Tapestry: Plans and Ploys Review

Tapestry was one of my favourite games to play in 2020, thanks to it’s deep civilization building mechanics and outstanding game pieces. None of this should come as a shock, however, as Stonemaeir games is easily one of my favourite developers and publishers, and they almost always knock it out of the park. Recently, the company released the first major expansion for Tapestry titled, Plans and Ploys, and we are about to tell you what we think! Let’s dive in!

If you haven’t yet, we recommend reading our How to Play and Review for Tapestry before continuing with this article!

In my opinion, Plans and Ploys does two things that make the base game of Tapestry even better. It includes new – albeit not groundbreaking – ways to play the game with new structures to complete, personal structures to play, and it also improves some of the minor issues we had with the original. Let’s get to the improvements first.

Included with Plans and Ploys are little round titles that depict the various buildings you can obtain and build within your own kingdom. When setting up the game, these will be placed on their corresponding locations on the game board tracks. Once a player claims a building, the token is removed from the board. Previous to this inclusion, players either needed to look around to see which buildings had been claimed, or all the buildings had to be placed around the board on their set places, cluttering things up. This is a HUGE improvement, and one of the only minor gripes we had with the original release. Kudos to you, Stonemaier, on making that small but much needed improvement.

But it’s what’s new in the box that will likely entice those who have played at least a few games of Tapestry to date. More civilizations is where we will start. There are 10 new ones to be exact, all with their own unique characteristics and bonuses. If you’ve exhausted the original stack of civilizations because of how many times you’ve played, you can actually just use these 10 on their own for your next few games, or they can be shuffled in with the rest to provide more choice to players. We chose to mix them up with the original civilization cards, and I think the development team did a great job of striking a good balance between the old civilizations and the new ones. Nothing seems overpowered or even slightly powered over others. They all have their pros and cons, and it’s really up to the player to maximize them. So often, when expansions launch for well established games, the balance is thrown completely off. That isn’t the case here, thankfully.

Also added into the expansion is four brand new space tiles, which is once again a welcome addition to the game. The game will ship with 5 tiles, but one is used to correct a misprint on the original run of the game, so be sure to find that incorrect tile and recycle it accordingly. Another great addition to the expansion is a small bag that can store all the island tokens. This definitely beats the previous method of creating stacks of tiles on the table, and while we’ve been using the bag method for a few months now, it’s nice ot see one officially included in the game.

Brand new tapestry cards are also brought into play, and while most act like many of the others, allowing you to do certain things at specific times, there are a few that are much more unique and focus on the games ‘combat.’ Ever get screwed by an opponent who used a trap card on you? With the expansion, there are now cards that can counteract a trap card, which brings in yet another layer of depth when attempting to conquer territory on the central board. While this doesn’t wildly impact the original feel of the game, it is something to keep in the back of your mind as you play.

The last major addition is the ability for each player to have their own unique landmark in their kingdom. During the setup phase, each player will choose a landmark card and place it next to their player board, with the corresponding landmark on top of it. When the conditions of the cards are fulfilled during the game, players can move the landmark from the card to any open space on their kingdom card. This is a huge bonus at it allows players to choose a specifically shaped building right from the get-go, and can be assured that, if they can meet the requirements, that building is theirs, and theirs alone. That allows players to plan one extra step of their kingdoms layout, which is a huge advantage and allows for more strategic play later when selecting and placing other buildings and landmarks.

Ultimately, we couldn’t recommend this expansion more. It fixes a few little hiccups that we encountered in the original game, and adds just enough to spice up the game and bring back longtime fans. If you’ve felt a bit burnt out on Tapestry from playing too many games, Plans and Ploys will get you right back to the table with enough new content to change the flow of your future games. New strategies will need to be crafted, and carefully executed if you hope to win. From our perspective, picking up Plans and Ploys is a no-brainer.