Finca

• Designer: Ralf aur Linde and Wolfgang Sentker
• Publisher:  Pandasaurus
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hMgV4E 
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Sprawling estates, or fincas, are ripe for the taking in each region of the beautiful island of Mallorca. You must compete with your fellow farmers and fishermen to claim these properties, so harvest as much food as you can, load up your donkey carts, and race your rivals to make deliveries to the island’s many communities, whose requests are constantly changing. Find out if you have what it takes to be Mallorca’s most successful farmer in Finca!

This new edition of Finca retains the clever resource collection and delivery gameplay that has made the game a modern classic, but adds brand-new art, streamlined rules, and the ability to play the game with 5 players. Includes 2 Advanced Play modes and a new 5-player mode!

Finca, designed by Ralf zur Linde and Wolfgang Sentkler, was named after the rural farming estates on the Mediterranean island of Majorca. Although a lot of fincas have now become holiday cottage destinations, the game centres on the crop production and delivery aspects of the traditional fincas. Players take on the role of farmers harvesting Foods and then delivering them to the communities whose demands for particular Food types and combinations are always changing.

The game board shows a map of Majorca split into 10 farming estates which at the start of the game are each loaded with a stack of 4 Request Tiles face down. The remaining 2 request tiles are placed back in the game box. The top request tile in each stack is now turned face up. Each request tile shows a number, ranging from 1 to 6, of Foods required in order to collect that particular request tile. The Foods can be figs, fish, almonds, oranges, grapes or lemons or a combination of them. Some of the request tiles do not show a particular Food type and require a number of one specific Food of the player’s choosing to collect that tile. The total number of Foods on each tile is the number of victory points the player will receive from collecting the tile. The Finca Tiles which show 1 or 2 Food types are shuffled and one placed face up in each of the farming estates. These tiles are used to generate bonus victory points during the game.

Somewhere on the table, the Windmill board is placed and the 12 Windmill Blades are placed around it in a random order.  Each of the blades shows one of the Food types. A number of donkey cards equal to twice the number of players are placed on the centre of the windmill.

Finca is a well produced game and one of the best components are the wooden food meeples. The game contains a total of 108 of these wooden Foods, 18 of each Food type, and these are placed as a supply next to the game board. The 4 Bonus Tiles which show numbers 1 to 6 are placed face up in descending victory point value (7 through to 4) next to the game board. A player may earn one of these Bonus Tiles during the game when they have collected a request tile of every value from 1 through to 6. 

A number of wooden farmhouse Finca pieces depending on the number of players are placed as a supply. These Fincas will be placed during the game and the game will end when the last one is placed on the game board.

Each player takes a number, depending upon the number of players (3 in a 4 player game), of wooden Farmers in their chosen colour together with 4 Action tiles. These Action tiles provide a single use action during the game.

Before the first round of the game, the starting player places one of his Farmers on a Windmill Blade and takes one Food of the type shown on the Windmill Blade. Players follow in a clockwise direction until all Farmers have been placed. Now the game is ready to begin with the starting player and then continuing clockwise.

On a turn a player may carry out one of 3 actions below:

1] Move Farmer and Harvest food

A Farmer is moved (clockwise around the Windmill Blades) a number of blades equal to the number of Farmers on the Windmill Blade on which it started its movement. The player then collects as many foods of the type depicted on the Windmill Blade on which the Farmer ended its movement as there are Farmers present on that Windmill Blade. The collected foods are placed in front of the player in the player area. If there are insufficient foods in the supply then all players must return all of their foods of the required type and then the active player collects their food. This movement and collection provides interesting depth to the game as players need to think about how to maximise their food collection and minimise that of their opponents. 

On opposite sides of the Windmill there are two Donkey icons and if the Farmer crosses over one of these icons during its movement then the player collects a Donkey Card from the supply. The same rule applies if the supply is empty where all players return all of their Donkey Carts and then the active player collects one.

2] Deliver food

A player delivers Food to one or more of the estate communities on the game board. A Donkey Card is required to transport a maximum of 6 food to the estates and the player takes the chosen request tiles from the game board, returning the specified foods to the supply. In this way a full Donkey Card could satisfy the demands of a single 6 request tile or three request tiles valued 1, 2 and 3 etc.

With open information, players can see which foods are being collected by their opponents and careful planning is needed to ensure that they secure their target request tiles before another player collects them. However this may not be as simple as it first appears as players need to avoid under utilising their Donkey Cards just to quickly grab a request tile. When a player has collected a set of 6 request tiles, one of each value 1 through to 6, then as a bonus they take the top Bonus Tile.

When the last request tile is taken from an estate, the Finca Tile from that estate is awarded. Most of the Finca Tile shows 1 or 2 Food types and the player who has the most of these Food types on his collected request tiles wins the Finca Tile. For example if the Finca tile shows grapes and figs then the player who has the most grapes and figs icons on their collected request tiles will win the Finca Tile. There is one Finca tile with a Donkey on it, and this one scores for the most total food delivered.  All Finca Tiles are worth 5 victory points.  If there is a tie for a Finca tile, no one gets it. A wooden Finca piece is placed on this scored area.  If the final wooden Finca is placed on the board, the game will end.

3] Use an Action Tile

One of the four Action Tiles may be used per turn after which they are removed from the game. the Action Tiles are:

Double Move – carry out the normal Move Farmer and Harvest food action. Then carry out a second Move Farmer and Harvest food action with either the same or a different Farmer.

Gust of Wind – move a Farmer to any Windmill Blade and collect food in the normal way. Donkey Cards are not collected with this Action Tile.

Large Donkey Cart – Deliver up to 10 Food using this Action tile instead of a normal Donkey Cart.

Resource Discount – Deliver food but collect one request tile (value 2 or more) by handing in 1 less food. Using this tile is is possible to take request tiles upto a value of 7 with only 6 food and a Donkey Cart.

Game End

The game ends at the end of a player’s turn in which the last wooden Finca is placed on the game board. Players then count up their victory points that they have earned from:

Request tiles, Finca Tiles, Bonus Tiles, and Each unused Action Tile is worth 2 victory points.

The player with the most victory points is the winner with ties being broken by the most collected foods in their player area.

My thoughts on the game

Well, this is now at least the third different printing of the game, and the continued demand for this game since the original was released in 2009 should tell you a lot about the game.  On its face, Finca is an easy going euro game where you move lots of wood bits around, collecting them and turning them in for valuable cardboard chits.

However, despite the simple rules, there is a surprising amount of depth to the game.  First, there is the simple resource collection game where you are racing against the other players to collect the right combination of goods to deliver them first.  Players have to figure out the mancala like movement of the farmers on the board to get their piece onto the right space; and then hopefully finagle things so that they are landing on fully occupied spaces in order to maximize their yield of food tokens.

You’ll also need to manage your Donkey Card situation – because you’ll need to have enough of these cards around in order to actually deliver your collected Food.  You could try to be as efficient as possible, delivering as close to six Foods at a time in order to limit the number of Donkey Cards that you need; however, if you wait too long, someone might beat you to a delivery!  All of the information is in the open so you’ll need to carefully watch what your opponents are collecting to figure out how much time you might have to make a delivery.

While we’re talking about the Donkey Cards and the Food, I should bring up the most incisive rule of the game – if the supply ever runs out of a particular Food type or Donkey card, then EVERYONE returns what they have before you collect your goods.  There can be times in the game where it’s worthwhile for you to trigger such a collection if only to thwart the plans of your opponents.

This newest version from Pandasaurus has a few changes.  The most important one being that the game can now handle up to 5 players.  I have yet to play the game with this higher player count, but I have read plenty of reports online that the game still works great with the additional player.  That’s good to hear, and this new version certainly will benefit from that added bit of flexibility in the player count department.  The rules tout two mini expansions (the bonus tiles and the action tiles) but I honestly can’t remember ever not playing with them – and looking at the original rules, they were not considered “mini-expansions” but rather part of the base rules in the 2009 game.

The components are well done.  I like the new take on the food tokens.  It should be noted that the Olive has been replaced with a Fish (and I’m not sure why this change was made).  I also very much like the way that the windmill has been separated from the board (rather than being on the board itself).   The board is possibly even smaller than the original, though as it just holds cardboard chits; it works just fine.  The end result is that this new version now fits comfortably on even the smallest of card tables.  Sure, the board is crowded, but honestly, most of the action is with the farmers traipsing around the Windmill, so I don’t really mind the smaller board at all.

Finca remains one of my favorite mid-level games.  It’s easy enough to teach in just a few minutes, but there are definitely a lot of hard decisions to be made.  The game rarely takes more than half an hour, and it is a very engrossing game in that time that it is on the table.  

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mitchell T:  It’s a sign of our times that something released sixteen years ago can be termed “classic,” but that is one aspect of the “cult of the new” which expands way beyond just board games. Finca is, indeed, a minor classic, a game that had some original ideas, was easy to learn, and thought provoking. It also scales very well. It holds up nicely.

Larry:  I’ve always been puzzled by the popularity of Finca.  It’s harmless and it works, but it lacks innovation, depth, or anything to distinguish it from numerous other games.  It’s “fine”, in the most dismissive use of that word.  It’s probably been about a dozen years since I played it last and I haven’t missed it a bit.  If my group really wanted to play it, I would join in without too much grousing, but why would they?

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!  Dale Y
• I like it.  John P, Mitchell T
• Neutral.  Larry
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hMgV4E