Tapestry, the new civilisation-building board game from the creator of Scythe, divides opinion in our video review
Multiple threads.
The designer of the rather excellent strategy board game Scythe - one of the best board games 2019 has to offer, in our opinion - has released his latest game, Tapestry. But does it live up to the hype?
In Tapestry, Jamey Stegmaier condenses down one of the tabletop’s biggest genres: the civilisation game. Players are building up their civilisation over the ages, developing technologies and expanding their borders. You’re trying to become the most advanced faction by the end of the game - which here comes in around two hours, rather than the lengthy likes of other epic civ games like Through the Ages and Sid Meier’s Civilization.
Tapestry gives you control of one of several different unique civilisations, each with their own philosophy and abilities. You could be the isolationists hoping to keep away from other players, or the inventors looking to race ahead with incredible new technology and leaps in science. The game lets you approach things in whatever way you’d like - even to the point where everyone will finish their final turn at different points, after five chances to net points and valuable resources.
Each turn pushes you up one of four tracks defining your civilisation’s general progression in military, scientific exploration and technology, scoring you new points, unlocking new inventions, fuelling your expansion and bringing new buildings to your personal city board.
It’s hard to talk about Tapestry without mentioning its buildings, the clay-like 3D models that players arrange on their individual grid of terrain to fill rows and columns for - you guessed it - more points. Tapestry’s clean look and whimsical little miniatures split opinion among the Dicebreaker team, who couldn’t agree on whether they were an attractive splash of character or an unnecessary extravagance in a £100 game.
In fact, Lolies, Wheels and Johnny found themselves agreeing and disagreeing about more than just Tapestry’s buildings. With such differing viewpoints on what they enjoyed (or didn’t), we felt it was only right to let all three of the team voice their opinions in our video review, which you can watch above.
Did you agree most with Johnny, Wheels or Alex? Let us know what you think of Tapestry in the comments!