200+ Area Control and Worker Placement Mechanics!

IMG_3027 It's my birthday, so I thought it would be nice to do something special and crowdsource a big list of mechanisms! These apply to either area control games or worker placement games as triggers for special actions. Peruse this list next time you need some inspiration for your game design. The bulk of this list came from my twitter followers, which you can find on this thread. Thanks, tweeps!

If you ___ [this space/area/territory], do [action].

  1. enter
  2. enter from the north into
  3. enter from the south into
  4. enter from the east into
  5. enter from the west into
  6. leave
  7. leave empty
  8. go north from
  9. go south from
  10. go east from
  11. go west from
  12. complete
  13. start the turn in
  14. end the turn in
  15. start the round in
  16. end the turn in
  17. start the phase in
  18. start the phase in
  19. start the game in
  20. end the game in
  21. destroy
  22. destroy an area adjacent to
  23. have simple friendly majority present in
  24. have simple unfriendly majority present in
  25. have more present than all other players combined in
  26. have least presence
  27. have no presence
  28. have an even presence
  29. have an odd presence
  30. enclose
  31. complete an enclosure around
  32. become adjacent to
  33. buy from
  34. buy from an area adjacent to
  35. sell
  36. sell to
  37. sell from an area adjacent to
  38. build on
  39. built on an area adjacent to
  40. create
  41. are pushed out of
  42. farm on
  43. harvest from
  44. are part of a group on
  45. are the only one on (meaning your one pawn is the only one present)
  46. are the only ones on (meaning there are multiple pawns, but only yours)
  47. fence
  48. completely fence off
  49. connect
  50. join the longest connection to

You can quadruple this list by adding the following conditional modifiers
  • are first to...
  • are last to...
  • most recently...
And with that, you have 200+ different area control or worker placement mechanisms! By no means comprehensive, but maybe they can shake loose your designer's block some day.

Got any more mechanics to add to the list? Share them in the comments!

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