What is worker placement in board games?

Introduction

Board games come in all shapes, sizes and mechanics. Mechanics in simple terms are a type of repeated action players may perform on their turn, that give players benefits of some sort in the game. Worker placement is a popular mechanic in board games that requires players to place a token in active areas of the board game to gain a benefit, which might be resources, actions, triggering events or preventing other players from performing a specific action.

Some of our favourite worker placement board games are Flamecraft, Tokaido, Everdell and Agricola (Anjali’s not too sure on this one).

Most worker placement games are inherently strategic, as you have a limited number of game rounds and workers to make the best of any given situation.

Flamecraft is a great example for worker placement games that focuses on actions, resource gathering and triggering events. As a Flame-Keeper, you use your token to decide which store you’re visiting to gain resources and trigger actions by placing dragons and firing them. Similarly, by placing your token in a store, you can trigger an event by enchanting the store, which allows you to perform multiple actions with the dragons already present in the store.

Everdell is similar, but focuses on tableau building in conjunction with worker placement. The worker placement in Everdell focuses more on card or resource gathering, and resource allocation to build your city.

While both Flamecraft and Everdell have strong worker placement mechanics, they feel very different to each other as the path to achieving the end goal is quite different.

How long can a game take to play?

We acknowledge we’ve not played too many worker placement games when we say this, but we have found that most worker placement games we know of can take anywhere from an hour to a few hours, and not days.

Its likely because of the way this mechanic works, intrinsically tying the game length to the limited number of rounds and workers. Oftentimes, the increased length of the game is based on how long players take to make their move.

Why we love this mechanic

Worker placement board games are really satisfying for a couple core reasons.

We love having a token that you move around and place. It gives an action tangible feedback that makes it more visual and apparent to everyone in the game and allows for players to band together to stop the one who took the action or change tactics.

Watching the board expand and populate itself. Tableau games with worker placement mechanics feel even more satisfying for this reason as you watch your game board or a shared board game space grow, populating the game board and making it feel more alive.

Who might enjoy worker placement games?

If you’re someone who enjoys games with tangible actions, we highly recommend playing board games with a worker placement mechanic.

Strategy player? Then worker placement is a fun challenge to take on, with different games requiring a very different mindset to strategize and come out on top. Limited resources isn’t new, but add to that actions that require gathering them whilst competing with other players, whether by having a pool that you can acquire all at once or acquire as the game progresses and they make for very different games.

What are some good worker placement board games to start with?

Tokaido

A great place to start for those new to worker placement games with a focus on collection than strategy.

Playtime

Games usually take 30-45 minutes, and can be replayed many times with different characters.

Publisher Website

Stonemaier Games published Tokaido, and the span games like Wyrmspan and Finspan.

Flamecraft

A good place to step into more complex board games, that teaches you both strategy and worker placement in a tangible way.

Playtime

Relatively short. Games can take between 45-60 minutes.

Publisher Website

Cardboard Alchemy published Flamecraft, and other titles we've got our eyes on like Critter Kitchen.

Is Flamecraft as fun as it looks cute? We say yes, but don’t take our word for it, you can read our review on why we love this worker placement board game and weigh in a couple more opinions. Go check it out!

Agricola

A great strategic worker placement board game for veterans looking for a bit more of a challenge. Recommended for a weekend and when people have braincells online.

Playtime

We find the time for these games vary based on how much min-maxing players are thinking through for each round. Can take anywhere from 60 minutes to 3 hours.

Publisher Website

Agricola's been published by several different publishers, including lookout Spiele, Z-Man Games and Mayfair Games.