Description
Caverna: The Cave Farmers is a worker-placement game at heart, with a focus on farming.
In the game, you are the bearded leader of a small dwarf family that lives in a little cave in the mountains.
You begin the game with a farmer and his spouse, and each member of the farming family represents an action that the player can take each turn.
Together, you cultivate the forest in front of your cave and dig deeper into the mountain.
You furnish the caves as dwellings for your offspring as well as working spaces for small enterprises.
It’s up to you how much ore you want to mine.
You will need it to forge weapons that allow you to go on expeditions to gain bonus items and actions.
While digging through the mountain, you may come across water sources and find ore and ruby mines that help you increase your wealth.
Right in front of your cave, you can increase your wealth even further with agriculture: You can cut down the forest to sow fields and fence in pastures to hold your animals.
You can also expand your family while running your ever-growing farm. In the end, the player with the most efficiently developed home board wins.
You can also play the solo variant of this game to familiarize yourself with the 48 different furnishing tiles for your cave.
Caverna: The Cave Farmers, which has a playing time of roughly 30 minutes per player, is a complete redesign of Agricola that substitutes the card decks from the former game with a set of buildings while adding the ability to purchase weapons and send your farmers on quests to gain further resources.
Designer Uwe Rosenberg says that the game includes parts of Agricola, but also has new ideas, especially the cave part of your game board, where you can build mines and search for rubies.
The game also includes two new animals: dogs and donkeys.
Caverna Solo Playthrough video
Dice Tower Reviews: Caverna: The Cave Farmers
How to Play Caverna – No BS Guide
Player feedback
The forums at BoardGameGeek often have good discussions about gameplay.
We have selected some of the best links below. (Links will open in a new window or tab)
Solo ideas and discussions
A selection of posts specifically about solo gameplay or solo variants
- Eric’s Rules for Dummy Players for Caverna on a 3 Player Board – Solo Variability
- Generations – Solo series variant with more replay ability
- Adding randomness to the solo game
- Solo variant with blocking
Files
A selection of files from BoardGameGeek. Links will open in a new window or tab.
Caverna English Rules
Official 24 pages rulebook for Caverna.
>> Click to download ZIP <<
Caverna English Appendix
The updated English appendix for Caverna.
>> Click to download PDF <<
Player Aid for introducing new players to the game
In playing Caverna I realized there are some really basic things that I was constantly explaining to new players. Tired of saying “dogs don’t breed” I came up with this. Hope some find it helpful. Any mistakes, and I am sure there are some, let me know.
>> Click to download PDF <<
Caverna Unofficial Manual Rewrite
- Added references to large pastures with two stables (16 animals) and putting dogs on a pasture.
- Increased JPG resolution to 144 for better legibility.
- Formatting and sidebar note changes from Raujour’s feedback.
>> Click to download PDF <<
Caverna missed rules and FAQ unofficial
>> Click to download PDF <<