My top 10 would have 5-6 Uwe games in it lol. I don’t entirely agree with Tom’s assessment that many of his games don’t feel fresh or creative in regard to the worker placement system. Agricola innovated worker placement a good deal with the resource accumulation spaces (love when that’s in games), revealing new spaces each round, the feeding vs. growing aspect, having personal cards that improve or otherwise interact with action spaces, etc. There’s still nothing else quite like it in my opinion. Hallertau’s worker placement was pretty interesting with the spots costing more workers the more they have been used by the players, meaning the return on value for spots constantly changed throughout the game. Fields of Arle has a unique system for a 2p worker placement game with two seasons and once each round one player can jump a season but it means going 2nd the following round. And having a worker placement spot for enhancing the power of some of the other spots if you invest in it. Haven’t gotten Black Forest to the table yet but the system in there looks interesting, with the tension of deciding between paying to travel vs. accepting a closer spot and also every action is essentially combining two worker spots so you’re having to puzzle out not which one spot to go to but which two adjacent spots are the best for your current needs. And of course AFFO’s grid-like system in which each column costs an additional worker that may also provide an additional benefit for spending said worker, getting workers back if you “fail” an action, Norwegians adding another column which relatively strong actions but your turn is done when you take em, etc. Maybe not revolutionary but still feels distinct and fresh imo. That said, definitely agree y’all picked some good ones. Surprised not to see even more Garphill!
My picks: 10.) Viticulture w/ Tuscany and Visitors from the Rhine Valley 9.) My Father’s Work 8.) A Feast for Odin w/ The Norwegians 7.) Five Tribes 6.) Dominant Species 5.) Caylus 1303 4.) Bus 3.) Argent: the Consortium 2.) Agricola 1.) Little Town
I like that Tom put Charterstone on the list, because it does have interesting worker placement that's very interactive. I'd love to see a Charterstone 2 or a non-legacy Charterstone.
Love that Tom put Architects of the West Kingdom on the list, because it has such fun and interative worker placement. We love joking about rounding up other players rabble, and it's one of the few take-that worker placement games I can think of.
My top 10 WP games: 10. Stone Age 9. Beyond the Sun 8. Keyflower 7. Apiary 6. Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar 5. Lost Ruins of Arnak 4. Caverna /w Forgotten Folks 3. Everdell: Complete Edition 2. Dominant Species 1. A Feast for Odin /w Norwegians
I just love these guys, that's why I always come back to the Dice Tower. They make it all so nice. With Mike being there less I'm really happy Joey is present. I love Roy, Camilla, Wendy, Chris and all the others too. This channel got me into board gaming as a hobby and I'm so grateful. It was the video with Trey Parker that showed up on my social media feed and the board games they showed got me really excited to try them.
I think Worker Placement is still my favorite mechanic. I am going to have to leave this page up so I can get a good sleep and finish it over the weekend!
My Top Ten 10 - Stone Age 9 - Architects of the West Kingdom 8 - Barbarians : The Invasion 7 - The Godfather 6 - Tzolk'in : The Mayan Calendar 5 - Rajas of the Ganges 4 - Railroad Revolution 3 - Raiders of the North Sea 2 - Paladins of the West Kingdom 1 - Lords of Hellas Honorable mention - Hawaii (Just for Tom)
Thank you very much to all three of you for this! You three are great trio, very entertaining and great chemistry. Hope you continue doing videos like this. Thank you! Keep up the great work.
Another unique one that could have been mentioned that is often forgotten is Spyium. I also thought about Coal Baron the great card game and it's use of having to increase the value of workers when following other workers at a placement location.
Mine: 1. Dune Imperium 2. Paladins of the West Kingdom (though that’s barely a worker placement game with the lack of a shared board other the than the King’s Favour cards) 3. Beyond the Sun 4. Champions of Midgard 5. Raiders of the North Sea 6. Lords of Waterdeep 7. Whistle Mountain 8. Lost Ruins of Arnak 9. Architects of the West Kingdom 10. Caylus 1303
Workerplacement combine with bidding works fine. Resurgence (like Nova Roma from Stan Kordonsky) or Dungeon Pets are nice examples. Also when Tom was mentioning that Istanbul is Workermovement, why he didnt blame Mike for Outlive.
Am I the only one who doesn’t get how endless winter gets compared to arnak and dune imp as far as release time. Isn’t endless winter 2 years later? Is it just the fact that it was on kickstarter during that same time?
I don't know what my top 10 would be, but I know my number one for sure would-be Darwin's Journey. I am shocked this didn't make anyone's list (may have made Chris's list if he were to make one) or really get mentioned in the comments. I mean the game is almost in the top 100 of all games ever on BGG (I feel it is only a matter of time before it cracks into the top 100)! That aside, this was a fun video, and I enjoyed the ribbing at Tom's expense.
My Top 10 Worker Placement Games are: Architects of the West Kingdom (w/ both expansions and at least 4 players) Kanban: Driver's Edition (I've not played EV) Lorenzo il Magnifico Lost Ruins of Arnak Orléans Paladins of the West Kingdom Rajas of the Ganges Scholars of the South Tigris Wayfarers of the South Tigris The White Castle ...and yes I'm more obsessed with Garphill games than Mike
My top 5 Worker placement games (a genre I am certainly not well versed in) would probably be: 5. Dinosaur Island 4. Apiary 3.Dune imperium 2. Hadrian’s wall (if that counts?) 1. Paladins of the west kingdom Favorite game with worker placement in it is actually ark nova, but it doesn’t feel much like worker placement.
Neat list gentlemen. Thanks! But Zee, c'mon, is Santiago actually worker placement? Really great game, but it's a rondel you move your car around (and around...). Not worker placement. But it's big brother Cuba, now that's worker placement. Also, a few honourable mentions for me would be Anachrony, A Feast for Odin, Anno 1800, Caylus 1303, Fields of Arle, and Raiders of Scythia.
It's definitely a weird edge case. You are dropping off a limited number of people at different locations to take actions, which is basically the definition of a worker placement game, but with the limitation that you have to be in the location to drop off the worker.
Speaking of top Uwe games, can you do a top 10 “feed your people” games? Some people really dislike this mechanism but it makes for high tension. Is there even that many games with feed your people?
Not mentioned...Raiders of the North Sea and Lords of Waterdeep would be in my top 10 for sure... surprised that Everdell or Underwater Cities didn't make the cut either.
32:10 I strongly disagree. Kickstarter was a nice idea at the beginning, to help small companies or even individuals to go out and publish something. Now it's just a tool for big companies to move the whole responsibility and risk to customers. I have only(?) ~100 games at home but I'm actively blocking any Kickstarter/Gamefound/crowdsourcing things as for me it's an abomination of the market. I tend to claim that "a good game will be available in shops", to buy and have it on my table withing few days, not years. "If it's not on the shop shelf, it doesn't exist" (for me). Also, majority of KS games have one digit too many in price for me. For one KS game I have 3..6 other good games available in the market right away. I'm in minority probably but that's my decision. Cheers!
It is definitely too easy to get everything done in Endless Winter. I haven't played with the variant rules because the group hasn't really be interested in playing since the first 2 games we played just felt too easy. Will hopefully get a chance to try the new rules but with so many other great games I'm not sure it'll happen. In comparison, we love Dune: Imperium and find it much more interesting. Haven't played Uprising since I wasn't too happy about having bought all the original stuff (game + expansions) and 6 months later having it be superseded by D:I 1.5 (Uprising).
I know it's knocking on a bit now, but I was surprised that Lords Of Waterdeep didn't make anyone's list here. Think it would of done on a people's choice top 10.
Once I saw the topic of this Top 10 I thought to myself 3 games that really utilize workers in uniques ways. Only 2 of them were mentioned: Endless Winter and Unconscious Mind. The last one that was SADLY NOT mentioned actually not only REVOLVES around worker placement but also allows you to educate each individual worker to become asymmetrical within the game making each uniquely more powerful! That game is Darwin’s Journey! An AMAZING game! Very disappointed for sure!
I sometimes wonder why some games are rated as high as they are, and then I see videos with Zee's recommendations..... No problem, we all have our own tastes in games, even if they are wrong. lol. This is meant as a playful statement, not hate.
Mike, Tom, and Zee are so great together. So funny.
Especially once they are warmed up they really get into a groove.
I'm a simple man. I see these three, and I click immediately
I click 👍before the video even starts! 😂
AGREE🎉
@@tristianrains4110 Worker Placement games are my absolute favorite mechanic! Hands down!
And then it gets even better with Joey's contribution to the show.
Agreeeeee
Amazing lists gentlemen!
Here's mine:
10. Arborea
9. Endless Winter
8. Caverna
7. Apiary
6. Unconscious Mind
5. Andromeda's Edge
4. Mistwind
3. Dune: Imperium
2. Nova Roma
1. Kanban EV
You guys make me laugh more than any combo of DT crew. It's these videos that compelled me to fund the DT KS
My top 10 would have 5-6 Uwe games in it lol. I don’t entirely agree with Tom’s assessment that many of his games don’t feel fresh or creative in regard to the worker placement system.
Agricola innovated worker placement a good deal with the resource accumulation spaces (love when that’s in games), revealing new spaces each round, the feeding vs. growing aspect, having personal cards that improve or otherwise interact with action spaces, etc. There’s still nothing else quite like it in my opinion.
Hallertau’s worker placement was pretty interesting with the spots costing more workers the more they have been used by the players, meaning the return on value for spots constantly changed throughout the game.
Fields of Arle has a unique system for a 2p worker placement game with two seasons and once each round one player can jump a season but it means going 2nd the following round. And having a worker placement spot for enhancing the power of some of the other spots if you invest in it.
Haven’t gotten Black Forest to the table yet but the system in there looks interesting, with the tension of deciding between paying to travel vs. accepting a closer spot and also every action is essentially combining two worker spots so you’re having to puzzle out not which one spot to go to but which two adjacent spots are the best for your current needs.
And of course AFFO’s grid-like system in which each column costs an additional worker that may also provide an additional benefit for spending said worker, getting workers back if you “fail” an action, Norwegians adding another column which relatively strong actions but your turn is done when you take em, etc. Maybe not revolutionary but still feels distinct and fresh imo.
That said, definitely agree y’all picked some good ones. Surprised not to see even more Garphill!
I was surprised that Atlantis Rising wasn't on Zee's list.
I honestly think he forgot about it as it’s very high on his Top 100
My picks:
10.) Viticulture w/ Tuscany and Visitors from the Rhine Valley
9.) My Father’s Work
8.) A Feast for Odin w/ The Norwegians
7.) Five Tribes
6.) Dominant Species
5.) Caylus 1303
4.) Bus
3.) Argent: the Consortium
2.) Agricola
1.) Little Town
I like that Tom put Charterstone on the list, because it does have interesting worker placement that's very interactive.
I'd love to see a Charterstone 2 or a non-legacy Charterstone.
Love that Tom put Architects of the West Kingdom on the list, because it has such fun and interative worker placement.
We love joking about rounding up other players rabble, and it's one of the few take-that worker placement games I can think of.
Love the older top 10 titles getting a refresh
My top 10 WP games:
10. Stone Age
9. Beyond the Sun
8. Keyflower
7. Apiary
6. Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar
5. Lost Ruins of Arnak
4. Caverna /w Forgotten Folks
3. Everdell: Complete Edition
2. Dominant Species
1. A Feast for Odin /w Norwegians
I love the bumping of the worker bees in Apiary as well as the variety of the placement spaces.
I just love these guys, that's why I always come back to the Dice Tower. They make it all so nice. With Mike being there less I'm really happy Joey is present. I love Roy, Camilla, Wendy, Chris and all the others too. This channel got me into board gaming as a hobby and I'm so grateful.
It was the video with Trey Parker that showed up on my social media feed and the board games they showed got me really excited to try them.
I'm very excited about this list. Probably my top favorite mechanic.
I picked up Everdell a few months ago and it's already become one of my groups favorite.
I think Worker Placement is still my favorite mechanic. I am going to have to leave this page up so I can get a good sleep and finish it over the weekend!
My Top Ten
10 - Stone Age
9 - Architects of the West Kingdom
8 - Barbarians : The Invasion
7 - The Godfather
6 - Tzolk'in : The Mayan Calendar
5 - Rajas of the Ganges
4 - Railroad Revolution
3 - Raiders of the North Sea
2 - Paladins of the West Kingdom
1 - Lords of Hellas
Honorable mention - Hawaii (Just for Tom)
Underwater Cities
great to see mike back!
Thank you very much to all three of you for this! You three are great trio, very entertaining and great chemistry. Hope you continue doing videos like this. Thank you! Keep up the great work.
Argent: the Consortium is really worth mentioning in my opinion. It has workers (mages) with different powers and a lot of modularity.
Definitely agree! A great game with high player interaction. The workers (mages) with powers based on type works well.
Also Federation is the most underrated game in the past ten years.
Absolutely agree. Quickly moved into my top 10 games of all time.
I really want to own that game but the art turns me off 😔
I agree with Mike!! I Feel Endless Winter is underrated! Inown lroa and dune and love all three! But endless winter is great to me. Great choice Mike!
14:19 T'was fine Acapella work by Zee and Mike for the most part.
I’m dying at these transitions lol
My top 5 were Meadow, Viticulture, Under Falling Skies, Fields of Arle and Agricola.
👍
Mike Tom Zee the best Trio! ❤🤩✨
Mike actin like he be playing Zoovadis with Joey 😂
My Coffee spilled in my soda
Good list but no Champions of Midgard, Raiders of the North Sea, Agricola, Lords of Waterdeep, Atlantis Rising.
Yeah😕
My favorite WP game is still Tzolkin. Glad that it at least got a nod in the intro, even though it didn't make any of the lists.
Was glad to see Endless winter in there. It is my favorite worker placement game.
I love Targi so much!
The OG three!! 🎉🎉🎉 love all the DT staff, just something special about these three!
Pretty sure the OG three are Tom, Zee and Sam...
I think in this instance OG means old guy. (As an old guy myself, it is okay for me to say this. 😉).
So glad Mike DiLisio mentioned Outlive. I need to play this again.
That's a one of the best TOP10. I want to play in 90% of mentioned titles. Adding to TODO list :)
Good old Village. It's beautiful.
My list would include argent the consortium, Lorenzo il magnifico, hallertau and pillars of the earth
Thanks for the Argent shoutout!
you guys are the best. Wish I could play games with you all or at least spend the day with you.
Waiting for Men Nefer to enter this list because it's brilliant.
Some more that i love not listed: Agricola, After the Empire, Caylus, LoWD, Little Town
Should be renamed Top 10 Non Uwe Rosenberg Worker Placement games
Federation is excellent! And so is this video 😊
Another unique one that could have been mentioned that is often forgotten is Spyium. I also thought about Coal Baron the great card game and it's use of having to increase the value of workers when following other workers at a placement location.
Mine:
1. Dune Imperium
2. Paladins of the West Kingdom (though that’s barely a worker placement game with the lack of a shared board other the than the King’s Favour cards)
3. Beyond the Sun
4. Champions of Midgard
5. Raiders of the North Sea
6. Lords of Waterdeep
7. Whistle Mountain
8. Lost Ruins of Arnak
9. Architects of the West Kingdom
10. Caylus 1303
I am baffled by zero mention of Darwin's Journey.
I was about to comment that
A couple of these are also in my top 10, but I'm genuinely surprised that no one had Anachrony on their list.
57:05 i need the endless bread viticulture expansion
Bullets would certainly be safer than cartridges. Oh and my number one worker placement is currently The Manhattan Project.
It's the extensions that make Endless Winter too plentiful where you can get everything. The base game is much tighter and more satisfying for me.
Workerplacement combine with bidding works fine. Resurgence (like Nova Roma from Stan Kordonsky) or Dungeon Pets are nice examples. Also when Tom was mentioning that Istanbul is Workermovement, why he didnt blame Mike for Outlive.
Am I the only one who doesn’t get how endless winter gets compared to arnak and dune imp as far as release time. Isn’t endless winter 2 years later? Is it just the fact that it was on kickstarter during that same time?
I don't know what my top 10 would be, but I know my number one for sure would-be Darwin's Journey. I am shocked this didn't make anyone's list (may have made Chris's list if he were to make one) or really get mentioned in the comments. I mean the game is almost in the top 100 of all games ever on BGG (I feel it is only a matter of time before it cracks into the top 100)!
That aside, this was a fun video, and I enjoyed the ribbing at Tom's expense.
My Top 10 Worker Placement Games are:
Architects of the West Kingdom (w/ both expansions and at least 4 players)
Kanban: Driver's Edition (I've not played EV)
Lorenzo il Magnifico
Lost Ruins of Arnak
Orléans
Paladins of the West Kingdom
Rajas of the Ganges
Scholars of the South Tigris
Wayfarers of the South Tigris
The White Castle
...and yes I'm more obsessed with Garphill games than Mike
My top 5 Worker placement games (a genre I am certainly not well versed in) would probably be:
5. Dinosaur Island
4. Apiary
3.Dune imperium
2. Hadrian’s wall (if that counts?)
1. Paladins of the west kingdom
Favorite game with worker placement in it is actually ark nova, but it doesn’t feel much like worker placement.
I want Atlas Lost so badly. I couldn’t afford it at the time of its campaign and now it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find.
With Chris Yi, they are the best 4 of Dice Tower 😁
Blue, red and green !
Anomaly/Paradox detected! I don't see anachrony on this list ;) (my #1 favorite worker placement game)
Neat list gentlemen. Thanks! But Zee, c'mon, is Santiago actually worker placement? Really great game, but it's a rondel you move your car around (and around...). Not worker placement. But it's big brother Cuba, now that's worker placement. Also, a few honourable mentions for me would be Anachrony, A Feast for Odin, Anno 1800, Caylus 1303, Fields of Arle, and Raiders of Scythia.
Shout out to Dungeon Petz, where players use their workers in a blind auction to determine turn order before sending them out to various locations.
again .. another great intro tune.. fantastic
I always felt that Istanbul was more resource management, than worker placement.
It's definitely a weird edge case. You are dropping off a limited number of people at different locations to take actions, which is basically the definition of a worker placement game, but with the limitation that you have to be in the location to drop off the worker.
Speaking of top Uwe games, can you do a top 10 “feed your people” games? Some people really dislike this mechanism but it makes for high tension. Is there even that many games with feed your people?
17:03 This movie kinda sorta already exists. It's called "Dead & Buried".
If Quadrapolis is a worker placement game then so is Monopoly.
Nova Roma at #2, an excellent pick from Zee! Go Stan Kordonskiy!
It's been too long since I've played Last Will
Not mentioned...Raiders of the North Sea and Lords of Waterdeep would be in my top 10 for sure... surprised that Everdell or Underwater Cities didn't make the cut either.
Wow, no Pursuit of Happiness?
Me too they are the only ones I always see🎉
Unconscious Mind is GREAT, but it's too new for Top 10 IMO
I have 6 games out of Mike’s list, I think I followed Dice Tower a bit too closely
I am really enjoying Rock Hard, 1977. It is a super clean thematic worker placement.
No Raiders of the North Sea is wild
I know it’s old but I still love dungeon petz
Agricola should be on every top10 worker placement list. :(
Worker placement game I'm enjoying most right now is White castle.
32:10 I strongly disagree. Kickstarter was a nice idea at the beginning, to help small companies or even individuals to go out and publish something. Now it's just a tool for big companies to move the whole responsibility and risk to customers. I have only(?) ~100 games at home but I'm actively blocking any Kickstarter/Gamefound/crowdsourcing things as for me it's an abomination of the market. I tend to claim that "a good game will be available in shops", to buy and have it on my table withing few days, not years. "If it's not on the shop shelf, it doesn't exist" (for me). Also, majority of KS games have one digit too many in price for me. For one KS game I have 3..6 other good games available in the market right away. I'm in minority probably but that's my decision. Cheers!
It is definitely too easy to get everything done in Endless Winter. I haven't played with the variant rules because the group hasn't really be interested in playing since the first 2 games we played just felt too easy. Will hopefully get a chance to try the new rules but with so many other great games I'm not sure it'll happen. In comparison, we love Dune: Imperium and find it much more interesting. Haven't played Uprising since I wasn't too happy about having bought all the original stuff (game + expansions) and 6 months later having it be superseded by D:I 1.5 (Uprising).
It took me way too long to realize you were using stand up mics.
Mike is very much cult of the new
Forges of Ravenshire? Crisis? Starship Captains?
I know it's knocking on a bit now, but I was surprised that Lords Of Waterdeep didn't make anyone's list here. Think it would of done on a people's choice top 10.
Once I saw the topic of this Top 10 I thought to myself 3 games that really utilize workers in uniques ways. Only 2 of them were mentioned: Endless Winter and Unconscious Mind. The last one that was SADLY NOT mentioned actually not only REVOLVES around worker placement but also allows you to educate each individual worker to become asymmetrical within the game making each uniquely more powerful! That game is Darwin’s Journey! An AMAZING game! Very disappointed for sure!
Love the Queen Games? intro. Plague Inc. is a great w.p. game, that no one talks about. (It does have cards like Diarrhea :-\
To be like Mike, I want to be like MIKE!
top ten hats Tom owns.. haha
how about top ten hats ( caps) Zee owns ?
does Zee own 10 caps ? :)
Wow those animations DO get old quickly Mike (55:21).
Where at in Indiana Mike? I'm in Fort Wayne
Got our shoutout! 😁 And how cool that it’s on this video - one of my husband’s and my favorite mechanisms!
oh wow this will be one for the books!
Endless Bread: Italian-Americans
No "dice as workers" games? :(
Fallout shelter!!! ✨
Manilla
Biohack!
Planet Unknown
?
I swear... if anyone puts Viticulture in this list!!!
I sometimes wonder why some games are rated as high as they are, and then I see videos with Zee's recommendations..... No problem, we all have our own tastes in games, even if they are wrong. lol. This is meant as a playful statement, not hate.
Editing...