The thing I love most about Rubies is that many actions in the game give you a limit of how many times you can do it: "Plant up to 3 grains", for example. Now, going to that action with only 2 grains makes you feel wasteful: not with rubies on hand! The thing I love about Caverna is it changed the feel from Agricola's "How will I survive?" to "How will I turn all of this into points?". Every action gives you a little bonus in addition to what you expected, which then sort of leads you to a new plan. "I wanted to plant my food, that's done, what do I do now? Well I just got this pig, maybe I can get a pen and a mate for it!" In Agricola, a good move is, say, +5, and a bad one -5: in Caverna, a good one is +20, and a bad one +10. The gap between good and bad play is as big, but everybody feels good about it, instead of feeling miserable.
I hadn't thought about using rubies to maximize actions in that way--I need to do that! I agree that Caverna is much more about rewarding players while Agricola is more about punishing them. :)
Caverna is so good. I like that each round it's unknown what the next available worker placement spot will be. We also play where we reveal the "harvest/?" token at the end of the round so you don't know what's coming and you have to be prepared. Sometimes that builds some tension. It's not a mechanism but I love that there are so many paths to victory. I have won several times completely changing my strategy mid game and maximizing something from a cavern tile.
Gold chips in Splendor, Salt in Concordia's expansion, exploration tokens in Archipelago, locomotives in ticket to ride, the joker card, gold coins in Imperial Settlers, money in 7 Wonders. It's a pretty widespread mechanic. Very feelgood in my opinion. One of the many reasons I prefer Agricola by far.
In La Granja you can pretty much use/convert any resources at any point on your turn to do whatever you want which creates some awesome combinations and allows you to do a LOT more on your turn that maybe you even expected. It kind of unfolds in front of you sometimes when you didn't even realize you could do it! BUT, if you're really good at it, and can keep it all straight in your head it can be a great way to throw off your opponent. They may look over your farm and think you can't do much, so they ship a cart to the market at a low value, but in reality you're about to fill a higher value cart and will be able to kick them right out of their market stall! It's one of the things I love about that game!
Nice, that's an awesome example! I've only played it once, maybe twice, and it's been a while--does it lead to analysis paralysis to have so many available options?
It can, but you can plan your actions out while the other players are taking their turns, which minimizes it. I know people don't like the luck of the "dice market", but I've never had a problem with it! You just become tactical!
I agree about La Granja. The "anytime actions" are part of what makes that game so fun. you can definitely pull off awesome combos. it feels so good when you are neck and neck with your opponents and you are all struggling to eek out as many points as your "anytime actions" will help you get. that mechanism does remind me of the rubies of caverna. i dont really think that causes analyis paralyis, because it doesn't really involve building a long-term engine. it is more tactical. if anything, selecting which cards to put on your farm at the beginning of each round can slow the game down - only because each card can be used 4 different ways. but by mid game, it should be easier for you to see what you should build on your farm. i think there is more analysis paralysis with caverna, and it is related to building your engine. right from the first round, i feel the tension of not being able to do what i want to do in so many turns (not a negative point though. i love caverna. but there is definitely more tension and AP caverna). trying to think of a way to overcome that causes the AP. the big question is - how soon i can get my 3rd, 4th and 5th family members and get the weapons? if you are late getting your 3rd, then it just makes it extremely tough for you to do a lot mid to late game.
I think my favorite mechanism is Caverna is probably the way nearly everything you acquire, aside resources, is represented by a tile, unlike Agricola where you've got a side board of improvements and occupations, represent pastures by surrounding them with wooden bits. Actually, while I miss the tension of Agricola when playing it, I prefer basically all of the individual mechanisms in Caverna to Agricola - The only thing I wish it did that it doesn't is tile variability, in the way Agricola: All Creatures Big And Small with the More Buildings expansion adds some variability in there. I can think of a bunch of games where there's only one currency that you can use for anything (Suburbia, Zooloretto, outside of Euros even things like the way the cheese in Mice and Mystics is used both to level up characters and use abilities gained when leveling up), but not so many that does the ruby thing of a wild resource that can be substituted for anything (and especially not with the variety of things you can substitute rubies for - "Dang, I really want to place a room tile this turn but I don't have any open caves. Better spend a ruby for an open cave." entirely skipping having to spend an action is something of a not uncommon occurrence for me when I pursue a ruby mining strategy in Caverna) that have specific costs. I mena, I think there are games that do that, but none I recall playing right now.
I like that spatial aspect of Caverna as well. I think every time I've played, I've done a lot of stuff in the caves and just barely filled in my farm.
Isn't this "one resource for everything" basically what money is in most games? E. g. in Clans of Caledonia, you buy farms and bakeries with money and then eithe ruse export orders to convert the bread to victory points, or the market to convert it back into money (most likely to build more bakeries :D ).
That's true, money is often used for this purpose. I think the unique thing about rubies is that they are always the equivalent of pretty much everything in the game at all times.
Jamey, I was wondering what mechanism or mechanisms in modern boardgames turn you off? It might be it's own video but I know you like to keep things positive. I personally am not a fan of "take that" especially when it is crushing to the recipient and not all that rewarding to the one who uses it.
Leon: It sounds like I'm similar to you. While there are take-that games I have fun with, on average I don't gravitate towards them. It's also rare for me to enjoy trick-taking, thought I do enjoy hearts and spades. And as I realized with Gloomhaven, I don't enjoy hack-and-slash tactical combat. If I'm doing a dungeon crawl, I want a variety of puzzles and clues and options (like TIME Stories).
