I’ve pretty much listed my Rosenberg Hotlist here.
He’s my second most owned designer after Knizia. It has to do with both of them being so prolific of course.
I do not feel like any of the worker placement games I have played are interactive much. Caveat: see “I have played”. And most of them I have barely played multiplayer because they are excellent solos.
Worker placement:
- Nusfjord is like comfort food.
- I like AffO less than Nusfjord, there is a bit too much going on. I only played with Norwegians once and never multiplayer. I think the game is far better with the expansion. What is great about AffO is the variety of stuff to do. What is bad is that sometimes you flounder aimlessly because there is too much to do. I like the combination of spatial element and worker placement. I am sad that breeding does not feel like a strategy I can pull off…
- Arle. It’s been too long really. At the time I felt it was the better Agricola however… it’s been more than a decade for both of them. I have yet to play with the expansion (but I have it of course)
- Hallertau–I wish I had more fun with that one. I like the action selection and the decks a lot. But the pressure to upgrade your house was … weird. It wasn’t as tough as Agricola felt originally (I doubt it would give me the same amount of trouble these days). And the only thing multiplying by Uwe-breeding was a few sheep. Overall… this should have been better. Having bought a folded space insert in my initial enthusiasm feels like I am committed to keeping it.
- I wish I had Glass Road. I only once played half a game at SPIEL–maybe Oranienburger Kanal can stand in for some of its elements.
- I wish I had understood what makes Le Havre tick from the app. I didn’t and don’t know anyone that owns it.
- I think not having played Caverna is something that needs fixing–when I have the brainspace for it
- I like 2-player Agricola. Gave a copy to my sister many many years ago. Played it there a couple of times.
- Oranienburger Kanal is a great game that is too new to have gotten the appreciation it deserves. Also the small initial Spielworxx printrun hasn’t helped. There are some typical Uwe spatial elements combined with tight worker placement and his beloved variable decks of cards… and NONE of the fiddlyness of some of the other games. The resource wheel is very good, it might be similar to Glassroad for all I remember?
Arle and Oranienburger Kanal show Uwe’s true colors with his worker placement. Those are first solo-games and then maybe maybe 2 player. But why would you want that? Worker placement is tight without anyone else to interfere. Sometimes I think Uwe is to blame for all the multiplayer solitaire but the trend started well before he made Agricola. (Princes of Florence anyone?)
For some obscure reason Patchwork is not the game I think of first with the polyominoes games. It’s Cottage Garden and its siblings. I prefer those a lot. All kinds of tile placement goodness…
Sagani is a totally different puzzly style of tile laying. I know there are others of his in that genre (Nova Luna?) But I haven’t played any.
The only Uwe game I have played that is not “best at 1” is Bohnanza. And for me it’s a legendary game. It carries memories and I still like to get it out every once in a while. I think I prefer the original art to any newish releases however much I adore Beth Sobel’s art. I also think the 2 player mode is a very good negotiation game in its own right.
As an aside because @pillbox mentioned Stefan Feld in the same sentence… they got big around the same time. And I knew some people who were very excited about “the new Feld” every SPIEL and for a while I checked them out as well. But except for Castles of Burgundy I never got along with any of the ones I tried. Coming from Uwe games this may be a weird statement but I found Feld games “too dry” .