[Homemade game board detecting different player pieces]

There are specific places the pieces are placed. Are you suggesting placing the tags in/on the pieces and have the reader in the board? If the pieces were placed within close proximity with each other would that affect it or not as they'd all be coded slightly differently?

[Homemade game board detecting different player pieces]

I am creating an electronic game board for PowerGrid and I want the board to detect which player the piece is related to. i.e. when a player places a piece on the board it adds a plus 1 to their count of cities powered. I was going to use a simple LDR to detect when a piece was placed but need the pieces to be player specific. 

I was wondering if this was possible with some kind of simple switch system? I am happy to make changes to the wooden playing pieces but bear in mind the playing pieces are approx 1x1x1.5cm (LxWxH).

Open to any ideas!