Tapestry – Arts and Architecture Review

If you haven’t read my review of the fantastic board game Tapestry, than hop over to that article and check it out. Tapestry is easily one of my top 5 games of all time, and with so much content via a few expansion packs, every game feels new and unique, even after a dozen or more plays. A few months back, the good people at Stonemaier Games sent over the latest expansion – Arts and Architecture. Let’s check it out.

This review will not explain the rules for Tapestry. For that, please click here.

Arts and Architecture brings new ideas and a brand new advancement track to the game. It also adds a number of new personal landmarks to add to your capital city, including an epically large castle! But the landmarks are not new, first introduced in Plans and Ploys, so let’s move past that and onto what is new – the Arts Track.

The Arts track is all about the arts, and includes new cards that players can collect. These square purple cards can be earned via the Arts Track in a number of different places, and provides players with additional income benefits that will be triggered after advancing to a new age. These rewards vary, but the group we played with found getting at least one card during the first few rounds of the game beneficial.

The other major change to the game is the ability to upgrade your own personal income tracks on your player board. On the Arts Track, there is an option to obtain new tracks that will be placed over-top tracks on your player board, providing a slight boost in available resources and victory points. While less valuable, grabbing this benefit at the right time can really give you a leg up on the competition.

I wouldn’t say I was thrilled about everything in this expansion. The biggest issue was the landmark cards that are associated with the various landmarks in the box. We noticed on many occasions that the placement image on the card did not match the placement area of the landmark itself. On more than one occasion, players around my table were choosing their landmark card based on what would fit nicely in their capital city, only to find that the landmark itself was a mirrored image of what was on the board. It was unfortunate, although not game breaking.

Conclusion

More is always better in Tapestry, and that is once again true. While I wouldn’t say the Arts Track is my favourite track to move along in the game, it’s balanced well and works with the 4 other tracks. And, if you don’t want to use it for any reason, taking out cards directly associated with it is fairly easy. The additional items added – more technology cards, more Tapestry cards, more civilizations, and more landmarks – are all great to have, even if you never take the Arts Track out of the box!