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.

 

New Games on the Block

Despite what your parents told you, new board games do not come from the stork.  That would be ridiculous.  Board games and babies couldn't possibly come from the same place.

No, the answer is not so simple.  The process of picking out, buying and prepping a new board game for play is more complex than that.  Here's how it works.

Step 1: The Board Game Itch

You haven't bought a new game in a while.  You are a collector, always looking to add to your collection.  And there's that empty space on your shelf.  And that paycheck is burning a hole in your pocket.  And you start to develop a little twitch.  And then...and then...!!!!  And then your self control is gone!

 

This is the board game itch. It's like having an army of spiders crawling along your back.  Spiders made of poison ivy.  Poison ivy spiders that eat your money.  But you love them.
And it was meant to be scratched.  Just like a cookie was meant to be nommed.

When it strikes, you need to find a new game to buy.  The place to start looking is boardgamegeek.com.  If you've read my other posts, you'll see several links to this site already, and there will be more to come.  Look at their game list where you can find pretty much every game ever made listed in order of user ratings. The top 100 are a good place to start looking for a new game.  Unless you are like me and have a gaming group that already owns most of those.  But the site is huge, and you can spend hours searching through the game list and forums to find just the right one.

For my latest search, I looked at games by designer.  Our group has been playing a lot of Stefan Feld games lately and enjoying them very much.  I stumbled upon one game that looked intriguing.

Luna:  A game with a moon on the box.

The box was pretty.  I won't go into game details here.  I just wanted to show you the box with the white haired witchy woman with the glowy stick.

So the game looked interesting, the box looked interesting, and the game designer is known for putting out some gems.
But it also appeared to be out of print in the US.

This happens a lot.  Designer board games are only printed in limited quantities.  Sometimes they get reprinted after the first sellout.  Sometimes they don't.  And it's terrifying to think that you will never own a great game because it is not available anywhere.
But sometimes you get lucky and can find that one, single online store that has a couple copies left in stock and is not selling them for ridiculously inflated prices.  So you buy it...

Step 2: Buy another one

Because you are already paying for shipping.  Duh.

I bought this one too, another Feld game that was just published last year.

I like boxes with puppies on the cover.

Step 3:  Wait

Wait for it...

Step 4: Ask and you shall receive

I ordered these games from an online store called Game Surplus.  The information section on their website has this amusing little tidbit:

"we further minimize our shipping costs down by reusing boxes and shipping materials (in clean, good condition ) whenever possible. So, don't be surprised if a box of 'Pop Tarts' shows up at your door."

I got super excited about the pop tarts.  Or something better.
I was actually a little disappointed with the box I got.

Sorry to say it, but this box is boring.

 It's not a bad box.  It is in one piece, made of sturdy cardboard, holds things well, does everything a good little box should do.  Sadly, though, it isn't pop tarts or gopher repellent.
There is some interesting graffiti inside though...

 

 What strange markings...

And inside there were board games and some appreciation!  So I was very happy.

YOU'RE WELCOME!

Needless to say this place is awesome and I will probably order from them again in the future.

Step 5: Punch and Package

In my opinion, the best part of a new game isn't that fresh new cardboard smell.  It's the piece punching.  It's just so much fun! Look...

Pre-punching:

Mid-punch:

Post-punching:

Awww...why's the fun gone?

Wasn't that exciting?!  The answer is yes.  It's the best.
And then you wish you had more games so you could punch more.

And now with all those tasty little cardboard bits, you have to put them somewhere.  It's great when the games come with their own little baggies.

A cacophony of wood and plastic.

Of course, you can trick out your game further with nicer storage options.  And putting card protector sleeves on all cards is a must.  Hey, you just spent $50 on a game.  Protect your investment!

Put the cardies in the sleevies.  And the bits in the boat.

Step 6:  It's Playtime!

Everything is set.  Grab some friends and play!