When it looks like an Uwe Rosenberg game and acts like an Uwe Rosenberg game then it must be an Uwe Rosenberg game.. right?? Unless the game is by Claudia & Ralf Partenheimer and is called Lowlands published by Feuerland Spiele (an Uwe Rosenberg company).
This game is considered part of the Uwe Rosenberg collection. On the front page of the manual it states “This seal signifies that Uwe Rosenberg recommends this game for fans of his work. Uwe Rosenberg himself studied this game and contributed during the development phase.”
BGG Description
The low land is a rough area where hard-working folk make a living by the sweat of their brow. Under constant threat of storm and flood, communities here rally together to build dikes that keep the rising water at bay. But every citizen constructing a dike is one fewer citizen tending flocks and maintaining the family farm. The residents here are constantly torn between selflessness and self-interest, and only those who can strike this delicate balance can thrive in this harsh landscape.
In Lowlands, you carve your farm out of this unforgiving land, gathering and spending resource cards to transform your farmyard into pastures that allow you to profit from breeding sheep. Adding expansions to your farm will unlock new options and score you victory points, but helping to build the dike that collectively protects all players is also rewarded. No matter what, the tide will rise and, if the dike isn't high enough, it could rush in and sweep away your hard-earned profits. Will you sacrifice your own farm for the good of the community, or will you pursue your own agenda? The choice is yours.
Even without the poor weather, life on a farm is one of constant work where you find yourself tending flocks of sheep, extending their pastures, and looking for the right moment to sell them for a profit. To complete all these tasks, Lowlands gives you a group of farmers that you can assign to various tasks around your farm. To get the most out of them, you must think strategically, deciding which actions you want to take and the best time to take them. Once they've been assigned, your farmers help you build a bustling farm where there was once scrubby bushes, trees, and lakes. You begin the game with only two sheep and a small pasture, but your farmyard is rife with possibilities, its many empty spaces inviting you to customize your farm as you see fit.
While you could simply focus on creating more area for your sheep to roam, the game also provides plenty of options for customizing your farm with various buildings and features. Not only are these tiles worth victory points at the end of the game, they also make your farm more efficient and more profitable. You might add a feeding trough to your farm, for example, to immediately earn another sheep and the ability to house two sheep per pasture space instead of just one. Or you could construct a lake cabin on your property to get away from it all for a bit. While this tile doesn't give you any special abilities, it increases the value in victory points of the farmyard spaces immediately adjacent to it. Ultimately, you are free to pursue whatever strategy you see fit, building a farm wholly your own.
On top of the challenges of building a successful farm, of course, you also have to deal with the tempestuous weather that comes with living on the wave-battered coast of the North Sea. Here, the tides always seem to rise a little higher, threatening to take a dent out of your profits by sweeping away some of your flock. To ensure that this doesn't happen, you always have the opportunity to send your farmers to contribute to the dike instead of working on your farm. When you do, you also commit resources to creating dike elements that are added to the board as a buffer against the rising waters. Add enough of these pieces and you might prevent disaster for everyone. The tide turns repeatedly, bringing with it new flood pieces. If there are enough dike elements in place to hold back the rising waters, players' farms are spared. If the dike breaks, however, you could be forced to take dike breach tokens that have adverse effects at the end of the game.
While lending a hand with the dike at the expense of your own farm is certainly a nice gesture that keeps everyone safe from the floodwaters, it has rewards of its own. For each resource you contribute to the dike, you advance one step up the dike track. Not only does advancing far enough on this track grant victory points, it also amplifies your reward if the dike holds and lessens the blow when it breaks. It is in your best interest, then, to keep pace with other players on the dike in order to protect your investments back home one the farm.
—description from the publisher
Weight 3.1/5
A Little More Info
The above description does a good job selling you on the game but what is the game play really like?
The game is played over three stages (rounds) which is divided up into a handful of phases. The first being the turn of the tide in which you check you hand size (limit of 8 cards) and then place three new flood cards and reveal the first one.
Next comes the work phase where you take turns placing your three farmers in the five action spots (details below). This is where you decide if you want to help build the dike or to increase your farm, or a combination of the two.
Then comes an upkeep phase. This is where you breed and house your sheep (if you have room), gain income, retrieve your farmers, reset the sheep market, change the first player (if needed), and then flip of the next flood card.
Repeat the work and upkeep phase before going to the high tide phase. The high tide phase is where you check to see if the dike holds up or breaks.
After the high tide phase you repeat everything two more times (rounds) before going to the storm surge which triggers the end of the game. This end phase is where you score your tiles with (!) symbol, recheck the dike again, then do the final scoring.
Now let’s take a quick look at the five actions spaces you can select from.
Build a Farm Expansion: If you have the right resource cards and the correct farmer value to pay for a new tile, you can expand your farm. There is an appendix that provided details for each tile. 
Contribute to the Dike: Spending your action points (the number depicted on your farmer) and discarding the correct number of the same resource you can build up the dike to help prevent the flood waters from coming in. If you have not completed the dike segment, you can ask for help from another player. In a two player game, there is an additional option for help.
Build and/or Move Fences: This is important because you need space to breed and house your sheep. By building fences from your supply, you can also unlock additional income items but you have to spend the same resource cards to build. Whereas, if you are able to just move existing fences this just uses action points. 
(this image show both the Sheep Market and Dike building resource tracks for a 4 player game)
Buy or Sell Sheep: This applies to the sheep market. You can purchase from or sell to one row in the market. Buying sheep will help you to breed them more quickly, while selling sheep will help free up space in your farmyard and provide you extra coins for end of game scoring.
Draw Resource Cards: The number of cards you draw is depicted on the number of the farmer you placed. The resource cards are used throughout the game so having an adequate supply on hand is worthwhile. Remember though that during the turn of the tide phase you can only have eight cards in hand.
Something to note is that each player has two laborers, one is active from the start and the other you can get either through progress tokens or during the income step. These laborers assist you in the five action spots.
What we like about the game
We like this game because it is a great “gateway” game into the world of Uwe Rosenberg. The game is simple enough to understand and the game play is awesome.
You will need to learn how to balance everything out correctly so that everyone can put up dike pieces to protect their farms. Sometimes though, letting the water through may benefit you more.
A key point to the game as well is that you want to be able to breed and sell your sheep. This is where you ultimately can gain the most victory points.
The speed of the game play is pretty quick. For us, there is minimal downtime since you can plan ahead your next move while others take their turn. With only three farmers to place each work phase the phase goes quickly.
What we don’t like about the game
There isn’t anything that we don’t like. As stated before, it is a great introduction to Uwe Rosenberg.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game was this year’s Mother’s Day gift for my wife because I know how much she likes Uwe’s games. I figured I could not go wrong because the sheep meeples are “cute” (her words, not mine). She does very well with worker placement games so this was a hit.
We do recommend this game for your collection if you are a fan of Uwe or if you are looking at getting into his games.
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