Cavum

Cavum is the sort of hidden gem that sits quietly on a shelf until you finally get it played and wonder why more people are not talking about it. Yes, it has empty hexes and track-like tiles, which will frighten some tables before the box is even open. Their loss: my game of it was one of the year's most enjoyable sessions.

At heart, it is network building: you lay tiles, construct tunnels, and try to connect your network to the valuable veins and their gems. Placement is never merely a question of where a tile fits. It is where it helps you, where it cuts across someone else, and where it leaves enough room that they cannot immediately box you in.

Then the explosions begin. You blow up rival tunnels, hear the imagined clatter-clatter-boom, and watch a carefully arranged plan become somebody else's problem. Bidding for turn order matters, especially because the last player can gain an edge when the veins fill with gems; that position costs them, but not always enough to stop it feeling favoured. I would like a variant with X-1 gems in the veins, and the knife would turn a little more fairly.

It is clever, tight, and happily unapologetic about its take-that. I would welcome that small balance adjustment, but Cavum remains an excellent network-builder for groups who smile when the explosion happens on the wrong side of the table.