So I played Caverna last night.
Some people (such as, a very popular and well-known board game reviewer, local to my area) are hot with praise over Caverna, saying it completely replaces Agricola for them and is better in every way. After playing it, I think I kind of have to disagree a little bit.
First of all, I have to mention how utterly daunting it was that the box seems almost twice as thick as Agricola. Opening the box, you find what seems like twice as many components. You have all the same amount of things as in Agricola, plus a TON of tiles, new chits, as well as new bits like ore/rubies, additional animals (dogs are pretty awesome, though). Just taking all this stuff out and finding a place for it on the table during setup is pretty overwhelming. The end result looks like maybe 2 or 3 board games worth of things. I also think it's a little inexcusable, at the game's price point with so many components, to not have any kind of insert in the box for them to go (especially the tiles).
As for the gameplay itself, it certainly feels like an evolution of Agricola, but perhaps in a direction that is meant more for hardcore players and people bored with Agricola. I like some of the changes and I generally think tiles for rooms as powers/fences work a lot better than cards (as they do in All Creatures Big and Small). Dogs are also awesome.
However, it comes off perhaps less accessible than Agricola does for families and casual players. There's just too much STUFF going on. All Creatures Big and Small distilled the original and made a very fun and relatively quick 2-player version (I love this version, and you can see the origin of ideas in Caverna from here). I wish Caverna had gone more in that direction (and it kind of did), but with the intention of adding even more complexity on top of the game, what with weapons and adventures and options pouring out of the game's every orifice.
Overall, I enjoyed the game, but I don't necessarily think it replaces Agricola.
