General

• Patchwork seems like a simple game of placing Tetris-like pieces into a grid by paying for them with buttons.
• However, it's complex in that you have to balance the time vs. the cost to get a piece.
• Use up too much time you will have an unfinished quilt, costing you -2 points per empty space.
• Spend too much at the wrong time you could get button poor and be forced to jump when you don't want to.

Some key things to consider

Evaluating Pieces

• Not all pieces are created equal.
• There are 5 metrics to evaluate a piece on which include: button cost, time cost, button income, number of squares, and ease of fit
• All of these are easily quantified except ease of fit, but this is a crucial metric because the most efficient pieces (minimum cost, maximum squares/income) are the ones that seem hardest to fit into your quilt
• Takeaway: pick the most efficient pieces early in the game while you have plenty of time to fit other pieces around them

Patches with buttons

• Getting patches with buttons early is critical.
• You get more buttons when you pass one of the 9 buttons spots on the board, so the early you get them the more buttons you will get over the course of the game.
• For example: if you get a two-button patch in your first turn it will pay off with 18 buttons!
• But getting it later will have diminishing returns.

Jumping

Jumping over an opponent and losing time to get buttons is sometimes a good thing:

• • Early in the game, it allows you to get more buttons (money) early and buy better pieces (i.e., pieces with more buttons on them) earlier in the game.
• • For why this is good refer to Patches with buttons.

If you do jump over an opponent, try to do it between buttons spots on the board, jumping over an opponent between button spots so you can buy the patch with buttons is preferred. Jumping over button spot misses a chance to buy a piece and get the buttons from it.

Sides

Don't be afraid to leave an opening on the sides of the board, you can likely get a patch to fill it later, and you will not likely fill all your board anyway. This helps you avoid placing a piece in a bad spot because you are trying to fill every space - bad placement will then get you into trouble later when the board is tighter.

Strategy

Some prefer to start from the bottom up, or a corner up, as they find it easier to fill the board. Others work from the center out. Figure out what works for you!

7×7 bonus

Getting the 7×7 bonus for 7 points is great. However, going for it at the cost of not filling your board or bad placement which will make it hard to fill your board later will likely result in a loss anyway.

Remember, it's -2 points for empty spaces, so the 7 point bonus only pays for 3.5 empty spaces, so getting the bonus but ending up with 6 openings for -12 points is counterproductive. It should be noted, if your opponent can achieve it, that this tile is equal to a 14 point swing.

Passing in purpose

Passing is totally fine early on. You really want economy and that can be at the cost of passing a lot.

Even if you really want a tile, check if your opponent could do something about it if you passed. If he can't, then you got the option to pass, which if you plan to take a slow tile or could have few economy after picking can be extremely bad. If you take a 6speed tile and have no button left, then your opponent know you will be forced to pass during your next turn which can be bad. If they put themselves in your tile and take a 6 speed tile, then not only you will be forced to pass for 7 speed, but the opponent will get another choice first.

Passing multiple times for both players (advanced)

If both players keep passing, then the game gives the advantage to one player. That player will get all the timing before all economy gain, and will get all the extra buttons. At the start of the game, if both players keep passing, then the player who will not be on that case (will not get the extra buttons) must do something at one point to break that situation.

The more both players pass, the less economy is important and the more filling the space is critical.

You can play around that: If you have more or equal economy (or slightly less), and have your board more filled than the opponent, then you are in a position of strength. If both players keep passing each other you should win. Which means if you put the game in a position where the next 3 pieces are without buttons and have at least 2 on speed (that can be because the 4th next tile is great), you are in a position of strength. Then you are guaranteed to get the better tile.

If you manage to have -2 economy compared to the opponent but have more of your board filled, you could still be in a position of strength. Depending of how much you advance here, which can force the opponent to take a high cost tile, you may be able to take most of the cheap tiles resulting in a win with low economy.

If you are in a weak position, you can usually break the constant passing in one of two ways. Either just before a gain of economy (and take an economy tile) to gain the extra economy from the tile you bought, or right before an extra tile to fill a gap in your board, or when you feel that the 0 economy tile increased a lot in value.

This is really important to understand if after your pass your opponent can pass too and leave you in a worse position compared to if you hadn't passed. Or if it's not the case and you could pass 10 times in a row.