Cavemen: The Quest for Fire from Rio Grande Games is a card-drafting game where players take the role of tribal leaders. The tribes compete for opportunities to hunt dinosaurs, recruit tribesmen, and discover new technologies, vying to be the first with enough knowledge and prestige to invent Fire. It’s easy to learn, supports 2-5 players and has a playing time of about 45 minutes.
The game features 21 different inventions that allow for players to evolve diverse strategies, capitalizing on their tribe’s individual strengths. There are challenging decisions every turn as players must evaluate what resources are available, guess what their opponents will do, and weigh the amount of risk they’re willing to take. Its theme and mechanics are tightly interwoven, delivering a taut and coherent game experience that’s highly competitive without direct antagonism.
Components
In the box, you’ll get:
- 1 game deck with 86 cards, including four different kinds of Cavemen, 27 unique Dinosaurs, Caves and 21 Inventions, including Stone Axe, Huts, Tribal Council, Human Sacrifice, and Fire.
- 20 starting cards: 1 Leader, 1 Hunter, 1 Home Cave and 1 Rules Summary card for each of the 5 different tribes.
- 40 die-cut food tokens in denominations of 1 and 5.
- 31 die-cut tooth tokens in denominations of 1 and 5.
- 1 die-cut conch token.
Gameplay
Open Information
You must keep your cards and resources visible to the other players at all times.
Ability Scores
Your Tribe has four Ability Scores: Hunting, Inventing, Foraging and Population. Ability scores are determined by adding up the scores shown on Cavemen and Caves in your Tribe and applying modifiers based on your Inventions. Exploration, indicated by a foot icon, is an ability granted by having an Explorer Caveman. If you have this ability, you may acquire new Caves for no cost. There is no number associated with it.
Resources
You have two resources to manage: Food and Teeth. You must spend Food each turn or starve. Teeth represent prestige amongst the Tribes. Teeth are expended when bidding for the Conch and can also be used to acquire Cavemen and Caves.
The Card Pool
Each turn, cards are drawn from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in this pool. For example, if a Dinosaur is drawn into the Card Pool, you can Hunt it on your turn to gain Food and Teeth.
The Conch
In general, the Conch moves in a clockwise direction to indicate who goes first. If you hold the Conch, you have two advantages: you take your Action first, and you get to take a second Action after everyone else has gone once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player.
Turn Phases
- Draw Phase: Draw cards into the common Card Pool.
- Conch Phase: Bid Teeth for the Conch.
- Feed Phase: Pay 1 Food per Caveman if you have the Conch; other players pay 1 Food.
- Action Phase: Recruit, Hunt, Forage, Invent or Explore. The Conch-Holder goes both first and last.
- Discard Phase: Discard down to 3 cards.