Caverna: The Cave Farmers rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are the wealthiest dwarf at the end if you have the most Gold points, scored from your animals, crops, rubies, dwarfs, and the tiles you have placed. You get there by placing dwarfs on action spaces each round to dig out your mountain, clear your forest, furnish caverns, raise animals, and feed your family.

For setup, each player puts two dwarfs side by side in the entry level dwelling on their home board, and keeps three more dwarfs and three stables in personal supply. Starting food depends on seating: the starting player and the player to his left each take one food, the third player takes two, and everyone else takes three. Shuffle the seven harvest markers and place them face down, rune side up, one on each round space from six through twelve. The board layout depends on player count, so remember the extra action space boards used with three players and with five to seven. Then shuffle the twelve action space cards face down and rebuild the stack without looking: the three stage four cards on the bottom, then the stage three cards, then the two ordinary stage two cards, then the round four Wish for children card, and the three stage one cards on top. Lay the furnishing tiles out on the supply boards, and sort the landscape tiles into stacks by type. In a two player game you play eleven rounds: remove the Exploration card with the level four expedition, skip round nine, remove one green leaf harvest marker and spread the other six over rounds six to twelve leaving round nine empty.

Each round has five phases. Flip the top action space card onto the lowest numbered empty round space, and from round six on also turn that space's harvest marker face up. Then replenish every accumulating space, those with an arrow, even if goods are already sitting there. Then the work phase: starting with the starting player and going clockwise, each player places one dwarf on an unoccupied action space and carries out the action immediately, continuing until every dwarf of every player has been placed. Then all dwarfs return home to their dwellings. Then, in most rounds, harvest time.

A few things constrain placement. Each action space takes only one dwarf per round, and you may not place a dwarf without performing at least one of its actions. You must place your own dwarfs in ascending order of weapon strength, unarmed dwarfs first, then armed ones from weakest to strongest. You may only place dwarfs living in your cave, never ones still in your supply. If you run out of dwarfs, you are simply skipped. Some spaces say either or, meaning choose one; others say and slash or, meaning take any of them; two spaces have a mandatory first action with an optional follow up.

Goods you gain go into your personal supply in plain view, but animals may never sit in your supply. They must go straight onto your home board or be converted into food immediately.

The twin tile spaces are the backbone. Excavation and Drift mining accumulate stone, and let you place a Cavern/Tunnel twin tile on two adjacent empty mountain spaces connected to your existing cave. Drift mining must use the Cavern/Tunnel side. Excavation may use either side, including Cavern/Cavern. Covering an underground water source gives you the food shown. Clearing, Sustenance and Slash-and-burn let you place a Meadow/Field twin tile on two adjacent forest spaces. Your very first such tile goes in front of your cave entrance; later ones must be adjacent to an existing field, meadow or pasture. Covering the forest water source gives one food, and covering a wild boar preserve gives a wild boar.

Sowing puts one grain from your supply onto an empty field plus two more from the general supply, or one vegetable plus one more. A single sow action lets you sow grain up to twice and vegetables up to twice.

Furnish a cavern means paying a tile's printed cost and placing it on an empty cavern. You cannot build on a tunnel, a mine, or bare mountain, and nothing can be removed or built over later. Dwellings are furnishing tiles that give room for dwarfs. Family growth needs more dwarf room in your dwellings than you have dwarfs; the new dwarf sits on top of the acting dwarf and cannot act this round. You are limited to five dwarfs, unless you build the Additional dwelling for a sixth.

For mines, Ore mine construction covers two adjacent ordinary tunnels with an Ore mine and Deep tunnel twin tile and gives you three ore. Ruby mine construction puts a ruby mine on any empty tunnel, and only if that tunnel is a deep tunnel do you immediately gain one ruby. Ore mining and Ore delivery give two extra ore for each ore mine you own. Ruby mining gives one extra ruby if you have at least one ruby mine; Ruby delivery gives one extra if you have at least two.

Rubies are wild. At any time you may trade one for an animal, a building material, grain, a vegetable, or gold, one for one, though cattle also costs one food. One ruby buys a single Field or Meadow tile, one buys a single Tunnel, two buy a single Cavern, all placed immediately under the usual placement rules. One ruby also lets you ignore the play order for one of your dwarfs.

Fences cost two wood to turn one meadow into a small pasture, or four wood to cover two adjacent meadows with a large pasture, and you may build one small and one large per action. A stable costs one stone and goes on a forest, meadow or pasture space, one per action, and you only ever have three. For capacity, each pasture space holds two farm animals of one type, and a stable doubles a pasture's total. A stable on a meadow holds one farm animal; a stable on uncleared forest holds one wild boar; each mine holds one donkey; the entry level dwelling holds two farm animals of the same type. Dogs live anywhere and are not farm animals, and dogs on a meadow or pasture let you keep one more sheep than there are dogs.

For weapons, only an unarmed dwarf can forge. Spend up to eight ore and take a weapon strength marker equal to the ore spent. That weapon is bound to that dwarf forever. An armed dwarf may go on an expedition; the expedition level tells you how many different loot items you take, and you may only pick items whose minimum strength is at or below your weapon strength. At the end of every expedition that dwarf's weapon goes up by one, to a maximum of fourteen.

The Starting player token never passes on its own. Taking the Starting player action gives you the token, all accumulated food there, plus two ore in games of one to three players or one ruby in games of four to seven. Imitation spaces appear with three or more players and cost zero, one, two or four food depending on the space. Pay the food, then use an action space occupied by an opponent's dwarf as if you had placed there, but you get none of its accumulated goods, and you can never imitate the Starting player space or a space holding your own dwarf.

At harvest time, first the field phase: take one grain or vegetable off each sown field. Then the feeding phase: pay two food per dwarf, or one food for a dwarf born this round. You may convert goods to food at any time. Gold buys food at one more gold than the food you want. Sheep are one food, wild boars two, cattle three, a single donkey one but two donkeys three, grain one, vegetables two, and a ruby two. Wood, stone, ore, dogs and dwarfs are worth no food. Any food you still cannot pay costs you a begging marker each, worth minus three at the end, and you may not give up dwarfs to avoid feeding. Then the breeding phase: for each farm animal type where you have at least two, you get exactly one baby, but only if there is room for it. Dogs do not breed.

Not every round has a harvest. Rounds one and two have none. Round three has a full harvest. Round four has no harvest, but you pay one food per dwarf. Rounds five through twelve have a harvest by default, unless a red question mark is revealed. The first question mark revealed means no harvest at all that round. The second means you pay one food per dwarf instead of harvesting. The third means each player individually chooses to play either the field phase or the breeding phase, but not both, and everyone still feeds.

The game ends after round twelve. Score one gold per farm animal and per dog, but minus two for each of the four farm animal types you do not have. Grain is half a gold each rounded up, counting grain in supply and on fields; vegetables are one each, counted the same way. Rubies and dwarfs are one each. You lose one point for every space on your home board with no tile or stable on it; the two preprinted caverns count as used. Add the printed values of your furnishing tiles, small pastures at two, large pastures at four, ore mines at three and ruby mines at four. Add bonus points from parlors, storages and chambers as their conditions dictate, add up the values printed on your gold coins, and subtract three for each begging marker. Most gold points wins, and if there is a tie, there are multiple winners.

A turn, played out

It is round 7 of a 3 player game, and you sit to the left of the starting player, so you place second. You have 3 dwarfs: two unarmed, one carrying a strength 3 weapon. The harvest marker flipped this round is not a red question mark, so a full harvest is coming. In your mountain, two ordinary tunnels sit side by side. Ore mine construction and Ruby mine construction are both open, and the Starting player space holds 2 food. You have 1 food and no ore. The starting player takes Sustenance. Your unarmed dwarfs must go before your armed one, so the first goes to Ore mine construction. The Ore mine and Deep tunnel twin tile covers your two tunnels, and 3 ore go to your supply. The player to your left places, then the starting player, and it is you again. Your second unarmed dwarf takes Ruby mine construction. The ruby mine goes on the deep tunnel you just made, and because it is a deep tunnel, you gain 1 ruby at once. On an ordinary tunnel you would have got nothing. Your armed dwarf goes last, to the Starting player space. You take the token, the 2 food, and, with 3 players, 2 ore. Now the harvest. You have two sown grain fields, one with 3 grain and one with 2. You take 1 from each, leaving 2 and 1, and 2 grain come to your supply. Feeding your 3 dwarfs costs 6 food. You pay your 3 food and turn the 2 grain into 2 more. That is 5, one short. Your 5 ore are worth no food at all. You could eat one of your 2 sheep, but then you would have no pair to breed. You could take a begging marker, worth minus 3. Instead you spend the ruby for 2 food, and 1 food is left over. Then breeding. Your 2 sheep sit in a small pasture with a stable, which holds 4, so there is room, and exactly one lamb joins them. You end the round with 3 sheep.