When comparing Caverna: The Cave Farmers vs Vinhos: Deluxe Edition, the Slant community recommends Vinhos: Deluxe Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” Vinhos: Deluxe Edition is ranked 33rd while Caverna: The Cave Farmers is ranked 58th. The most important reason people chose Vinhos: Deluxe Edition is:
Since the game plays out over the course of only 6 years with players receiving only 2 actions per year, actions are very limited over-all. This gives additional weight and meaning to every decision in the game as players try to optimize their estates and balance short-term rewards with long-term goals.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very deep strategic opportunities
With all of the available action spaces and 48 unique rooms you can build in your cave, the many options for developing your strategy and trying to score points allows for a wide variety of effective strategies and encourge long term strategic planning.
Pro Basic gameplay is simple at it's core
On a players turn they take one of their dwarves and place it on an available action space to take that action, then play moves to the next player in turn order. This makes the main gameplay very simple to explain.
Pro Fantastic components
From the thick player boards and cave tiles to the over 300 chunky, wooden resources, all of Caverna's resources are top-notch.
Pro The limited number of turns lead to very tense and engaging gameplay
Since the game plays out over the course of only 6 years with players receiving only 2 actions per year, actions are very limited over-all. This gives additional weight and meaning to every decision in the game as players try to optimize their estates and balance short-term rewards with long-term goals.
Pro Incredible component quality
For the deluxe edition of this game Eagle-Griffon games hired famous boardgame artist Ian O'Toole to do all new art for both the box and the player boards, resulting in one of the most beautiful games of 2016. They also went above and beyond with the physical components, opting for thick, high-quality cardboard for most of the pieces and chunky wooden bits for everything else.
Pro Two games in one
In addition to the original 2010 edition of the game, the deluxe edition features a new, streamlined and updated, set of rules that help make the game much more accessible to players who are new to heavy euro-style games.
Cons
Con Too many actions can cause players to have analysis paralysis
Caverna features a large central board that can contain up to 27 spots to place your dwarves and take an action and with so many choices available some players might end up taking a long time to decide between them.
Con Higher player counts can lead to long games
The official play time is listed as 30 min / player, but can run even longer if you play with 5 or more players.
Con A bunch of components make the game a bit fiddly
With over 300+ wooden resources, 60+ acrylic nuggers, and 400+ cardboard pieces Caverna has a lot of pieces to manage as you play the game and as a result it can be a troublesome to manage all of those over the course of a game.
Con High cost might be a problem for some
Although justified by the impressive quality of the components and the game itself, it is still a relatively expensive game and may not fit in everyone's budget.
Con Not well suited for new board gamers
Vinhos is a very heavy euro-style boardgame and as such has many complicated and interacting parts that might be too much for a new boardgamer to handle. Since there is almost no randomness in the game, the winner is usually the player who played best or knows the game best, which means that a single mistake can make it very hard to win.