Caverna: The Cave Farmers (2013)
(2013)A complex worker placement strategy game where players lead dwarf families, managing resources, farming, and expanding their caves. It's a complete redesign of Agricola that substitutes card decks with buildings and adds the ability to purchase weapons and send farmers on quests for additional resources.
The Verdict
based on 24 reviews
Caverna is awarded the Best Board Game of the Year 2013! Game Of The Year: Caverna: The Cave Farmer.
Board Game Quest recognized Caverna: The Cave Farmers as the Best Strategy/Euro Game of 2013, praising it as a robust spiritual successor to Agricola that addresses many common criticisms, offering a rich experience with abundant components and a fresh feel.
The reviewer highly praises Caverna for its immersive dwarven mining and cave-building theme, finding it more appealing than Agricola and highlighting its interesting gameplay elements.
Tom Vasel considers Caverna one of the best games he has ever played, praising its numerous options, lower stress level compared to Agricola, and high-quality components, ultimately stating it replaces Agricola in his collection.
The reviewer enthusiastically praises Caverna as a smart, tactile, and joyful experience, considering it a significant upgrade to Agricola with extensive choices and a satisfying sense of building a unique dwelling, despite its learning curve and high price point.
The reviewer suggests that Caverna remains a highly enjoyable and relevant board game, indicating its enduring quality and value for players even years after its initial release.
The reviewer describes Caverna as a fun worker placement game offering a smorgasbord of opportunities with many actions available, noting its flexibility for 1-7 players, though it plays tighter with two and might have downtime with seven.
The reviewer highly enjoys Caverna, praising its well-done mechanics and great replay value, noting it as a stronger game in terms of pure mechanics compared to Agricola.
Rahdo highly praises Caverna, noting its improvements over Agricola with smoother mechanics, more elegant gameplay, and engaging changes like the tile-based special powers and simplified rules.
Caverna is the better game, because you can do everything while still providing a very tense gaming experience.
The reviewer highly recommends Caverna, praising it as an excellent game that is easier to digest than Agricola, and appreciates its more positive reinforcement mechanics. They initially replaced Agricola with Caverna in their collection.
Over and under, I really like Caverna. I think it is one of the classic games, and a great example of well executed worker placement.
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