Tag: Worker Placement

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

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

| T3d-1978
Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

Based on the hit TV series, in Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem players take the role of rival gangs out to control territory, accumulate contraband and reap the monetary rewards of illegal enterprise.

With each turn gangs must attempt to control a range of sites by assigning gang members and resources to claiming, defending and fighting for money, contraband and guns. However, other players can challenge the right for territory, which will lead to conflict! Negotiate, threaten and ally with rival gangs when it serves your needs, but be wary of the inevitable knife in the back. This game is about making and breaking alliances, and only the gang with the most money at the end of six rounds wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Negotiation
  • Take That
  • Trading
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.56

Skull Canyon Ski Fest

| T3d-1978
Skull Canyon Ski Fest

Skull Canyon Ski Fest

Prove you’re the ultimate skier by taking on the most difficult runs, collecting the best gear, and earning the highest score!

To get your ski on in Skull Canyon: Ski Fest, you need to collect and turn in matching sets of slope cards. Each set you turn in lets you ski a run on the mountain, earning victory points, fame, and a spot on the run scoreboard that tracks who performed best on each run. The higher a run’s difficulty rating, the more cards you need to collect to complete it — but you’ll also score more points and earn more fame.

At the end of each day of skiing, you take a break at the Ski Village, where you can take bonus actions and acquire gear to prepare for the next day of skiing. At the end of the third day, players score for the number of easy, advanced, and expert runs they control, then whoever has the most victory points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Shaolia

| T3d-1978
Shaolia

Shaolia

Shaolia is a board game filled with deadly strategy and countless possibilities to build your own kingdom.

  • Build your very own kingdom with various building & character cards
  • Utilize creative tactics to take the lead with highly dynamic game play
  • Dive into the world of Shaolia through fantastic artwork and storylines

There are two ways to win in Shaolia. You can either deal 12 damage to your opponent’s palace and destroy it, or you can achieve 18 culture score.

The game is played through multiple rounds.
A round consists of 3 different phases.

  • Purchase Phase: Purchase cards and resources.
  • Building Phase: Build the purchased cards on the territory board.
  • Action Phase:  Roll the dice and activate cards built on the territory board, using dice.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.43

Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria

| T3d-1978
Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria

Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria

For years the humans, elves, and dwarves have been slowly encroaching on your territories and slaying your kind in the name of progress. They’ve built their citadels, keeps, and villages as they push you further into the darkness. Now is the time to rally your troops and lay waste to their kind and bring forth the reign of the Shadow Kingdoms!

You are a Warden hungry for the destruction of Valeria. You must outwit the other Wardens to earn the right to command an army for the Shadow Kingdoms. Visit dark Shrines to gain minions, magic, gems, and gold to fuel your war machine. Command monsters into battle to conquer the lands and earn Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game will be declared the winner.

On your turn, you must move your Warden from its current location to a new location. When your Warden enters one of the 5 Shrines, you first take any available die from the Shrine and place it on your player board, then perform the Shrine action associated with the Shrine.

There are 5 troop types (die colors) in the game: Goblin (green), Orc (red), Skeleton (white), Gargoyle (purple), and Gnoll (brown). Send your Warden to the Camp on your player board to use your minion dice to resolve battle plans and place Victory tokens on your Campaign board.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.56

Rush M.D.

| T3d-1978
Rush M.D.

Rush M.D.

You are one of the doctors that were just hired for the brand-new, cutting-edge Medical Center. Alongside your colleagues, you have to cooperate well, to admit, diagnose and treat various patients who need your help. Combine your strengths and treat efficiently the patients arriving at hospital, but be careful, because mistakes can be of the highest value in Rush MD!

‘Rush M.D. is an innovative, real-time, cooperative board game that simulates the challenging and high-pressure nature of medical professions. A worker placement mechanism, using hourglasses as workers allows, but also limits, players to perform a multitude of actions. Each player handles 1 Doctor hourglass running around the hospital, admitting patients, providing immediate medical care, performing different kinds of exams as well as performing surgeries. Additionally, there are 4 more Nurse hourglasses, which can be used by all players. Nurses provide medicines to patients, supply all necessary drugs and equipment that you need to carry out all your exams and medical procedures. Any worker placed on an action space may not be used elsewhere before the sand within the hourglass runs out, making each decision important as time is limited.

The game plays from 1-4 players and lasts for 4 rounds of 4 minutes each. That means you only have 16 minutes in total to treat various patients, overcome many difficulties and challenges and manage to cooperate efficiently with your teammates, combine your forces into helping as many of your patients. A highly thematic experience that is equally rewarding for gamers and families, filled with fun, challenges and sharp decision making!

In Rush M.D. pressure is high as human lives are upon your hands! Can you handle the Rush, doctors?!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dexterity
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33

Red Outpost

| T3d-1978
Red Outpost

Red Outpost

A top secret Soviet space mission set out to colonize a planet in a remote galaxy, far away from home. The settlers built there a small communist heaven which exists to this day. As one of the leaders, your goal is to guide the settlers on this new, yet strangely familiar terrain.

In Red Outpost, players get to control all of the settlers, each time a different one. You must expertly manage the resources and choose the jobs carefully so as not to upset the settlers: Keeping up morale is of utmost importance if you want to become the most prolific leader!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Rapa Nui

| T3d-1978
Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui

Universe


Between the 13th and the 17th century, more than 900 monumental statues, Moaï, were erected on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui, also called Easter Island. Become a powerful tribal chief of Easter Island, and gather tribe members to best serve your village, and please the Gods. Carve, transport and erect Moaï to gather resources, and turn these into offerings to honor your ancestors and secure your spiritual and political prowess.

Gameplay


Each game turn takes place in 3 phases. During the first phase, each player sends one of his figurines on the board, each in turn, until all the figurines have been placed. The sorcerer will decide the order of the next turn, and the villagers are placed on the board to become transporters or sculptor. Thanks to the number of sculptors present in the Quarry, each player collects Moais of different sizes. Moai or Pukao must be transported through a continuous chain of transporters, whether they are from your clan or not. But be careful, you offer resource to your opponents when you use their transporter! Once arrived at your destination, you can erect the Moai, to take the Ahu tile you can play at your tune, as well as one or more Resources depending on the size of the Moai. Styling your Moais will allow you to exchange resources to acquire Offering tiles. At the end of a round, if the number of ahu with no Moai is less than or equal to the number of players, the game ends. The winner is the player with the most victory points earned thanks to the Offering and Outstanding Offering tiles.

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.25

Quadropolis

| T3d-1978
Quadropolis

Quadropolis

Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis (first announced as City Mania), but they’re competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.

The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5×5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile that’s as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the player’s 4×4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).

When a player takes a tile, a figure is placed in this now-empty space and the next player cannot place an architect in the same row or column where this tile was located. In addition, you can’t place one architect on top of another, so each placement cuts off play options for you and everyone else later in the round. After all players have placed all four architects, the round ends, all remaining tiles are removed, and the tiles for the next round laid out.

After four rounds, the game ends. Players can move the inhabitants and energy among their tiles at any point during the game to see how to maximize their score. At game end, they then score for each of the six types of buildings depending on how well they build their city — as long as they have activated the buildings with inhabitants or energy as required:

  • Residential buildings score depending on their height
  • Shops score depending on how many customers they have
  • Public services score depending on the number of districts in your city that have them
  • Parks score depending on the number of residential buildings next to them
  • Harbors score based on the longest row or column of activated harbors in the city
  • Factories score based on the number of adjacent shops and harbors

Some buildings are worth victory points (VPs) on their own, and once players sum these values with what they’ve scored for each type of building in their city, whoever has the highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.21

The Pursuit of Happiness

| T3d-1978
The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

We all have one common desire: the desire for happiness. As we build our life, taking steps towards the pursuit of happiness, we come closer to the realization that happiness lies in the pursuit.

The Pursuit of Happiness is a game in which you take a character from birth and you live the life you always wanted. Using a worker-placement mechanism with time as your workers, you take on projects, you get jobs, you buy items, you establish relationships, you raise families. The possibilities are endless as you live the life you have always wanted.

How much will you be able to achieve in just one lifetime during The Pursuit of Happiness?

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Plague Inc.

| T3d-1978
Plague Inc.

Plague Inc.

Each player is a deadly disease and they must battle against each other to spread their plagues, develop new symptoms and ultimately wipe out humanity.

Starting with Patient Zero, you spread your infection across the world by placing tokens in cities – earning DNA points and preventing other players from becoming dominant. Players choose which countries are placed on the board but you must be both climate resistant and connected to a country before you can infect it. Eventually, as countries become fully infected – you try to kill them using the Death Dice.

Each player’s unique pathogen can be upgraded by evolving trait cards onto an evolution slide (with DNA points). At the start, your disease is weak and unspecialised, so you will need to add new symptoms to make it stronger. Choose carefully and plan ahead in order to react to the changing world and exploit opportunities created by other player’s actions.

A simple nosebleed could accelerate things early on, whilst diarrhea will help you thrive in hot countries. Sneezing can infect new continents by air but Total Organ Failure would allow you wipe out multiple countries each turn.

As countries start to fall, use powerful event cards to alter the balance of power. You might try to eradicate a dominant player by bombing their diseased cities, or hold the Olympics to cause huge numbers of infected people to travel to a healthy continent.

When the world collapses, who will be the ultimate plague?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.15