When comparing Caverna: The Cave Farmers vs Chess, the Slant community recommends Chess for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” Chess is ranked 12th while Caverna: The Cave Farmers is ranked 58th. The most important reason people chose Chess is:
It's been an important mode of entertainment and education for more than a thousand years.
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 Classic
It's been an important mode of entertainment and education for more than a thousand years.
Pro Improves decision making ability
Pro Boosts memory
You are constantly forced to come up with new offensive strategies or defencive strategies, based on what your opponent is doing. Since there are practically infinite ways to play any situation, you will have to think several moves ahead and remember various possible scenarios that might play out in any possible strategy.
Pro Chess can be an enjoyable obsession
Pro Widely available
And if you can't find a chess board, pieces, and even another player, you can make your own.
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.