Tag: Worker Placement

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

Pulsar 2849

| OTSG Staff
Pulsar 2849

Pulsar 2849

It is the year 2849, and humanity has harnessed the power of the pulsars. Now we must find a way to distribute this power throughout the stars.
In this Euro-style game, players explore space, claim pulsars, and discover technologies that will help them build energy-distribution infrastructure on a cosmic scale. Dice are used to purchase actions, and players choose their dice from a communal pool. There are many paths to victory so you can blaze your own trail to a bright future.

Draft dice to explore the universe in Pulsar 2849. Game is only 8 rounds long.
Each round, roll dice based on the number of players, sort them based on their values, then draft dice to take actions.

Possible actions
□ Fly your survey ship
□ take a Gyrodyne
□ Develop a Pulsar
□ Build one or more energy transmitter vectors
□ Patent a technology
□ Buy a dice modifier
□ Complete a special project in your HQ and unlock Gate Run

Players score points each round based on what they’ve discovered and explored, and everyone has common goals that they want to achieve.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Drafting
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.35

Plunderbund

| OTSG Staff
Plunderbund

Plunderbund

You lead a guild striving to dominate the market for illegal goods in the Sprawl, a city rich in history and lawlessness. Recruit and task an army of agents, racketeers, spymasters and others to build your reputation by selling your goods and causing chaos for your rivals. Through a light deck building mechanism you attempt to create the strongest network of agents, racketeers and the most desirable black market goods. Winners and losers are determined by a fun, yet sophisticated, supply & demand mechanic.

Plunderbund combines the innate corruption and profiteering of prohibition Chicago and the lawlessness of the fantasy setting, the Sprawl.

It’s an era before cell phones, e-commerce and customer relationship management tools, an honest guild had to get business the hard way: thieving, sorcery, money laundering and bribery.

Plunderbund is your chance to lead your guild to fame, fortune or disaster as you navigate the whims of the notoriously picky Sprawl consumer and deal with underhanded tactics from rivals determined to steal your business.

Each player will lead a guild with the power to decide where your finite resources are invested. A light deck building mechanic enables you to acquire and improve your black market goods, add agents, add racketeers, disrupt your rivals’ operations or just wreak havoc. Cards are added to your deck through a simple snake draft from a limited selection of over twenty different recruits.

Your guild gains reputation (VPs) as a sophisticated yet simply implemented supply and demand mechanic helps you sell your black market goods to merchants. At the end of the game you will be compared to your rivals on the strength of your network of agents, number of racketeers and black market goods qualities. All this growth comes at a cost, you have to take favors as you try to build your operation without the benefit of any gold in your coffers. As they say “paybacks are hell”. Fail to payback your favors and you pay the price as you see your reputation diminished at the end of the game.

Over the course of twelve months, divided into four seasons, you will build your reputation on the backs of your guild recruits and their abilities.

All seasons have three months. Each month players:
1) Place demand coins
2) Draw cards and payback favors
3) Determine cards to put into play and pay for them
4) Calculate and receive goods

After three months have been played:
1) Compete for demand
2) Recruit guild member using a limited snake draft
3) Start the next season

After the end of the fourth season, the game is over and final reputation is tallied.

There are two key concepts in Plunderbund. The first is the supply and demand mechanism. The game starts with the placement of demand at open merchants. The demand generated is correlated with the products being offered by the guilds. In the early game, demand is mostly based on the appeal and ingenuity of the products. Later, as with any market, quality and price become more important. Each demand coin expresses a customer’s preference. Some customers want the best appeal, some want the best ingenuity, some want the best quality, and some want the lowest price.

Your goal is to win more demand coins than other guilds by having the best network of rogues and the best product. The rogues are your sales team. The more rogues you have in place, the more deals you can win and the more your guild reputation soars. Over the course of the game you will build out your ability to compete for demand.

To win a merchant’s demand coin, you must have an “Agent” on that merchant. If you have the only agent on a merchant, you are nearly certain to win. If another guild’s agent is on that merchant, then you must compete. The winner is the player who is leading in that product attribute. So, if the customer has expressed an interest in high quality then the guild with the best quality has a chance to win.

You can only win a demand coin if you can supply a good. Goods are earned (stolen, fenced, you name it) at the end of each month. The number of goods you generate each month is based on your investment in your supply chain (which lowers price) and quality. For each competition you win, you decide whether you want to take that specific demand coin or pass. If you pass, the demand coin either stays on the board or is won by a rival guild. Suffice it to say, you need goods to have a chance win Plunderbund.

The second key concept is the favor economy. Instead of paying money to get things done for your guild, you take favors. These favors are used to put your guild members to work (each card has a favor cost ranging from zero to four). These favor cards go in your discard pile. Fortunately, paying back a favor is easy. As soon as you draw the favor card into your play area, from your draw pile, it is immediately considered payed back. In this way, favors are an opportunity cost. If you end the game with favors that are not paid back, they are deducted from your end of game score. Favor management is an essential part of Plunderbund.

If you understand these key concepts, then you are ready to build your guild reputation and win Plunderbund.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.83

Planet B

| OTSG Staff
Planet B

Planet B

At some point in the not-so-distant future, we humans had to look for a new place to live. Just when we thought we’d have to settle for Mars, we suddenly discovered a new planet, one we lovingly christened “Planet B”. It was a second chance for humanity, and of course we were determined to do everything right this time because as everyone knows, we humans learn very well from our mistakes…

In Planet B, you slip into the role of corrupt governors. You make crooked deals with corporations to advance your own interests. You build your city, let the population work for you, rise in the favor of political factions, or control the news. Of course, all of this comes at a price — and by the time you’re vying for the presidency, you’ll want potential voters to be on your side. In the end, as always, only one thing counts: Who has managed to pocket the most government money?

Game Mechanics:

  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.28

Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

| OTSG Staff
Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

Orléans: Trade & Intrigue is the second large expansion for the award-winning game Orléans.

This expansion adds new place tiles and four new modules:

  • Orders: a new set of cards, each depicting goods and a city – collect the goods and turn them in at the city for victory points
  • New Events: a completely new set of 34 Hour Glass Tiles from which 18 are semi-randomly chosen for each game
  • New Beneficial Deeds: a replacement Beneficial Deeds board providing completely new rewards for sending away your Followers
  • Intrigue: a replacement Beneficial Deeds board allowing you to attack and hinder your opponents or even steal from them

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.39

Near and Far

| OTSG Staff
Near and Far

Near and Far

Four wanderers search for the Last Ruin, a city that legends say contains an artifact that will grant the greatest desires of the heart. A lost love, redemption, acceptance, a family rejoined– these are the fires that fuel the wanderers’ journeys, but can they overcome their own greed and inner demons on the way?

In Near and Far, you and up to three friends explore many different maps in a search for the Last Ruin, recruiting adventurers, hunting for treasure, and competing to be the most storied traveler. You must collect food and equipment at town for long journeys to mysterious locales, making sure not to forget enough weapons to fight off bandits, living statues, and rusty robots! Sometimes in your travels you’ll run into something unique and one of your friends will read what happens to you from a book of stories, giving you a choice of how to react, creating a new and memorable tale each time you play.

Near and Far is a sequel to Above and Below and includes a book of encounters. This time players read over ten game sessions to reach the end of the story. Each chapter is played on a completely new map with unique art and adventures.

Answer the call of the ruins and begin your journey.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.87

My Father’s Work

| OTSG Staff
My Father's Work

My Father's Work

The walls were lined with iron shelves, each metal slat overfilled with glass jars containing formaldehyde and grotesque curiosities within. Pristine brass tools and refined metals of a quality I had never before laid eyes upon were strewn across sturdy slabs of rock and wood, their edges sharp with use. However, my eyes were soon drawn to a sturdy writing desk, its mahogany eaves inlaid with thin strips of copper, the center of which contained a well-worn leather-bound book. My father’s journal — passed down to me and representing years of knowledge and countless experiments. And inside that weathered tome, atop the pearly parchment oxidized yellow at its frayed edges, were the deliberate quill marks of a crazed genius outlining the ambitious project he could never complete in one lifetime — his masterwork.

Without realizing it, my hands were shaking as I clutched the book to my chest. At once, I felt an ownership and anxiety for the scientific sketches scrawled so eloquently on those frayed sheets. It was at that moment that I began my obsession: I would restore this laboratory to its former brilliance and dedicate my life to completing my father’s work!

In My Father’s Work, players are competing mad scientists entrusted with a page from their father’s journal and a large estate in which to perform their devious experiments. Players earn points by completing experiments, aiding the town in its endeavors, upgrading their macabre estates, and hopefully completing their father’s masterwork.

But they have to balance study and active experimentation because at the end of each generation, all of their experiments and resources are lost to time until their child begins again with only the “Journaled Knowledge and Estate” they have willed to them — and since the game is played over the course of three generations, it is inevitable that the players will rouse the townsfolk to form angry mobs or spiral into insanity from the ethically dubious works they have created. The player with the most points at the end of three generations wins and becomes the most revered, feared, ingenious scientist the world has ever known!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.20

Merchants of the Dark Road

| OTSG Staff
Merchants of the Dark Road

Merchants of the Dark Road

After half a year of daylight, we must now prepare for the dark season. The roads will be treacherous but they will still need to be braved by a select few in order to keep our cities thriving. In Merchants of the Dark Road, you are one of these brave few merchants that travel the dangerous paths between cities. While the job is perilous, fame and fortune await.

Discover the capital city where most of your actions will take place using a rondel action system. Collect and produce items to add to your caravan, or sell these items to local heroes and hire them to travel with you. Manipulate the market price of items, visit the back alley sellers, or delve a nearby dungeon for magical items to gain the potential for even more coin and notoriety.

Gather lanterns to ease your passage along the dark roads as you guide your caravan to distant villages. Deliver goods and heroes to the best destinations and gain fame for your bravery! Balance the money you earn with the height of your fame because your final score after a number of game rounds will reflect the lowest of these two values.

After all, what good is a purse full of the coin if the people don’t sing songs about you, and what good is a song with an empty mug of ale?

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Rondel
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.12

Margraves of Valeria

| OTSG Staff
Margraves of Valeria

Margraves of Valeria

Margraves of Valeria is a hand-building worker-placement game set in the fantasy world of Valeria. It’s the fifth stand-alone game in the series that introduces new twists to Valeria world!

You are a Margrave, a military commander tasked with defending the land of Valeria and building magical Ward Towers at cities. Knights in Valeria can be commanded by you or your fellow Margraves to slay monsters or activate locations in an effort to gain influence over the 4 Guilds: Worker, Soldier, Shadow, and Holy. As you gain influence, you’ll cross thresholds that will earn you privilege tiles which give you bonuses.

At the end of the game, you’ll earn victory points based on how much influence you have over a Guild and how many icons you’ve gained of that Guild. The Margrave with the most victory points at the end of the game will be named a Duke or Duchess and given their own province to protect and grow!

Turns are deceptively simple as you only get to play 1 Citizen card from your hand. Each card can be played for action icons in the pennant (top-left), power text (at the bottom), or played face-down to perform one of the two actions on your player board (Recall your cards or Build a Ward Tower).

Key features include:

  • Hand Building – Much like deck-building, you are drafting cards into your hand increasing your powers, victory points, and options.
  • Multi-use Cards – Each card can be used in one of four ways, leaving you a lot of decision-making room to execute your strategy.
  • Worker-Placement – Each time you move your Margrave or a Knight into a location, you activate the power of that location much like a worker placement game.
  • Shared Workers – The Knights on the game board do not belong to a single player (anyone can use them) so be careful not to setup your opponents with powerful turns.
  • Resource Management – You have limited storage spots on your player board and using them effectively (without wasting tokens) is key to winning the game.
  • Hero Tombs – As you send Knights into battle, they die glorious deaths and are sent to tombs where you can collect bonuses in a well-integrated mini-game.
  • Influence Track – Gain influence over the 4 Guilds by moving your markers across the tracks which will earn you more victory points at the end of the game for icons you collect.
  • Fantastic Art – As with previous Valeria games, the Mico has really outdone himself by creating a rich and dynamic world full of color and life.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Deck Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.64

Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

| OTSG Staff
Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

The journeys of Marco Polo continue in Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, an epic follow-up to The Voyages of Marco Polo. After traveling to Beijing, your travels now take you back to the West in the service of the Khan, sending you to the farthest reaches of his empire in search of wealth and fame.

Marco Polo II is a standalone game based on The Voyages of Marco Polo, and you don’t need the original game to play this one. This new journey will present unique challenges, with new and different actions, new scoring rules, and a new good: rare and valuable Chinese jade.

Retread old paths with renewed purpose, or find new ones as you explore farther west, continuing to build the immortal legacy of Marco Polo!

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.37

The Magnificent

| OTSG Staff
The Magnificent

The Magnificent

The Magnificent is a tightly designed Eurogame from the creators of Santa Maria set in a mystical world beautifully illustrated by French artist Martin Mottet.

In the game, players are competing to attract the largest audiences to their shows, featuring magnificent performers. In the process, you must expand your camp by placing Tetris-style tiles on your player board, gather elements needed for the shows, and set up performances in your tents.

On your turn, you take one die from the supply. The value of the chosen die is your strength. Add to this the value of all dice of the same color that you have already collected, then use this strength to carry out one of three main actions: build, travel or perform. The more strength you have, the better the action will be, but at the end of the round, you must pay — in coins — the total of your highest-valued dice color. Thus, taking dice of the same color makes for better actions, but will cost more coins.

After each player has taken four turns, the round ends. Each player must discard one of their ringmaster cards and score points according to its requirements. After three rounds, the game ends, and the player who has collected the most points wins.

In more detail, players start the game with four ringmaster cards and a unique trainer tile. Each ringmaster card provides a special ability (which is triggered when you place a die on it) and a unique end-of-round scoring opportunity. When you choose a ringmaster card to discard and score at the end of the round, you must therefore also take into consideration which special abilities you want to keep.

In addition to your main action, you may use trainers on your personal unique trainer tiles or on common trainer spaces on the game board for various benefits.

At the end of each round, in order of the players’ highest-ranked performances, players choose a new ringmaster card and a trainer tile, providing new abilities and scoring opportunities for the next round.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Drafting
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Grid Coverage
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.14