Tapestry

Very late to the party, I finally put SM’s civ attempt on the table, mostly because I had no desire to pay top dollar for something every sign suggested was, at best, mediocre. When I found it dirt cheap, I pressed the button mainly because it looked easy to teach. The production really is very good, and the simplicity of the design is striking — it takes nerve to dress such a simple design in such an expensive package, even if that makes the target audience feel rather unclear. At the table it is simple and pleasant, at least until the elephant in the room starts showing itself.

At its core, Tapestry has me managing resources and programming my actions. In the first few plays, that is interesting: I am trying to arrange my choices and squeeze everything I can from my plan, without getting tangled in complicated procedures. Downtime is also practically nonexistent, which undeniably helps the pace.

The problem is that this clean, fast flow sits on top of civilizations in the base box that feel completely all over the place. Interaction ends up coming largely through how favoured or doomed I am by my civilization choice, rather than through any exciting clash of decisions. In our first game, we even had the civilization that later received the biggest boost in the expansion and the one that got the worst nerf. What a wonderful balance test: apart from the zero downtime, the rest was an exercise in irritation.

For me, that total lack of balance sends it straight into the rubbish category, no matter how nicely made and easy to play it is on the surface. Even the unremarkable Civilization: A New Dawn feels several clicks better as a play experience. I will give it one more chance with the expansion and the civ nerfs, because in theory they fix some of the mess. But the basket for second chances here is very small.