Review #25: Caverna: The Cave Farmers

# of Players: 1-7
Playtime: 2-3 Hours

Core Mechanic: Worker Placement

Theme: Dwarves
Type: Euro

Weight: Heavy

Year: 2013

Rating: 9*

This was easily my most anticipated release of 2013.  Somehow I had not heard much about it until it was about to come out, but I was first in line at my FLGS to pick up a copy.  And when I picked it up, I was shocked at how heavy it was - it was likely the densest board game box I had ever picked up.  This only added to the hype and I could not wait to play it.  I mean, I had loved every Uwe Rosenberg game I played so far, right?

Caverna can be best described as Agricola 2.0. The game is played over twelve rounds where you will be using workers to take actions using the same worker placement mechanic. Instead of being themed to farming, your workers are now dwarves who, in addition to doing farming are also exploring caves, mining, and going on expeditions. Similar to Agricola, there will be harvest events that pop up requiring you to feed your dwarves and allow you to harvest your crops and breed your animals. On the other hand, instead of occupations and improvements, you are now able to furnish your cave with special tiles that give you different abilities. There are also some new spacial elements included with regards to clearing forests (similar to the Farmers of the Moor expansion to Agricola) and expanding your cave system in addition to some modifications to pastures and fields.

A big portion of this game is sending your dwarves out on expeditions to gain experience and allow them to collect better resources on subsequent expeditions. A key thing to remember is that you must use your dwarves in order from weakest to strongest, although you can pay a ruby to play one out of order. Rubies are the wild card of Caverna. At the bottom of your player board is a guide to the different items you may trade for using rubies and other goods. This gives you much greater flexibility to meet the demands of harvest. Harvest has also changed as there is some variability as to when harvest may occur or if it will only be a partial harvest. At the end of the game you will get victory points for your animals, furnishing tiles, pastures, vegetables and grain, rubies and gold, dwarves, and mines. You will lose victory points for missing animals and unused spaces on your board.

In the end, Caverna feels like Agricola but with a lot more options and a lot less stress. Although this makes for a more “fun” and relaxing game compared to Agricola, I think that it takes away from the experience that I really enjoyed in Agricola. So when I compare the two, my preference is Agricola even though in general it seems that Caverna is more popular. I also prefer the occupation and minor improvement variability that Agricola offers, which helps to focus your attention on a particular strategy. By comparison, all of Caverna’s furnishing tiles are available from the start, which makes it a bit overwhelming because you either have to study them all ahead of time to figure out which combination might work best for you and slow down the early game significantly or jump right into the game and realize partway that you missed some tiles that could have helped you.

I still like Caverna, but because it feels like Agricola repackaged, I can see it falling down the ranks as other, more interesting and different games get released. That means for now I can't really recommend that Caverna belong in any collection from my perspective except for the Collector collection, which was designed to allow for some duplication. However, because the games are so close, Caverna could always be a replacement for Agricola. My advice would be to look at both games and try them out if you can before purchasing one. Many prefer Caverna for the expeditions and wealth of choices while others prefer the tight games of Agricola and endless occupation and minor improvement combinations. Anyone looking for a heavy worker placement can't go wrong with either!