I was putting my collection back together after redecorating over the weekend and noticed a distinct lack of worker placement games in my collection!
We’ve played (and enjoyed!) Architects of the West Kingdom and Tiny Epic Dinosaurs in the past, but both belong to a friends collection and don’t want to overlap with them.
What worker placement games do you own and enjoy?
A couple recommendations:
Dune: Imperium - Haven’t been able to play it yet but worth checking out
Lost Ruins of Arnak
Viticulture Essential Edition with the Tuscany Essential Edition expansion
Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar
Targi - 2 players only
Ora et Labora
Kingsburg (Second Edition)
Since you explicitly mentioned it - in your opinion, is the Tuscany expansion for Viticulture really essential (pun intended)? I only played the base game so far, sometimes also with the Rhine Valley expansion cards. Doesn’t Tuscany only add more complexity?
I feel like the game without the expansion is a 7.5/10 and with the expansion is a 9/10. The new board really opens up the game.
The expansion comes with several modules and you can side them out if you think they add too much complexity or randomness (I hate the orange deck). I think I only play with the map and don’t feel like it adds that much complexity.
Cool, thanks for the insights! Might actually need to give it a try then.
Viticulture with Tuscany makes the game so much better. I haven’t used the base board for years. It has four seasons instead of two and polishes the processes to perfection. It’s no more complicated than the base version, it just adds improvements. Definitely get it.
In the realm of worker placement/action drafting games, I think Rosenberg is king, and of his WP games, O&L is the only one ** I’ve kept for multiple years now. The decision space for what to do on any given turn (especially late game) is absolutely massive is part of that reason. Also, kudos to @lolzy_mcroflmao for not wanting to overlap across friend groups. We do the same thing in our household.
If 2p is a requirement, then I would suggest The Colonists by Tim Pulz and once you play it once, start in era 3. It’s a longer game in general though, but I find it’s a much better 2p experience for the same proverbial question.
** (I have Rosenberg’s newest Canal game, but it just arrived and I haven’t played it yet. Also, I don’t really consider Glass Road a WP game which is why it didn’t make the list).