Caverna: The Cave Farmers is a spiritual sucessor to Uwe Rosenberg’s smash hit, Agricola. You can tick off the telltale signs: it’s published by Lookout Spiele. The artworks’s also by Klemens Franz. And there’s wooden animeeples galore! You get a whole lot of goodies in Caverna. This box is a big’un! The game plays in a similar way to Agricola, but more than stands its own. Caverna is a worker placement, resource management game, themed around a farming simulation. You start with a near-empty player board, and over twelve rounds you’ll aim to fill it with… everything! You’ll also need to feed your family at regular harvest intervals. Have you grown enough food? Depending on player count – Caverna plays solo, or up to seven – there’s a bunch of starter worker placement spots. These have an resource accumulation mechanism at the start of each round. They’ll soon become too tempting to ignore! And you’ll want all the resources to achieve all your targets. At the start of each round, an extra location gets added, so your options increase. One of the cool extra additions Caverna offers is that dwarves can go off on adventures! What loot will they find on their travels? They even ‘level up’ after a quest. So, next time they go off adventuring, they’ll have access to even more powerful free resources. Your board has two halves. You deforest one part to become a farm (like Agricola’s), and the other half is a cave, which you can explore. On your farm you can grow wheat and vegetables, or practise animal husbandry in pastures. You can dig tunnels into your cave, and build ore and ruby mines. You can also furnish your cave network with rooms! These can offer extra points at the end of the game. All the 48 furnishings are available from the start. This gives you an almost-sandbox vibe. There’s so many different ways to play! Player Count: 1-7 PlayersTime: 30-210 minutes
