When comparing Caverna: The Cave Farmers vs A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition), the Slant community recommends A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) is ranked 11th while Caverna: The Cave Farmers is ranked 58th. The most important reason people chose A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) is:
Like Risk, but with more planned strategy in stead of luck by throwing dice. Tactics are planned out ahead of time (instead of turn by turn in Risk) and then they are laid out turn by turn depending on placement.
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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 Excellent game design
Like Risk, but with more planned strategy in stead of luck by throwing dice. Tactics are planned out ahead of time (instead of turn by turn in Risk) and then they are laid out turn by turn depending on placement.
Pro Nerve-racking
The game is extremely intense. Shouldn't be played on an empty stomach!
Pro Good replayability
Every time it is different, more or less players matters a lot in the gameplay which effects how the game plays each time.
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 Takes a long time to learn and play
The gameplay is very deep and interesting, but it involves a lot of mechanics and rules. You only have a certain amount of action tokens, and you can't always use the more powerful actions (you need to be a certain rank on the track), and there's a bunch of other things you need to think about constantly. There are tons of little mechanics you need to learn first before you can actually enjoy the game (and that will probably take a playthrough or 2, which is about 5 hours...especially if you're reading the rulebook).
Con Flares can be fustrating
As one of your action tokens, you can use a flare, which interrupts another action token of an opposing player. While useful, they do nothing besides slow down the game (for example, if the Lannisters keep flaring the Greyjoy's ships then they're stuck where they are and the Greyjoys can't do anything about it, essentially rendering them useless).