Calico, the charming cat-themed quilting game released in 2020, has quickly become a beloved addition to many board game collections. In this cozy game, players place hexagonal tiles, representing patches on quilts, to create patterns that attract cats and earn buttons. The adorable artwork and tactile components offer a light gameplay experience, but beneath the quilt lies a surprisingly deep strategy game.
Balance Pattern Types
When building your quilt in Calico, you should aim to strike a balance between patterns, colors and bonus points. You can try to pursue all of these but it often depends on which tiles are drawn from the bag. Matching patterns attract cats (worth significant points), while sets of colors earn you buttons (which also contribute to your final score), and final bonus points are earned based on certain types of tile placement. The most successful strategy typically involves identifying opportunities where you can progress toward all of these goals with a single tile placement.
Plan Your Quilt Strategically
Your quilt board starts with three tiles that will give you bonus points in the end of the game, these tiles indicate specific pattern requirements. Rather than treating these as afterthoughts, build your quilt outward from these tiles. Analyze your goals early and identify which colors and/or patterns you’ll need nearby. Remember that each goal requires six surrounding tiles in a specific arrangement. This level of planning reduce the risk of the painful situation where you realize too late that a goal has become impossible to complete.
Keep Your Options Open
In Calico, you’ll have two tiles in your hand at any given time. Rather than immediately playing the tile that seems most beneficial, consider how each tile you place might impact your future options. A placement that scores slightly fewer points now but preserves flexibility might be more valuable than one that maximizes immediate gains. This principle becomes particularly important as your quilt fills up and you end up with fewer and fewer placement options. Saving
flexible placements for later can be the difference between completing or missing a major scoring opportunity.
Monitor the Draft Pool
The draft pool of three tiles represents your upcoming options and provides crucial information for planning. Before committing to a placement, always check what’s available in the pool, as these tiles will directly impact your next move. If you notice a particularly valuable tile for your strategy, you might adjust your current play to ensure you can capitalize on it next turn. Similarly, be aware that opponents can claim tiles from the pool before you, if a tile seems universally valuable, consider prioritizing it even if it’s not optimal for your immediate plans.
Keep an Eye on Your Cats
Each cat in Calico has unique pattern requirements needed to attract them to your quilt (determined randomly at the start of the game). Familiarize yourself with these requirements at the start of the game, and continuously check them based on the tiles that are added to the draft pool. Focus on attracting a decent number of cats, but accept that you might not be able to accommodate all of them. A quilt that successfully attracts several higher-scoring cats will easily outscore one that didn’t complete any.
Anticipate Opponent Moves
While Calico isn’t directly confrontational, the draft mechanism creates indirect competition. Pay attention to your opponents’ quilts to identify which tiles might be valuable to them. If you notice a player working toward a specific color pattern or design group, you might deny them a critical tile even if it’s not optimal for your own quilt. However, be cautious when using this blocking strategy, sacrificing too much of your own progress to hinder other players rarely proves worthwhile in the long run.
