Rise and shine, my workers! Today brings us another day for you to gather stuff for me. Whether it’s building a shelter, clearing rubble, making wine or rebuilding a post-apocalyptic society, I just like it when I can put down my meeples/pawns/survivors/exosuits and do things. This is favorite mechanics: worker placement.
Such a simple mechanic; place worker, get stuff. This means that this mechanic is open to variation and twists – like the Grande worker in Viticulture, the tiredness in Anachrony, the ‘time’ aspect in Robinson Crusoe, or the prison mechanic in Paladins of the West Kingdom. Every worker placement game gives you a blank slate to occupy spots each turn while your opponent or Automa start claiming spots just the same.
Why do I like worker placement games? Because of this.
Before we head in, a quick aside about A Feast for Odin (the game depicted in the header image). After having played five games in about a week’s time I can prematurely conclude that this game is absolutely fantastic – review will be coming soon. That’s where I will also dive deeper into how this game employs the worker placement mechanic.
A mechanic of innate planning
When you are planning what to do, there aren’t a lot of truly random elements that can intervene. Sure, an opponent or automa could screw things up, but their logic is usually predictable to some degree. Worker placement by default has less hidden information than some other mechanics. Whenever cards are involved, for example, the hidden information increases.
Strategy through tactics
Worker placement is a strategic mechanic with lots of tactical interplay. If I do A and B this turn, I can do C next turn, which helps me fulfill the end game goal I’m working towards.
I like how this works in Viticulture, for example; if you want to fulfill and order, you need wine. For wine, you need grapes. For grapes, you need wine stock. For wine stock, you need fields to plant them on. You know what to do from the beginning, but when the automa throws a wrench in your plans, there are plenty of other paths you can take.
It’s a rewarding mechanic
Worker placement is a mechanic that usually costs nothing yet gives you an immediate reward. Place worker, get resource. It’s not (well, at least not directly) about investing and waiting for the payoff – most of the time you see what you’re getting, and you get it immediately when you plop your worker down.
It’s a structured mechanic
Worker placement gives me as a user lots of control – that is why this mechanic, just like its sibling action selection, is a favorite in heavy euro games like A Feast for Odin. Control means less variable factors, meaning more a more deterministic outcome of your actions, meaning more strategy.
As an example, let’s take This War of Mine. While this game definitely has its random elements, the assignment of day actions is pretty much devoid of randomness. Place a guy and a shovel = clear rubble. Four wood + one part = one board-up. When I’m playing this game (and Robinson too), I like to move my pawns around (or use tokens if I have a variable number of actions available) until I’m happy with a configuration. Then I execute those actions. I can plan out my entire turn, ready for whatever the game’s event cards throw at me next.
Nice interaction – also solo
When a worker placement game does have interaction, I quite like it. Here the push-your-luck aspect comes into play. Often this subset of worker placement games has you placing a worker, then the opponent (or automa), and so forth. When you know which spots you want to claim, which one do you claim first? And what happens when your opponent claims the spot you had in mind for your next move? I like this interaction quite a bit, giving a more tactical approach to a very strategic endeavor.
Push-your-luck aspect prevents deterministic gameplay
The aforementioned push-your-luck aspect is what gives this kind of worker placement games its charm; you can plan ahead all you want, but when someone blocks you from doing what you want, you need to change gears. Bear in mind that while I do like this premise, some games can get a little too cutthroat in this regard – while a game like Viticulture gives you a Grande worker to claim spots, in other games your plans can get flat out derailed, either by the automa, real opponents, or just bad luck random AI moves.
Why someone wouldn’t like worker placement
As with every mechanic, there are also reasons why someone wouldn’t like worker placement games.
- Blocking spots can completely wreck your plans;
- Availability of spots can make it hard to make a plan and stick to it;
- On the other hand, games with too little conflict can lead to deterministic gameplay and/or analysis paralysis (do you have AP? Just play solo!);
- The cutthroat nature of some games (and scarcity of crucial resources/actions) can make it feel like you don’t have lots of choice and are at the mercy of others.
- With games that allow you to gain more workers, it’s often the best move to expand your work force as quickly as possible.
In conclusion
For me, worker placement is a two-sided coin that works either way, most of the time. The ‘place workers first, then get stuff’ approach tickles my inner control freak, while turn-based worker placement comes with a high tension and lots of tactical consequences that I also like. If a mechanic has two faces and I like both, we can safely consider this a favorite of mine.
What do you think about worker placement? What are your favorite games? Any games not mentioned here you can recommend?
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
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Stidjen Plays Solo 