Be the first with enough knowledge and prestige to invent fire and usher in the age of modern humanity!

Cavemen: The Quest for Fire

Cavemen: The Quest for Fire from Rio Grande Games (BGG) 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

You have two resources to manage: Food and Teeth. You must spend Food each turn in order to keep your Tribe from starving. Teeth indicate prestige among the tribes. Use Teeth to bid for the conch and to acquire Cavemen and Caves.

Each turn, cards are drawn from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in the pool. For example, if a Beast is drawn into the Card Pool, you can hunt it for Food and claim its Teeth as a sign of your bravery.

If you hold the conch during the Action Phase, you benefit by taking your Action first and taking a second Action after everyone else has gone once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player. This can be important to get the first pick of the cards in the Card Pool.

The game features 21 different inventions that allow 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.

Turn Phases

  1. Draw Phase: Draw cards into the common Card Pool.
  2. Conch Phase: Bid Teeth for the Conch.
  3. Feed Phase: Pay 1 Food per Caveman if you have the Conch; other players pay 1 Food.
  4. Action Phase: Recruit, Hunt, Forage, Invent or Explore. The Conch-Holder goes both first and last.
  5. Discard Phase: Discard down to 3 cards.


Google+

Related Blog Posts

Apr
09

The “Double Hunt” Rule

Posted by admin on April 9th, 2013 at 8:34 pm

Friend and playtester Mark Salzwedel wrote that he was surprised to have learned that a particular rule was dropped from the final design: something I called the “Double Hunt Rule”.

The Double Hunt Rule was that if your Tribe’s Hunting score was at least twice that required to hunt a Beast, then you would not need to draw for casualties. The idea being that if your hunting prowess as a Tribe increases to a certain point, you no longer have to worry about the little critters.

This is the sort of rule that was hard to let go of. It made sense from a certain point of view. But ultimately I chose to drop it.

One reason I chose to drop that rule is because I truly think that the number of actual plays it will affect in any given game should be quite small. I think that if a player is making optimal decisions, he should not be hunting very much later in the game. But more importantly, I never wanted hunting to feel safe under base conditions. Without a technological advantage of some kind (e.g. the Bow and Arrow), the gaining of teeth has to come with the potential loss of Cavemen.

Lastly, it was one less rule on the page. Cavemen didn’t feel ready to call done until I had removed as many rules from it as I could.

No Comments | Read more
Mar
24

Radio Review #16 – Cavemen: the Quest for Fire

Posted by admin on March 24th, 2013 at 8:39 pm

As seen on BoardGameGeek.com: Radio Review #16 – Cavemen: the Quest for Fire:

The game itself is light on rules (easy to catch on) but provides a pretty unique strategy. I say unique, because you can delve up all the strategy in the world on loading up your invention score or upgrading your tribe. But if you can’t obtain the Conch shell when you need to, all is for naught. Caveman: Quest for Fire is quite a balancing act, and you’ll find yourself basing your strategy around your opponents tribe and resources as much as your own. Because of this, I find a 2 player game to be the tightest of the bunch, though 3-5 plays just as well. There’s just a bit more going on all at once in a 3-5 player game, with having to keep everyone else in check.

The tableau racing element is something fans of Race for the Galaxy should enjoy. It’s intriguing that Teeth are the hardest resource to come by, yet is what’s needed to control the Conch. And controlling the Conch shell is powerful (gives player’s an extra action), but can cost larger tribes a ton of Food. You can load up on Thinkers to gain enough Invention Points to invent Fire, but you’ll need additional Caves to support them. And unless you have tons of Teeth to obtain Caves with, you’ll need Explorers, which also costs quite a bit of Food. Which leads up to the best way to gain Food….Hunters. All in all, the game is quite balanced in its approach. While Caveman: the Quest for Fire combines a card drafting mechanic with a tableau racing element, it’s the victory condition surrounding the ownership of the Conch shell and the strategy revolved around the timing of obtaining it, that makes this game quite unique.

No Comments | Read more