Caverna, The Cave Farmers: Hi-Ho Hi-Ho It's Off to Farm We Go

Uwe Rosenberg is a game designer.  And my homeboy.  In our gaming group, he is probably our favorite game designer.  Every game he makes is gold.  I've mentioned his game Agricola in a previous post, which is basically a board game about farming.

Today's game, another one from my buddy Uwe, is the recently released big brother to Agricola, Caverna: The Cave Farmers.  It is also about farming.  But by dwarf farmers.  Next to a cave.  A cave where you live and also mine shiny things and also make dwarf babies.
And like his other games, Caverna is also gold.  Dwarf gold...

I like to say it "Caverrrrrrrrna" where I roll the "r" all predator-cat-like. It sounds sexy that way.

Speaking of sexy, hello game box...

That donkey wants that soup.  So bad.  You can see it in his eyes.

Actually, the box art is just a giant domestic cave stereotype.  I mean, the cave-wife is cooped up in the cave cooking dinner soup and caring for crazy uncle donkey while cave-husband is probably out drinking cave-mead with his cave-buddies.  Or taking a secret nap out back in his cave-hammock.  Typical cave-man...

But aside from the art, the box is awesome, because inside is SO MUCH STUFF!!!

THERE'S CARDBOARD AND WOOD STUFF ALL OVER THE TABLE AND I LOVE IT!

Isn't Jake's new gaming tabletop nice?  Nice felted surface.  Beautiful chocolate color.  And enough space to fit this monstrous game.

There was a lot of punching.  It was the best of times.

The punch-out session aftermath.

I've said before that punching out cardboard bits is the greatest part of a new game.  And this was so much better than normal.  I've never seen so much cardboard in one box before!  The leftovers above show this pretty clearly.  I'm sure we made the people at the recycling center very happy.

I would've been happier if I got to punch all of it myself.  But Jake came in and stole half of them from me.  He likes punching cardboard bits too.  It's not just me.  I'm not that weird.
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell.  Me and Rob Thomas.

So the concept of Caverna is that you have a family of dwarves, who are farmers/miners.  You have your little homestead area, which starts out pretty bleak.

Personal player board at the start of the game.  It's sad.

Throughout the game, you place your dwarves on the board to take various actions that let you develop your homestead.  You can plow and plant fields to grow grain and vegetables.  You can build pastures and get animals.  You can dig tunnels and caverns.  You can build ore mines and ruby mines.  You can build new rooms for your house.  And you can make new dwarf babies to put to work.

These dwarves are very busy cave folk.

In his free time, Gimli mines salt and raises pigs.

But like Gimli, your dwarves, too, have a thirst for adventure.  Once you craft them a weapon, they can go out on expeditions and come back with various stuff.  Like some rocks, or some wood, or some gold.  Or a puppy.

I can just imagine what that conversation is like...

Dwarf-man (thick Scottish accent, if you wish): "What a rough expedition that was!"
Dwarf-wife: "What is that?!"
Dwarf-man: "Why, it's a wee pup I imagine."
Dwarf-wife: "I sent you out for milk and eggs!  And you come back with that puppy?!  It's almost feeding time and we can't eat a dog!"
Dwarf-man: "Now just you wait a minute.  Firstly, there are no chickens in this game, so where's a dwarf supposed to find eggs, eh?  Donkeys don't lay 'em.  But more importantly, I go on the expeditions, I come back with whatever I please."
Dwarf-wife: "And where are we supposed to put the little mongrel?"
Dwarf-man: "I'll dig 'im a new cavern."
Dwarf-wife: "With your bad back?"
Dwarf-man: "Fine, we'll stick him out back.  He can watch over the sheep.  That'll let us keep a few more of 'em with his keen eye watchin'.  It'll be great for the farm."
Dwarf-wife: "I suppose..."
Dwarf-man: "You won't regret it.  Look, I also brought you back this shiny ruby I mined this mornin'."
Dwarf-wife: "Rubys are a girl's best friend..."
Dwarf-man: "I knew you would like it."
Dwarf-wife: "I'm pregnant."

That right there pretty much sums up most of the game.

Oh, and throughout the game you have to make sure you can feed your dwarf family.  More dwarves require more food, but they let you do more things during a round.  You get food from what you grow in your garden or by slaughtering animals.  Or eating rubies, apparently.  Dwarves have tough teeth, apparently.

Feeding the dwarf family holds you back from doing everything you want.  It keeps the pressure on you to be as efficient as possible with your dwarf actions, so you have to try to cultivate and build as much as possible without having to sacrifice it all just to feed your always hungry dwarf kids.  Bottomless stomachs and hollow legs, I tell ya.

Here's the full game setup at the beginning.  It takes up basically the whole table.  

My initial strategy was to be a puppy farmer.  Just have tons and tons of puppies running around.  But apparently the dogs have all been neutered. So it's very hard to get a horde of puppies when they can't reproduce.  Also, you can't use dogs to feed your family like other animals.  The puppy farmer strategy had too many flaws.  I had to take a more conventional, diversified approach with less puppies.

About halfway through the game I don't have much going for me.  I expanded my house by a room and dug a few tunnels, but no mines yet.

I also had a bit of grain and a small flock of sheep being watched by the puppy.  The puppy's name is Mr. Sniffles.
 

Mr. Sniffles guards the sheep and the entrance to the sadly unfurnished cave house.

I ramped up a bit in productivity towards the end.  I had myself 5 dwarves out working hard.

Out in the farm I had some veggies, some grain, some donkeys, the same size flock of sheep as earlier (they would reproduce, then I'd kill one to eat, then they'd reproduce, then I'd kill one to eat...), a piggy (I killed a lot of them.  I like bacon), and Mr. Sniffles.
Inside, I had four bedrooms, an ore mine and ruby mine, a couple of donkeys slaving away in those mines, a quiet writing chamber, a weapon storage room, and a small stash of gold and rubies. 

Looks pretty nice.

Here's the final full gameboard at game's end:

I won't tell you who won.  Winning and losing doesn't matter.  It's about having fun.  I mean, I'm very happy with how my farm-cave turned out.  It looks nice.  This is a game of aesthetics, not points.  That's what I say. 
That's what people say when they don't have the most points.

I probably should have taken more close-up pictures of all the components in this game.  They are fantastic, really, they are.  But I was too busy taking pictures of salad.  I'm easily distracted.  And salad is a decent in-game snack, it turns out.

Salad in a pasta bowl ?! Such artistic vision!

Anyway, Caverna is a fantastic game. There's a lot to do towards getting to an awesome looking farm-cave and barely enough turns to do it, which makes every move count.  You have lots of choices in how you want to develop your farm, which keeps things interesting from game to game.  It's just fun.

And like I said, win or lose, you end up with a sweet looking player board at the end of the game.  Unless you are terrible at this game.  But then you can just admire everyone else's game board. 

On a scale of 0 to 5, Caverna, I give you 5/5 rubies!  You have my approval.