I'd put forth **Targi** for innovative approach to worker placement. It's a 2 player game where each player alternates placing 1 work at a time on the outside of a grid. The spaces on the outside of the grid have some value, but the real fight is over the the spaces inside the grid. After all workers are placed, what your workers reap is what is at the intersection of the rows and columns your workers were placed on. This is interesting because no player can guarantee taking any particular grid cell, since it takes 2 placements to get it (1 each for the row and column of that resource). If the first player attempts to get a valuable resource by playing on the column for that resource, the 2nd player can play on the row, denying either player from getting it.
I'd look at Spyrium as an interesting and slightly similar mechanic. You place in the middle of a grid, essentially trying to claim one of the adjacent two cards. The more people that put workers adjacent to a card, though, the more it costs. So it's lightly but not quite a bidding mechanic.
> This is interesting because no player can guarantee taking any particular grid cell
Unless you go first in that round and put your first worker on the Fata Morgana spot (which lets you choose one different free intersection after all placement is done).
1. **Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar** \- I love the gears. Instead of getting rewards when you place, it's a waiting game. The longer you can withstand taking your workers back, the better the rewards. 10/10
2. **Targi**: You place workers on border spaces and get additional rewards where your workers intersect. Two players only, super cutthroat. 10/10
3. **Keyflower**: Your workers can activate spaces in your village or villages belonging to other players. If you use them in other players' villages, they get to keep your workers. Workers are also used to bid for future tiles to put in your village. It's a fascinating intersection of mechanics. 9/10
Tzolkin! This was my favorite game for a while. The gear mechanic is so cool. Some people have painted their gears. The only downside I would say is that you really need 4 players.
I’ve had awesome games of Tzolkin with two or three players! It’s nice because the set up requires that you place dummy workers on certain gears; no additional admin is required. Have you not enjoyed your experiences with lower player counts?
Yeah we’ve played with the dummies. They’re no tbad, it’s just there’s more competition with real players. Sometimes the dummies are on spots no one would really want
Parks has a neat worker placement mechanism where you move along the board (trail) and can't go backwards. You also can't occupy the same space as another player, so there is blocking. You have 2 workers so you have to gauge when to move them in order to get the spots you want. Plus the artwork is gorgeous.
Pan-Am is a favorite of mine. It has auction worker placement where on certain spots, you have to pay to go there, and if someone is willing to pay more, they can bump you off that spot. Of course, then you could bump them back by paying more again, up to a maximum amount. The game is also very fun; I would say streamlined and intuitive.
Shem Phillips games tend to have fairly unique worker placement mechanisms. In Raiders of the North Sea you only have 1 worker, and you swap it out when you take actions. This can lead to you getting more powerful workers, but again, to take an action, you have to swap them out. Architects of the West Kingdom is also neat as you have about 20 workers to start with and each action space gets more powerful the more workers you have on it, but your opponents can capture your workers on a space, so you have to be careful not to let them capture a big group.
I do like Dune Imperium quite a bit, as well as Lost Ruins of Arnak for combining deck building and worker placement. I think it works brilliantly and both games are engaging.
Almost all of Garphill games have some form of worker placement, even if they're not worker placement games. Shem and Sam do a great job with innovation, but I agree that Raiders and Architects especially introduced fun and interesting new twists to worker placement.
You're really underselling how cool Keyflower is!
The different workers are different colors, and once someone bids on a tile or places a worker on it, they *lock in the color that everyone has to use* to either bid on or place workers on that tile for the rest of the season. Your workers are hidden behind a screen, so you don't know *exactly* how strong each player is in each color, and there's one color of worker that is "more powerful" just by virtue of being a rarer color. It's so damn clever- definitely my favorite Worker Placement game.
Architects of the West Kingdom is a great worker placement game where the amount of workers slowly dwindles throughout the game but the actions you take get stronger the more workers you place. It's an interesting balance and plays well at 2-4
This is still the game we use to introduce new players to more complex board games. It's not the best game, but it's still fun, but more importantly, the game has so many intertwined mechanics that pop up in many other games, that it's a really good building block for everything else.
**T'zolkin** is the king of worker placement games for me. You aren't placing the worker to take an immediate action, you're future-planning for when you're doing to need to take that worker off to trigger it. You also need to maximize the timing of placing/taking workers and the whole time you're trying to chain things together.
Can you confirm this game is terrible at 2 player? We’re on the fence of getting rid of it because we play mostly 2 player and the fake workers riding the rails around and around without getting off just to block you seems off. And the few times we’ve played it we struggled with the planning out what to do part of the game. Yet we play something like Vitaculture at 2 player and we have a blast. And I play even more complex worker placements games like Feast For Odin, Agricola, Caverna. Yet Tzolkin just confuses me on how to forward plan. I think those other games (except Caverna) offer cards and I feel I enjoy having that direction. I plan my entire game out when my hand of occupations and improvements are dealt in Agricola.
I actually don't mind it at 2p, but it's way more interesting with at least 3p. But yeah, if you're struggling to plan your actions in advance then THAT part isn't going to get better with more players. Sounds like that game just isn't for you and that's totally fine.
I agree, although it can feel different when a cold, heartless machine blocks you. As opposed to your friend Jim, who could have just taken one spot on the wheel and left one for you, and he doesn’t even need the extra corn anyway, but he locks eyes with you and takes the spot, perhaps smiling as he does it. Definitely meaner.
I prefer T’zolkin at two. Those dummy workers are there to simulate other opponents. You just set them one time and forget them so there is no upkeep.
I will say that it takes a certain way of thinking to get good at the game. It takes a little more planning but that’s what makes it fun. If you plan things right, you can have some big moves which are pretty cool.
>Can you confirm this game is terrible at 2 player?
Terrible at 2?! Absolutely not! It plays great with 2 players.
We've got 30+ 2p sessions with Tzolkin and we still thoroughly enjoy it.
>We’re on the fence of getting rid of it because we play mostly 2 player and the fake workers riding the rails around and around without getting off just to block you seems off.
Many games use the blocking mechanic at 2p and we've found it works great.
>And the few times we’ve played it we struggled with the planning out what to do part of the game.
The struggle is part of the fun. Tzolkin is quite a tactical game and it's very punishing. You have to make the best of what moves you have available.
**Lords of Waterdeep**, specifically the option to build more locations to place workers. They're all better than the main board, but whoever built it gets a bonus each time it's used by another player.
Not only does it change the board every game, it massively increases the player interaction and creates a dilemma over helping yourself but also helping another player.
The buildings in LoW were lifted straight from the classic and masterful worker placement game of **Caylus**.
I would also say that player interaction in LoW can't in any context be described as "massive".
If buildings are your favorite part of LoW, you should buy and play Caylus 1303 to see that feature implemented much more tightly and meaningfully. And then the game has a lot more to give atop that.
Definitely agree. The ability to throw in one or two of the expansion's modules refreshes the game a lot, I especially like the extra corruption gameplay.
Except it is not that perfect as some location never get used by other players so you end up getting nothing, and their price does not pay off over time.
One of the reasons I love Uwe Rosenberg games so much is that I feel he developed/implemented several amazing worker placement mechanisms that are either staples of the genre and/or used to great effect in several of his games.
These include:
Accumulation spaces - action spaces get better every round if they’re unused (e.g., more resources get put on them). Good system to ensure some action spaces aren’t ignored entirely throughout the game and also adds a lot of strategy with first player, reading/predicting other players, and serves as an almost push-your-luck element.
Having to earn and pay for more workers - the whole mechanism of being able to get more workers, which is a huge advantage, but that it comes at a cost (needing to take actions, resources, building them a room, feeding them, etc.) is such a great cost-benefit system that adds a lot of strategy/tactics and tension into the game.
Increasing number of action spaces - Given that you can get more workers in some games it also makes sense to increase the number of action spaces available to go to throughout the game. So the system of revealing a new action space every round in a randomized (but tied) way that is in some of his games (e.g,, Caverna and Agricola) helps create variability and adds another strategic layer.
Start player being an action space - or more generally the idea that starting player needs to be fought over in some way and it’s not as simple as rotating in clockwise order after each round.
Action spaces / the board scaling with player count - Uwe games are some of the best in terms of playing well at any player count and without requiring really any big rules changes, an automa or dummy player, etc. A large part is that usually setup is different depending on player count and there are often different boards or parts of the board based on player count.
Cards or other means to improve action spaces - several Uwe games include ways to improve or enhance the actions on the board for you only, which is something I love seeing in almost any worker placement game as it gives a sense of personalization and ownership.
No score tracks - you can technically calculate who is winning but people generally don’t, which lets you focus more on what you’re doing rather than worrying about being a few points behind someone (and helps avoid kingmaking and such to an extent).
Don’t forget going to the WP spots on other player’s tableau! Ora et Labora and Le Havre… I love when somebody builds the shipyard card in Le Havre and I go there right after they build it and just camp there for like 10 turns lol
Stone Age is a solid, evergreen classic. It used to be on BGG's Top 100 and still deserves a spot there in my opinion.
If you want to experience the best of worker placement, try **Caylus 1303**. Workers in this game are placed along a track of available actions, where those actions are resolved in order, beginning to end. The catch is that there is a Provost at the end of the line, and he can be pushed further back. Any workers he is pushed past do not activate. This adds a lot of player interaction to a genre that is frequently known for lacking it.
Splotter's **Bus** is also extremely good, but much harder to actually own. One fun part of Bus is that it gives you all 20 of your workers at the beginning of the game. Any you spend are lost. And you can spend them all in the very first round if you felt like it. This type of open ended rule is really rare to see.
Viticulture Grande worker is legendarily awesome! And the game also has worker spots with bonuses depending on player count and further delves into the worker placement innovation by adding in the special workers like chef, soldato, and many more for the Tuscany expansion.
To explain the Grande worker, each player gets one. You can use the Grande to go to a space that is already occupied and use its action.
Very cool mechanic.
Hot take. I actually don’t like the grande worker. Part of a worker placement game is getting to valuable actions before your opponent and cutting them off from them. The grande worker just gets rid of that element entirely.
I've played it four times and find it extremely boring. It's almost like Splendor to me in how dry and uneventful it feels. I love the theme, but meh to literally everything else. I remember thinking there were certain actions I really needed at certain times, and if they got taken, well then fuck me, I guess.
Sure, that can easily be ascribed to inexperience in the game, but it's not fun when it feels like you have no way of getting the particular effect you really need. I haven't felt the same way in any other WP game I've played. There always feels like there's some alternative that's equally productive in the interim until you can get that action you need. I remember never feeling that way in Viticulture.
I'm sure getting screwed out of an action, and having to find a new solution, is part of the design choice. I'm sure that's why visiter cards are there.
Ill put in a dissenting opinion. Viticulture is one of my favourite games, but its a racing game and i dont think people go into it with that expectation.
I’m with you on Viticulture being a really bad game in general. There’s so much going wrong. Like viticulture is part of why I have my “only play stonemeier games not designed by Jamie rule”
I've played it a few times and while I have some concerns with the scoring and game end I don't see any glaring issues. Curious as to what some of your bigger criticisms are.
Yokohama is definitely my favorite. You have assistants that you seed across the board. They determine where your president can travel to and how strong the action at any given location will be when you get there. You are trying to build shops, arrange orders, make shipments, expand your business, and research new tech.
By how placing your assistants out on the board works, you are forced to telegraph your moves. Which means that players have the ability to interact a little more aggressively/tactically than blocking happens in most worker placement games. It's also great when you get to pull off the first 5 power move at any given area to pull in those bonuses.
I greatly prefer having to take a turn to recall workers more than rounds. Luke Laurie's version of a recall turn where you return workers to your own tableau for a big action is the best recall turn(Cryo, Dwellings of Eldervale and upcoming Andromeda's Edge all use it)
Project Manhattan and its sequel Project Manhattan 2: Minutes to Midnight also has a turn to recall workers. Unfortunately, it's more of a necessity than what you need to do in 1 - and in a twist, since you can get neutral "contractors" that don't return after use and send workers to opponents' tableaus, you also might need to use the action to clear your own tableau rather than because you actually need the workers. Minutes to Midnight, I believe, actually flips that on its head as placing workers does nothing, but when you take a turn to retrieve workers everything triggers.
Bus and Dominant Species' action programming. FFA to select your spots, but they resolve in order so what you planned may not be available when it's time to resolve it.
**Raiders of the North Sea**: The "place a worker, take a worker" mechanic is \*so\* elegant, a great take on the "you only have one worker but have to put him somewhere new every round" mechanic that preceded it.
It's always uncomfortable having to explain to my players that the white workers are better than the black workers. Also, the white workers get paid more, and fed less, if I remember correctly.
And the leader of the city won't see black workers.
But it's a damn fine game, if you can ignore that.
Are you really trying to turn this into a racial issue?
There's black, grey, and white workers, none of which come close to actually resembling skin tones... Plus these "workers" are really just Vikings, so truly they'd all be white. The color differentiation moreso represent specializations, in a colorblind-friendly manner, than anything else.
All of that said, I definitely would not consider white workers to be "better" than black workers anyway, just different. Black workers are actually paid more, not less. White workers generate more provisions for raids.
If you're uncomfortable explaining a mechanic that has literally nothing to do with anything other than creating a fun dynamic and an interesting game curve, perhaps you're *looking* to be offended.
No, but the first time I said it out loud, I had to stop, and listen to the words coming out of my mouth.
> Black workers are actually paid more, not less. White workers generate more provisions for raids.
Ah, I got that reversed. Thanks for the correcting.
All that said, there's nothing to be uncomfortable about explaining the rules, unless you're specifically looking for a reason to be offended and/or are hypersensitive.
Cheers.
As my flair game would suggest, I think limiting your viable worker locations to how well you build and trim your deck is a great idea.
I also think Istanbul has a very dynamic worker placement mechanic of moving around a grid and dropping a worker off. You have think about how to carve out a route but also be aware of how back tracking to collect your workers will affect your actions.
Manhattan Project
It does alot of cool things with its workers. Having specialized types of workers you can get for actions.
It also has a way of getting extra temporary workers. You end up competing with other players for the temporary workers and then putting off your own recall turn.
I also like the spy space which lets you use a space on another players board and cutting them off from their own actions.
I’ve only ever played the essential edition if that’s what you’re wondering. In my honest opinion there’s a lot more I don’t like about the game other than the grande worker.
**Argent: The Consortium** may be my favorite system. Any individual spot could be blocked, banished, moved, wounded or shadowed. Take-that technically exists but it's cleverly balanced via the resources required and/or consolation to the victim, making it not feel nearly as punitive as other games.
Honorable mention to **Three Kingdoms Redux**, where unique Generals (workers) use one of two bidding values in competing for a spot but can be outbid by opponents. It also leverages 3p dynamics via one spot each turn where the two players behind the leader can combine their bids to share one spot.
Then another honorable mention to **Trickerion**, where the programming element allows for tons of angsty gamesmanship, really leaning into the competitive oneupsmanship that defined the Victorian magicians in *The Prestige.*
Century Golem has a great WP system where you spend a finite amount of workers and an opponent who wants the space can use it by returning your workers by spending what's on the board plus one.
I love stone age. I have taught lords of waterdeep recently, I should teach them stoneage next. Based on the posts here I need to get viticulture. I've never played it or seen it be played.
Good topic!
To add to it, I like the placement in scythe, but its just a small mechanic within the game.
Two that I like from Dwellings of Eldervale:
1. You have to place workers in range of workers you've already placed
2. You use your recall workers action to power your engine
In my opinion you can't talk about Worker placement games without talking about Agricola. In this game new placement slots are added in a scheduled order. However there are cards that change in every game played and they over an alternative way to earn some resources or score point but only to the player who acquires them
It has a very tight design. You will always feel like you are missing something or got robbed of an option especially valuable to you. Only after playing multiple rounds I learned to appreciate that about the game as it makes it very meaningful to take other players plans into account.
**Cryo** lets you build out a set of custom actions on your own personal board throughout the game, and when you recall workers from the main board you choose which of those custom actions to place them on. You can also choose when you recall workers. You have three to place, but you can choose to recall after placing only a single worker if you want. This allows you to perform your personal board actions more often, but it also means you skip doing some main board actions, and the "timer" for the game advances for everyone every time you do it.
I love how it's handled in Underwater Cities. You have to play a card when you put a worker out and you're heavily incentivised to play a card that matches the location's color because it gets you the action of the card itself on top of the location itself.
It's a little different than your typical worker placement game (mostly because of just having one "worker") but I like Beyond the Sun for the same reason that I like Lords of Waterdeep. In the game you build a communal tech tree out of cards, and those are where you gain new actions. So if people research more in military your chosen actions on the board will be much different than if you focused on Economics.
But because it's a tech tree, you always have to research a card before being able to use the action, instead of LoW where everyone immediately gains access to your building.
I've actually quite liked **Apiary** for worker placement. When a worker is bumped, it can either get stronger and return to your active pool or you can hold it off separately for an income turn. You can do more stuff with stronger workers, but your opponents can buddy off that power on some spaces. When a worker is a strength 4, you can only use it once for some bonuses or to get an end game scoring tile be fore it goes into hibernation and you have to make a new worker.
Bora Bora/Cuzco is the best worker placement game by far. It uses dice worker placement where at the beginning of the round everyone is going to roll there 3 dice. on your turn you are going to place a die on a space the pips on the die(most of the time) determine the choices you have when doing that action. but the twist is that any player can place their worker on your spot if they place a die with a lower pip count. If you play a 1-pip die on a space you lock everyone else off from using that space.
Normally I don't like worker placement because I think most of the time it is implemented it feels like the designer wanted to make a boring solo game but then threw in worker placement as a way for players to interact.
I quite like Viticulture w/Tuscany. I like that the seasons change and you have to decide to use the workers in early seasons for the ability to choose your turn order bonus sooner or save one for later seasons, like the ability to actually deliver your contract.
The game itself is middling, but I like how in **Agora** you can educate your workers by sending them to school (basically). Then you get more out of them when they go to other locations.
I recently played Darwins Journey and thought that the seal mechanic and more seals giving workers better actions via the esteem system was cool and unique. Definitely worth a try!
You should try Federation and Bruxelles 1893, they combined majority and worker placement. Arichtect of the west kingdom is fun because you have a lot of workers. In Darwin's Journey you can customise your workers.
I really like what they did in [[Founders of Teotihuacan]]
The worker placement spots give a bonus action to the first player that uses them. But on top of that, you can stack additional workers on a spot to make your action more powerful.
The clever part that makes it particularly tricky is that the spots aren’t claimed by any individual player when workers are placed. So, one player can place a single worker on top of a large stack created by another player, and use their opponents workers against them in order to carry out an action that is even more powerful.
You place multiple workers to do a level 2 action, I place a single worker on top to get a level 3 action.
It’s a weird thing to try and explain but I think it’s a clever system that creates difficult decisions in a game already full of difficult decisions. Rather under rated in my opinion.
Stone Age should always hover around 50th place. It’s a brilliant classic.
Recently picked up Bruxelles 1893 and the theme, the tactics and ways to win make it a great game. Refreshing worker placement.
Can never go wrong with Settlers either.
The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire. The stacking workers/energy to go to a taken spot and rolling for more energy (somewhat like workers) at the price of pollution are very fun mechanics. There’s a reason it’s Zee’s favorite worker placement
I like how in **Euphoria** you don't ever really block spaces. If another player wants to use a space you've claimed, they can bump your worker off the space. But you get that worker back in your pool to place again. So everybody needs to weigh the cost benefit of whatever the space is against giving their opponent a free turn.
Empires: Age of Discovery / Age of Empires III is the best worker placement game. Every placement feels meaningful, because there's so much to do, but you can't do everything. You find yourself watching the other player's available worker pool like a hawk, waiting for them to place that special worker down.
Manhattan Project is great. Building your own engine plus access to a common board means things start to cook. If you want more player interaction, the sequel, Minutes to Midnight is a lot more what to do with other people in mind.
Then Yēdo. Lords of Waterdeep was the bigger IP with a bigger publisher that came out the same year. so most people didn’t play Yēdo. I think it’s a much better game. There is a great auction mechanic and the worker placement is always tight. You can trade and negotiate resources. It’s always a win when it comes out. And the art is beautiful. The only complaint is the game can run a little long.
I really like **Lords of Waterdeep**. I've got the steam version and play it a lot on there with and without real like opponents. It's fun in real life too.
**Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia** is another good one if you want something a little more involved.
**CHIMERA STATION**
Build your alien workers to suit your needs (quite literally)
Want them score points? Give em a big brain
Want to feed your workers better? Give them leafy arms they can eat
Want to knock your opponents of spaces? Give them Space Lobster Hands
Want to get resource bonuses? Give them cool tentacle arms
Or double up, or have combos of the above. It's an underrated gem with potential for awesome combos
I'd put forth **Targi** for innovative approach to worker placement. It's a 2 player game where each player alternates placing 1 work at a time on the outside of a grid. The spaces on the outside of the grid have some value, but the real fight is over the the spaces inside the grid. After all workers are placed, what your workers reap is what is at the intersection of the rows and columns your workers were placed on. This is interesting because no player can guarantee taking any particular grid cell, since it takes 2 placements to get it (1 each for the row and column of that resource). If the first player attempts to get a valuable resource by playing on the column for that resource, the 2nd player can play on the row, denying either player from getting it.
Targi is simply one of the best 2-player games.
I'd look at Spyrium as an interesting and slightly similar mechanic. You place in the middle of a grid, essentially trying to claim one of the adjacent two cards. The more people that put workers adjacent to a card, though, the more it costs. So it's lightly but not quite a bidding mechanic.
> This is interesting because no player can guarantee taking any particular grid cell Unless you go first in that round and put your first worker on the Fata Morgana spot (which lets you choose one different free intersection after all placement is done).
1. **Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar** \- I love the gears. Instead of getting rewards when you place, it's a waiting game. The longer you can withstand taking your workers back, the better the rewards. 10/10 2. **Targi**: You place workers on border spaces and get additional rewards where your workers intersect. Two players only, super cutthroat. 10/10 3. **Keyflower**: Your workers can activate spaces in your village or villages belonging to other players. If you use them in other players' villages, they get to keep your workers. Workers are also used to bid for future tiles to put in your village. It's a fascinating intersection of mechanics. 9/10
Tzolkin! This was my favorite game for a while. The gear mechanic is so cool. Some people have painted their gears. The only downside I would say is that you really need 4 players.
I’ve had awesome games of Tzolkin with two or three players! It’s nice because the set up requires that you place dummy workers on certain gears; no additional admin is required. Have you not enjoyed your experiences with lower player counts?
Yeah we’ve played with the dummies. They’re no tbad, it’s just there’s more competition with real players. Sometimes the dummies are on spots no one would really want
Parks has a neat worker placement mechanism where you move along the board (trail) and can't go backwards. You also can't occupy the same space as another player, so there is blocking. You have 2 workers so you have to gauge when to move them in order to get the spots you want. Plus the artwork is gorgeous. Pan-Am is a favorite of mine. It has auction worker placement where on certain spots, you have to pay to go there, and if someone is willing to pay more, they can bump you off that spot. Of course, then you could bump them back by paying more again, up to a maximum amount. The game is also very fun; I would say streamlined and intuitive. Shem Phillips games tend to have fairly unique worker placement mechanisms. In Raiders of the North Sea you only have 1 worker, and you swap it out when you take actions. This can lead to you getting more powerful workers, but again, to take an action, you have to swap them out. Architects of the West Kingdom is also neat as you have about 20 workers to start with and each action space gets more powerful the more workers you have on it, but your opponents can capture your workers on a space, so you have to be careful not to let them capture a big group. I do like Dune Imperium quite a bit, as well as Lost Ruins of Arnak for combining deck building and worker placement. I think it works brilliantly and both games are engaging.
Every day I realize a little more that Parks is just the best.
Almost all of Garphill games have some form of worker placement, even if they're not worker placement games. Shem and Sam do a great job with innovation, but I agree that Raiders and Architects especially introduced fun and interesting new twists to worker placement.
**Keyflower** is neat in how your workers are also your money you bid with, so if you spend too much you won't be able to take as many actions
You're really underselling how cool Keyflower is! The different workers are different colors, and once someone bids on a tile or places a worker on it, they *lock in the color that everyone has to use* to either bid on or place workers on that tile for the rest of the season. Your workers are hidden behind a screen, so you don't know *exactly* how strong each player is in each color, and there's one color of worker that is "more powerful" just by virtue of being a rarer color. It's so damn clever- definitely my favorite Worker Placement game.
Architects of the West Kingdom is a great worker placement game where the amount of workers slowly dwindles throughout the game but the actions you take get stronger the more workers you place. It's an interesting balance and plays well at 2-4
This was our gaming group’s intro to WP, we still love it years later.
This is still the game we use to introduce new players to more complex board games. It's not the best game, but it's still fun, but more importantly, the game has so many intertwined mechanics that pop up in many other games, that it's a really good building block for everything else.
**T'zolkin** is the king of worker placement games for me. You aren't placing the worker to take an immediate action, you're future-planning for when you're doing to need to take that worker off to trigger it. You also need to maximize the timing of placing/taking workers and the whole time you're trying to chain things together.
Can you confirm this game is terrible at 2 player? We’re on the fence of getting rid of it because we play mostly 2 player and the fake workers riding the rails around and around without getting off just to block you seems off. And the few times we’ve played it we struggled with the planning out what to do part of the game. Yet we play something like Vitaculture at 2 player and we have a blast. And I play even more complex worker placements games like Feast For Odin, Agricola, Caverna. Yet Tzolkin just confuses me on how to forward plan. I think those other games (except Caverna) offer cards and I feel I enjoy having that direction. I plan my entire game out when my hand of occupations and improvements are dealt in Agricola.
I actually don't mind it at 2p, but it's way more interesting with at least 3p. But yeah, if you're struggling to plan your actions in advance then THAT part isn't going to get better with more players. Sounds like that game just isn't for you and that's totally fine.
I agree, although it can feel different when a cold, heartless machine blocks you. As opposed to your friend Jim, who could have just taken one spot on the wheel and left one for you, and he doesn’t even need the extra corn anyway, but he locks eyes with you and takes the spot, perhaps smiling as he does it. Definitely meaner.
Fuckin Jim
I prefer T’zolkin at two. Those dummy workers are there to simulate other opponents. You just set them one time and forget them so there is no upkeep. I will say that it takes a certain way of thinking to get good at the game. It takes a little more planning but that’s what makes it fun. If you plan things right, you can have some big moves which are pretty cool.
Try it on BGA.
>Can you confirm this game is terrible at 2 player? Terrible at 2?! Absolutely not! It plays great with 2 players. We've got 30+ 2p sessions with Tzolkin and we still thoroughly enjoy it. >We’re on the fence of getting rid of it because we play mostly 2 player and the fake workers riding the rails around and around without getting off just to block you seems off. Many games use the blocking mechanic at 2p and we've found it works great. >And the few times we’ve played it we struggled with the planning out what to do part of the game. The struggle is part of the fun. Tzolkin is quite a tactical game and it's very punishing. You have to make the best of what moves you have available.
We really enjoy it at 2 with the expansion allowing for more varied scoring opportunities.
The worker placement aspect of T'zolkin is really fun but I hate the feeding the people and always being poor aspect of the game.
Focus on getting a farm or two early and food becomes secondary.
**Lords of Waterdeep**, specifically the option to build more locations to place workers. They're all better than the main board, but whoever built it gets a bonus each time it's used by another player. Not only does it change the board every game, it massively increases the player interaction and creates a dilemma over helping yourself but also helping another player.
The buildings in LoW were lifted straight from the classic and masterful worker placement game of **Caylus**. I would also say that player interaction in LoW can't in any context be described as "massive". If buildings are your favorite part of LoW, you should buy and play Caylus 1303 to see that feature implemented much more tightly and meaningfully. And then the game has a lot more to give atop that.
The expansion adds corruption which ups the interaction a fair deal. I might dust that off this weekend…
Agree also, but the expansion is almost a must buy.
Definitely agree. The ability to throw in one or two of the expansion's modules refreshes the game a lot, I especially like the extra corruption gameplay.
Lords of Waterdeep is top 5 for me. Such a good game, and I agree about building; increases replayability quite a bit.
Except it is not that perfect as some location never get used by other players so you end up getting nothing, and their price does not pay off over time.
One of the reasons I love Uwe Rosenberg games so much is that I feel he developed/implemented several amazing worker placement mechanisms that are either staples of the genre and/or used to great effect in several of his games. These include: Accumulation spaces - action spaces get better every round if they’re unused (e.g., more resources get put on them). Good system to ensure some action spaces aren’t ignored entirely throughout the game and also adds a lot of strategy with first player, reading/predicting other players, and serves as an almost push-your-luck element. Having to earn and pay for more workers - the whole mechanism of being able to get more workers, which is a huge advantage, but that it comes at a cost (needing to take actions, resources, building them a room, feeding them, etc.) is such a great cost-benefit system that adds a lot of strategy/tactics and tension into the game. Increasing number of action spaces - Given that you can get more workers in some games it also makes sense to increase the number of action spaces available to go to throughout the game. So the system of revealing a new action space every round in a randomized (but tied) way that is in some of his games (e.g,, Caverna and Agricola) helps create variability and adds another strategic layer. Start player being an action space - or more generally the idea that starting player needs to be fought over in some way and it’s not as simple as rotating in clockwise order after each round. Action spaces / the board scaling with player count - Uwe games are some of the best in terms of playing well at any player count and without requiring really any big rules changes, an automa or dummy player, etc. A large part is that usually setup is different depending on player count and there are often different boards or parts of the board based on player count. Cards or other means to improve action spaces - several Uwe games include ways to improve or enhance the actions on the board for you only, which is something I love seeing in almost any worker placement game as it gives a sense of personalization and ownership. No score tracks - you can technically calculate who is winning but people generally don’t, which lets you focus more on what you’re doing rather than worrying about being a few points behind someone (and helps avoid kingmaking and such to an extent).
Don’t forget going to the WP spots on other player’s tableau! Ora et Labora and Le Havre… I love when somebody builds the shipyard card in Le Havre and I go there right after they build it and just camp there for like 10 turns lol
Stone Age is a solid, evergreen classic. It used to be on BGG's Top 100 and still deserves a spot there in my opinion. If you want to experience the best of worker placement, try **Caylus 1303**. Workers in this game are placed along a track of available actions, where those actions are resolved in order, beginning to end. The catch is that there is a Provost at the end of the line, and he can be pushed further back. Any workers he is pushed past do not activate. This adds a lot of player interaction to a genre that is frequently known for lacking it. Splotter's **Bus** is also extremely good, but much harder to actually own. One fun part of Bus is that it gives you all 20 of your workers at the beginning of the game. Any you spend are lost. And you can spend them all in the very first round if you felt like it. This type of open ended rule is really rare to see.
Underwater Cities. You place a worker and play a card. If they match colors, (yellow, red, green) you get an additional bonus.
God, the action space vs. card puzzle of the game scratches my brain so good. I adore that game.
Viticulture Grande worker is legendarily awesome! And the game also has worker spots with bonuses depending on player count and further delves into the worker placement innovation by adding in the special workers like chef, soldato, and many more for the Tuscany expansion.
To explain the Grande worker, each player gets one. You can use the Grande to go to a space that is already occupied and use its action. Very cool mechanic.
1st edition sucked without Grande worker.
Hot take. I actually don’t like the grande worker. Part of a worker placement game is getting to valuable actions before your opponent and cutting them off from them. The grande worker just gets rid of that element entirely.
Hotter take: Viticulture is a very BAD worker placement game, and that's why it NEEDS the grande workers to fix it.
I've played it four times and find it extremely boring. It's almost like Splendor to me in how dry and uneventful it feels. I love the theme, but meh to literally everything else. I remember thinking there were certain actions I really needed at certain times, and if they got taken, well then fuck me, I guess. Sure, that can easily be ascribed to inexperience in the game, but it's not fun when it feels like you have no way of getting the particular effect you really need. I haven't felt the same way in any other WP game I've played. There always feels like there's some alternative that's equally productive in the interim until you can get that action you need. I remember never feeling that way in Viticulture.
I'm sure getting screwed out of an action, and having to find a new solution, is part of the design choice. I'm sure that's why visiter cards are there.
Ill put in a dissenting opinion. Viticulture is one of my favourite games, but its a racing game and i dont think people go into it with that expectation.
I’m with you on Viticulture being a really bad game in general. There’s so much going wrong. Like viticulture is part of why I have my “only play stonemeier games not designed by Jamie rule”
I've played it a few times and while I have some concerns with the scoring and game end I don't see any glaring issues. Curious as to what some of your bigger criticisms are.
Yokohama is definitely my favorite. You have assistants that you seed across the board. They determine where your president can travel to and how strong the action at any given location will be when you get there. You are trying to build shops, arrange orders, make shipments, expand your business, and research new tech. By how placing your assistants out on the board works, you are forced to telegraph your moves. Which means that players have the ability to interact a little more aggressively/tactically than blocking happens in most worker placement games. It's also great when you get to pull off the first 5 power move at any given area to pull in those bonuses.
I'll have to check that out - going beyond mere blocking sounds intriguing.
It's fantastic but the graphic design is super daunting and gives people anxiety. Don't let its looks fool you. It's a great game
It's playable on BGA and is coming back in print later this year from a new publisher. Current edition has been out of print for a few years now.
If Yokohama works for you, Istanbul might as well.
Been playing that on BGA and it's so interesting how the worker placement works on that one! Definitely different than anything else I've played.
I greatly prefer having to take a turn to recall workers more than rounds. Luke Laurie's version of a recall turn where you return workers to your own tableau for a big action is the best recall turn(Cryo, Dwellings of Eldervale and upcoming Andromeda's Edge all use it)
Interesting, normally the return workers action is a “bad” thing because it skips your turn. It’s a cool idea to flip that idea on its head!
**Apiary** does that - your farms only produce when you recall your bees.
Oooh getting an action for taking a return turn is a great idea! I always hate the wasted turn of recalling workers in some WP games.
Came here to check for or say this
Project Manhattan and its sequel Project Manhattan 2: Minutes to Midnight also has a turn to recall workers. Unfortunately, it's more of a necessity than what you need to do in 1 - and in a twist, since you can get neutral "contractors" that don't return after use and send workers to opponents' tableaus, you also might need to use the action to clear your own tableau rather than because you actually need the workers. Minutes to Midnight, I believe, actually flips that on its head as placing workers does nothing, but when you take a turn to retrieve workers everything triggers.
Agreed! Whistle Mountain also gives you a recall action with significant decisions to make.
Bus and Dominant Species' action programming. FFA to select your spots, but they resolve in order so what you planned may not be available when it's time to resolve it.
**Raiders of the North Sea**: The "place a worker, take a worker" mechanic is \*so\* elegant, a great take on the "you only have one worker but have to put him somewhere new every round" mechanic that preceded it.
Also **Raiders of Scythia**.
That coupled with the slowly shifting landscape of worker types/colours really makes Raiders an incredible WP game.
It's always uncomfortable having to explain to my players that the white workers are better than the black workers. Also, the white workers get paid more, and fed less, if I remember correctly. And the leader of the city won't see black workers. But it's a damn fine game, if you can ignore that.
Are you really trying to turn this into a racial issue? There's black, grey, and white workers, none of which come close to actually resembling skin tones... Plus these "workers" are really just Vikings, so truly they'd all be white. The color differentiation moreso represent specializations, in a colorblind-friendly manner, than anything else. All of that said, I definitely would not consider white workers to be "better" than black workers anyway, just different. Black workers are actually paid more, not less. White workers generate more provisions for raids. If you're uncomfortable explaining a mechanic that has literally nothing to do with anything other than creating a fun dynamic and an interesting game curve, perhaps you're *looking* to be offended.
No, but the first time I said it out loud, I had to stop, and listen to the words coming out of my mouth. > Black workers are actually paid more, not less. White workers generate more provisions for raids. Ah, I got that reversed. Thanks for the correcting.
All that said, there's nothing to be uncomfortable about explaining the rules, unless you're specifically looking for a reason to be offended and/or are hypersensitive. Cheers.
As my flair game would suggest, I think limiting your viable worker locations to how well you build and trim your deck is a great idea. I also think Istanbul has a very dynamic worker placement mechanic of moving around a grid and dropping a worker off. You have think about how to carve out a route but also be aware of how back tracking to collect your workers will affect your actions.
It's been so long since I played Istanbul. The trail of workers and having to pick them back up really adds to placement.
A feast for Odin - so much depth, strateg choices
Manhattan Project It does alot of cool things with its workers. Having specialized types of workers you can get for actions. It also has a way of getting extra temporary workers. You end up competing with other players for the temporary workers and then putting off your own recall turn. I also like the spy space which lets you use a space on another players board and cutting them off from their own actions.
How do you feel about the successor to it? Did it improve on the mechanics of the first game?
I’ve only ever played the essential edition if that’s what you’re wondering. In my honest opinion there’s a lot more I don’t like about the game other than the grande worker.
**Argent: The Consortium** may be my favorite system. Any individual spot could be blocked, banished, moved, wounded or shadowed. Take-that technically exists but it's cleverly balanced via the resources required and/or consolation to the victim, making it not feel nearly as punitive as other games. Honorable mention to **Three Kingdoms Redux**, where unique Generals (workers) use one of two bidding values in competing for a spot but can be outbid by opponents. It also leverages 3p dynamics via one spot each turn where the two players behind the leader can combine their bids to share one spot. Then another honorable mention to **Trickerion**, where the programming element allows for tons of angsty gamesmanship, really leaning into the competitive oneupsmanship that defined the Victorian magicians in *The Prestige.*
Barrage. The tight worker placement combined with map control/combos gives a bit more than lots of worker placement games.
Century Golem has a great WP system where you spend a finite amount of workers and an opponent who wants the space can use it by returning your workers by spending what's on the board plus one.
I love stone age. I have taught lords of waterdeep recently, I should teach them stoneage next. Based on the posts here I need to get viticulture. I've never played it or seen it be played. Good topic! To add to it, I like the placement in scythe, but its just a small mechanic within the game.
Two that I like from Dwellings of Eldervale: 1. You have to place workers in range of workers you've already placed 2. You use your recall workers action to power your engine
A feast for Odin! I like how different actions require different amounts of workers
In my opinion you can't talk about Worker placement games without talking about Agricola. In this game new placement slots are added in a scheduled order. However there are cards that change in every game played and they over an alternative way to earn some resources or score point but only to the player who acquires them It has a very tight design. You will always feel like you are missing something or got robbed of an option especially valuable to you. Only after playing multiple rounds I learned to appreciate that about the game as it makes it very meaningful to take other players plans into account.
**Cryo** lets you build out a set of custom actions on your own personal board throughout the game, and when you recall workers from the main board you choose which of those custom actions to place them on. You can also choose when you recall workers. You have three to place, but you can choose to recall after placing only a single worker if you want. This allows you to perform your personal board actions more often, but it also means you skip doing some main board actions, and the "timer" for the game advances for everyone every time you do it.
I love how it's handled in Underwater Cities. You have to play a card when you put a worker out and you're heavily incentivised to play a card that matches the location's color because it gets you the action of the card itself on top of the location itself.
It's a little different than your typical worker placement game (mostly because of just having one "worker") but I like Beyond the Sun for the same reason that I like Lords of Waterdeep. In the game you build a communal tech tree out of cards, and those are where you gain new actions. So if people research more in military your chosen actions on the board will be much different than if you focused on Economics. But because it's a tech tree, you always have to research a card before being able to use the action, instead of LoW where everyone immediately gains access to your building.
I've actually quite liked **Apiary** for worker placement. When a worker is bumped, it can either get stronger and return to your active pool or you can hold it off separately for an income turn. You can do more stuff with stronger workers, but your opponents can buddy off that power on some spaces. When a worker is a strength 4, you can only use it once for some bonuses or to get an end game scoring tile be fore it goes into hibernation and you have to make a new worker.
Bora Bora/Cuzco is the best worker placement game by far. It uses dice worker placement where at the beginning of the round everyone is going to roll there 3 dice. on your turn you are going to place a die on a space the pips on the die(most of the time) determine the choices you have when doing that action. but the twist is that any player can place their worker on your spot if they place a die with a lower pip count. If you play a 1-pip die on a space you lock everyone else off from using that space. Normally I don't like worker placement because I think most of the time it is implemented it feels like the designer wanted to make a boring solo game but then threw in worker placement as a way for players to interact.
Kingsburg
I quite like Viticulture w/Tuscany. I like that the seasons change and you have to decide to use the workers in early seasons for the ability to choose your turn order bonus sooner or save one for later seasons, like the ability to actually deliver your contract.
The game itself is middling, but I like how in **Agora** you can educate your workers by sending them to school (basically). Then you get more out of them when they go to other locations.
I recently played Darwins Journey and thought that the seal mechanic and more seals giving workers better actions via the esteem system was cool and unique. Definitely worth a try!
You should try Federation and Bruxelles 1893, they combined majority and worker placement. Arichtect of the west kingdom is fun because you have a lot of workers. In Darwin's Journey you can customise your workers.
I really like what they did in [[Founders of Teotihuacan]] The worker placement spots give a bonus action to the first player that uses them. But on top of that, you can stack additional workers on a spot to make your action more powerful. The clever part that makes it particularly tricky is that the spots aren’t claimed by any individual player when workers are placed. So, one player can place a single worker on top of a large stack created by another player, and use their opponents workers against them in order to carry out an action that is even more powerful. You place multiple workers to do a level 2 action, I place a single worker on top to get a level 3 action. It’s a weird thing to try and explain but I think it’s a clever system that creates difficult decisions in a game already full of difficult decisions. Rather under rated in my opinion.
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Istanbul you leave a breadcrumb trail of workers which also taxes other people trying to use the same after you.
your breadcrumbs don't hurt other players (only your current placement does), they just help you redo the same action multiple times.
Oh yeah...sorry it's been a while
Stone Age should always hover around 50th place. It’s a brilliant classic. Recently picked up Bruxelles 1893 and the theme, the tactics and ways to win make it a great game. Refreshing worker placement. Can never go wrong with Settlers either.
The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire. The stacking workers/energy to go to a taken spot and rolling for more energy (somewhat like workers) at the price of pollution are very fun mechanics. There’s a reason it’s Zee’s favorite worker placement
I like how in **Euphoria** you don't ever really block spaces. If another player wants to use a space you've claimed, they can bump your worker off the space. But you get that worker back in your pool to place again. So everybody needs to weigh the cost benefit of whatever the space is against giving their opponent a free turn.
Empires: Age of Discovery / Age of Empires III is the best worker placement game. Every placement feels meaningful, because there's so much to do, but you can't do everything. You find yourself watching the other player's available worker pool like a hawk, waiting for them to place that special worker down.
Manhattan Project is great. Building your own engine plus access to a common board means things start to cook. If you want more player interaction, the sequel, Minutes to Midnight is a lot more what to do with other people in mind. Then Yēdo. Lords of Waterdeep was the bigger IP with a bigger publisher that came out the same year. so most people didn’t play Yēdo. I think it’s a much better game. There is a great auction mechanic and the worker placement is always tight. You can trade and negotiate resources. It’s always a win when it comes out. And the art is beautiful. The only complaint is the game can run a little long.
I really like **Lords of Waterdeep**. I've got the steam version and play it a lot on there with and without real like opponents. It's fun in real life too. **Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia** is another good one if you want something a little more involved.
Possibly Village, in which your workers/villagers grow old and die. They can end up recognised in the village chronicles, or in an unmarked grave.
**CHIMERA STATION** Build your alien workers to suit your needs (quite literally) Want them score points? Give em a big brain Want to feed your workers better? Give them leafy arms they can eat Want to knock your opponents of spaces? Give them Space Lobster Hands Want to get resource bonuses? Give them cool tentacle arms Or double up, or have combos of the above. It's an underrated gem with potential for awesome combos