Tag: Worker Placement

Games with a Worker Placement mechanic require players to coordinate various workers as those workers gather resources.

Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory

| OTSG Staff

The Nation is in disarray and a war is waging between the classes. The working class faces a dismantled welfare system, the capitalists are losing their hard-earned profits, the middle class is gradually fading and the state is sinking into a deep deficit. Amidst all this chaos, the only person who can provide guidance is… you. Will you take the side of the working class and fight for social reforms? Or will you stand with the corporations and the free market? Will you help the government try to keep it all together, or will you try to enforce your agenda no matter the cost to the country?

Hegemony is an asymmetric politico-economic card-driven board game for 2-4 players that puts you in the role of one of the socio-economic groups in a fictional state: The Working Class, the Middle Class, the Capitalist Class and the State itself.

The Working class controls the workers. The Capitalist class controls the companies. The Middle class combines elements from both the Working class and the Capitalist. It has workers who can work in the Capitalist’s companies but it can also build companies of its own, yet smaller. Finally the State is trying to keep everyone happy, providing benefits and subsidies when needed but trying also to maintain a steady income through taxes to avoid going into debt.

While players have their own separate goals, they are all limited by a series of policies that affect most of their actions, like Taxation, Labor Market, Foreign Trade etc. Voting on those policies and using their influence to change them is also very important. Through careful planning, strategic actions and political maneuvering, you will do your best to increase the power of your class and carry out your agenda. Will you be the one to lead your class to victory?

Hegemony is heavily based on actual academic principles such as Social-Democracy, Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Globalism, and allows players to see their real world applications through engaging gameplay. There are many ways to achieve hegemony- which one will you take?

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.26

Guild Academies of Valeria

| OTSG Staff

You and your fellow Headmasters are trying to build out your academies, recruit the best students, hire talented guildmasters, and influence important council ministers. Only select graduates can be tasked to fulfill quests ordered by the King, while the so-so graduates are sent to the capital city to make their own way.

GAOV uses action selection, dice drafting and dice manipulation (Students), tile drafting, resource management and engine building (Academies), contract fulfillment (Quests), and a unique system where players choose which game aspects they want to score (Council Ministers) to bring a new aspect of the Valeria Universe to life.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

Great Wall, the

| OTSG Staff

The Great Wall is a new asymmetric worker/soldier placement game with engine building themes and a twist in form of a constantly attacking AI (Mongolian Horde) that requires players to sometimes cooperate in order to defeat it. This is a new major board game from Awaken Realms.

Players will control ancient clans in China trying to defend against invading Mongolian hordes and build a Great Wall. While every player will want to win (by earning VP = Honor) they also need to sometimes cooperate to defend against the hordes. Each clan will be asymmetric through its chosen Leader (resource production/starting resources/starting workers and units) and this asymmetry will increase as the game progresses (players will hire Advisors with unique skills, often creating unique engines).

In The Great Wall, the players take the role of Generals defending the Wall against the Mongol Horde. The game is played over a series of turns called Years, each divided into 4 parts called Seasons.

During Spring, new barbaric hordes invade the fields in front of the Great Wall and prepare to launch their assault. Summer is the time when generals prepare for the assault and mobilize their forces. During Fall, players take their turns, playing Command cards, resolving their effects and Activating Locations to gain various benefits. In Winter, the last layer of Defense is activated, then, the hordes try to assault the Walls.

During the course of the game, players will create their own unique engines based on their clan strength as well as interact with other players during all phases of the game, trying to get the most Honor points, which can be gained in a lot of different ways.

At the end of the game, the player with the most Honor wins.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.91

Gnome Hollow

| OTSG Staff

Since the beginning of time, gnomes have been the humble caretakers of nature. In secret, they emerge from their underground homes to maintain meticulous rings of mushrooms known to the human folk as “fairy rings”. But the work must be done quickly because as soon as a mushroom path is finished, the mushrooms are ready for picking. Who will be the cleverest gnome and harvest the most mushrooms by the end of the season?

Gnome Hollow is a spatial, tile-placement, worker-placement game in which you grow a tabletop garden of mushrooms and flowers. Every piece is a hand-painted watercolor that captures the whimsical feel of gnomes and nature. Turns are deceptively simple: Players place tiles into the garden, and move a gnome to take a single action on their turn. Come to Gnome Hollow and experience a peaceful garden, the thrill of competing to harvest buckets of mushrooms, and the reward of gathering in all your shiny treasures!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

Druids of Edora, The

| OTSG Staff

The Druids of Edora is a game of strategic dice placement. Walk through ancient forests in the footsteps of fairy folk, past monolithic menhirs, and under strands of mistletoe. As druids you will place dice to take actions to gather provisions, gain knowledge, brew potions, and gain bonuses. Build stone structures, collect herbs, and leave your mark in the sacred wood.

Each turn is a few simple steps that with the right strategy will earn you prestige points and bring you closer to victory.

Dive into this fantastic new strategy game from the team behind The Castles of Burgundy.

Prove yourself worthy of the ancient ones and bring glory to your forest.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04

Gallerist, The

| OTSG Staff

This age of art and capitalism has created a need for a new occupation – The Gallerist.

Combining the elements of an Art dealer, museum curator, and Artists’ manager, you are about to take on that job! You will promote and nurture Artists; buy, display, and sell their Art; and build and exert your international reputation. As a result, you will achieve the respect needed to draw visitors to your Gallery from all over the world.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but don’t worry, you can hire assistants to help you achieve your goals. Build your fortune by running the most lucrative Gallery and secure your reputation as a world-class Gallerist!

Maximize your money and thus win the game by:

  • having visitors in your gallery;
  • exhibiting and selling works of art;
  • investing in artists’ promotion to increase art value;
  • achieving trends and reputation as well as curator and dealer goals.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.21

Galaxy Hunters

| OTSG Staff

In Galaxy Hunters, 2 to 4 players take on the role of mercenaries hired by the Megacorps to hunt and harvest the rampant mutations. Featuring an inventive pilot and mech combination system, pairing different pilots with different mechs unlocks new powers and special abilities. Using money earned for harvesting DNA from the creatures, players upgrade their mechs with new weapons and items. Galaxy Hunters seamlessly blends the excitement of crafting a unique character with the deep strategy of Eurogame-style worker placement.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.21

Galactic Cruise

| OTSG Staff

Hello, and welcome to Galactic Cruise. Here, we offer our guests something special: the comfort of a luxury cruise with the innovation of space travel. As the first company to offer extended-stay space vacations, we are excited to have you working for us! As a supervisor of this company, you’ll be expected to not only build these ships and satisfy our guests, but also to help the company thrive by enhancing our company network, inventing new technologies, and growing our workforce. We are a united company, and you’ll often find that what another supervisor does will make your job easier. Let me be clear, though, this is a competition. Our current CEO will be stepping down in three years, and the supervisor who comes out on top will take his place.

On your turn, you will either place a worker to take two actions in the ever-expanding network, launch a ship and send one of your workers to space as a pilot, or recall all your earthbound workers to collect funding bonuses. Actions include acquiring blueprints, constructing ships, attracting guests, and building developments–connections between locations that increase action selection throughout the game. You will also be affecting resource markets that ebb and flow with the actions of all the players.

Throughout the game, you will also be competing with your fellow supervisors to complete company goals, which will earn you progress cubes throughout the game. Progress cubes are also placed when you launch ships, and when a certain number of cubes are placed onto the company’s progress track, the game ends, and the player with the most Victory Points becomes the new CEO of Galactic Cruise.

Do you still think you have what it takes to work for us? You do? Great. Let’s get started.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1- 4 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.99

Fromage

| OTSG Staff

You are a French cheesemaker in the early 20th century making, aging, and selling your artisanal cheeses. Become the most prestigious cheesemaker in all of France by running a highly successful creamery and crafting exceptional cheese.

Fromage is a simultaneous worker-placement game where players place Workers to make cheese and gather resources from the quadrant of the board facing them. Once all players have placed their Workers, the board rotates, aging any cheese that was made, and presenting each player with a new quadrant to place Workers into. Score Prestige Points by selling cheese to the four locations, and by efficiently managing and upgrading your creamery.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

From the Moon

| OTSG Staff

In From the Moon, players are representatives of factions trying to complete missions departing from our Moon in order to help humankind survive elsewhere in the galaxy. Indeed, the fate of the Earth is sealed, and time is running out!

The plan is to launch three survival missions before all life on Earth ends. To do that, each faction will contribute by building parts of the ships and build their own lunar base to store the necessary resources.

In the end, which faction will be most suited to lead the future of our race out there, far away in space?

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.47