My first play of Finca came in 2018 at BGG CON. It was one of those rare out-of-print titles folks “in the know” fawned over. At that time used copies were selling for outrageous prices and, despite being a nearly 10-year-old game at that time, it was regularly checked out of the convention library.
Well, now Finca is widely available in this reprinted edition from Pandasauras games. With new art including a wonderful cover from Vincent Dutrait, you can have your very own copy for under $30. But was it just the collector mentality and FOMO that hyped Finca up for so long? Or is there a great game to go along with it?
Gameplay Overview:
In Finca players will be gathering goods to deliver to the hungry citizens of Mallorca. The board is separated into 10 different regions, each with a stack of request tiles and a finca tile (which will score when all the requests are fulfilled). Only one request for each region is face-up at any given time and once that tile gets fulfilled the next one will become available.
The goods themselves are gathered by moving your farmer tokens clockwise around the windmill blades. During setup, players will place their farmers on any blade they wish and gain one of those goods. However, once the game starts farmers can only move clockwise and must move a number of spaces exactly equal to the number of farmer meeples on the windmill space they start on. When they land, they will gain whatever resources equal to the number of farmer meeples on that space. So if you land on a lemon space with 4 meeples, you gain 4 lemons.
You can’t just hoard all the lemons on the island though. If ever a player needs to collect more of a resource than is in the supply, all players must return all of their goods of that type to the supply, and then the active player will get all their goods for the turn.
There is also a donkey shown on each side of the windmill. Each time your farmer meeple crosses that line, you gain a donkey cart. These carts can be used to deliver goods to Mallorca. Each donkey cart can only deliver up to six goods, but you can fulfill request tiles from different regions with a single delivery.
Once a region has had its last delivery fulfilled, the Finca Tile is given to whichever player has fulfilled the most deliveries for the type(s) of goods shown. The game ends when a certain number of regions have been completed.
There are some advanced rules available that give you special power tiles that can be used throughout the game. These let you: move a farmer any number of spaces, move two farmers, fulfill a request with one less resource, or deliver 10 goods at a time. Any not used during the game score additional points at the end.
Game Experience:
Picking up resources to fulfill contracts is a tale as old as time in the euro gaming world. Finca really has two bright spots that make it feel somewhat fresh, despite being 15 years old.
The resource collection rondel/windmill/mancala mashup is the most fun part of the puzzle. While only having three possible farmers to move really limits the decision space, you have to be willing to plan ahead based on what contracts you can fulfill and how you can set up for future turns as you go.
Your ability to do that successfully depends a lot on your opponents as well. And generally, the fewer opponents you have the better. Finca is best with 2-3 players. The original edition capped out at 4 players and the new reprint plays up to 5. The more players you add the less you can think about planning ahead. I prefer not to play with 4 and I wouldn’t touch Finca with 5 players.
The advanced action tiles are a must-include for Finca as well. It helps open up the number of options you have by allowing you to break the rules in meaningful ways four times throughout the game. You’ll cost yourself a small number of points but it’s almost always worth using them.
I do wish the number of resources available was maybe a little tighter. The anti-hoarding rule that causes all of a resource to go back into the supply almost never comes up. Its existence is an effective deterrent to keep folks from holding onto things too long, and maybe that is all it needs to do. But I wouldn’t have been upset if it happened a little more often and made the game feel a bit more interactive (and meaner).
Final Thoughts:
I’m glad Finca is back in print and easily accessible. For $30 this is a great lightweight euro that feels classic but also has enough of a wrinkle to make it stand out from other games.
That said, there isn’t a lot of depth of strategy here either. It’s simple, quick to teach, and fun to play. But you aren’t going to get any big revelations about how to approach it differently the next time you sit down to play. But it’s got a place among lightweight games that I’m happy to bring off the shelf a few times a year.
If you happen to have the older edition, the biggest addition here is enough components for a 5th player. Which really isn’t a way I’d suggest playing Finca. The resource-collecting windmill really shines with three players and with more, it gets to feeling a little too uncontrollable.
Final Score: 3 Stars – Mancala-style resource collection makes for a fun way to fulfill contracts.
Hits:
• Trying to plan ahead for optimal resource collecting on the windmill is a fun puzzle to work through.
• Very simple to teach and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.
Misses:
• This edition adds a fifth player, which is at least 2 more than you should ever play with.
• Not a lot of depth or variety, it has a single trick.
