to contend with the others.

I think the politics is an important part of a game like Civilisation. And despite Jeff’s best efforts to disrupt my agreement with Jerry, it held for the duration of the game. I even had a temporary truce with Gavin for three rounds.

The politics and banter are useful tools to get another player to not target yourself, or just as importantly to target a rival.

Around 1pm we stopped for lunch. We were in for a much anticipated treat.

For months like clock work on a Monday evening (after he has consumed it) we get teased with Jeff posting photos of his curry journey. Jeff gets home from work, and cooks a home made curry. And I can tell you now those photos of his food are mouth watering. Trying not to sound crude or imply an innuendo or double entendre, I’ve been wanting to taste Jeff’s curry for a while now. And yes I failed miserably there.

Friday evening we had been teased with “the curry is going to be achari murgh which is a traditional Indian curry rather than a BIR style.” This was Jeff’s own recipe, and for a first effort flippin’ awesome. It was really really tasty, and the spice/heat level was perfect for the hot day of gaming. By that I mean you were left with a nice warm tingle in the mouth after the delicious taste of the curry had left. You don’t want something that is going to leave you sweating and feeling the burn for the rest of the day.

The last few turns conflict was thrown out of the window, and people concentrated on getting cities built for the trade card draw, even if they knew they couldn’t support them, and would lose them.

I really enjoyed playing Civilisation. There is a reason it’s a classic. For me it has one of the important traits of a good big game. That is time just flies by. We may have been playing over 7 hours but it didn’t seem like it. You are engaged through out.

History will show that Jeff once again won on his birthday gaming day. It’s the law that this is the case, and we put up a good showing to make him earn that victory.

I had a most excellent time as Bill and Ted would say.

A big thank you to Jeff for inviting me. Also a big thanks to Gavin for the lift, and I didn’t even have to put out.