Finca

The Game

Finca is a 2009 game. I remember it was popular then. At the time I wasn't particularly interested in the setting or the general mechanism, so I didn't actively seek it out. This box cover above is from the 2024 edition. I managed to try the game online recently. It's a pretty decent game. No wonder it was picked up for publication again after 15 years. 

Finca is yet another game about collecting resources and fulfilling contracts. Don't let that deter you. What's interesting about the game is this rondel on the left. It is how you collect resources. Every segment specifies a resource type. Each player will have multiple workers on the rondel. You move your workers to collect resources. Where your worker lands determines what resource you get. The number of workers (whether your own or those of other players) where you land determines how many resources you collect. The number of steps your worker moves is not decided by you. It depends on the number of workers in the starting space. This is a tricky part of the game. 

At the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions you can see a donkey icon. When one of your workers move past these positions, you claim a donkey. You need donkeys to fulfil contracts. They are how you deliver the resources. So you need to plan the movement of your workers to collect both resources and donkeys. 

There are 10 regions on the map. At each region there is a stack of four contracts. These are all first come first served. You compete with everyone else to fulfil the topmost visible contract of each stack. The easiest contracts require only one resource. The hardest, six. Naturally the harder ones give you more points. The game ends when a certain number of stacks run out. Each time a stack runs out, a bonus is given to the player who has delivered the most of a specific resource. This is something you want to pay attention to. Either you want to do well in a resource type which you think will soon score, or if you are already doing well in a specific resource type, you want to exhaust that specific stack which will reward you for that resource. 

One interesting rule is how the resource tokens in the game are limited. When you run out, it is not the active player being out of luck and unable to collect resources. Instead everyone must surrender this resource type to the common pool, and the active player does get to collect resources. This can be quite scary. You don't want to stockpile a lot only to waste it all. This rule applies to donkeys too. You may be collecting resources and donkeys to make a huge delivery, but if the donkeys run out and someone claims another, you will lose all yours, which can severely set you back.

We played with both the small expansions. One of them was these four square tiles. They gave once-per-game special abilities, e.g. one of them was a large donkey cart that could deliver 10 resources instead of the usual 6, and another one allowed completing contracts with one resource fewer. 

The Play

I played Finca with my Hong Kong friend Jetta on BoardGameArena.com. The core mechanism - the rondel - is interesting. Generally you want to be efficient in collecting resources. Within the same turn, being able to get three lemons is generally better than one. However you do have other tactical considerations, e.g. which is the next contract you want to fulfil, and what resource type you need. You also need to watch out for any resource type running out and forcing everyone to return them to the common pool. The efficiency in gathering resources is the tactical aspect of the game. The strategic aspect is scoring the bonus points when contract stacks run out. You need to deliberately plan which resources you want to be strong in, and you want to manipulate which stacks run out at what time. 

The other small expansion we used was that little white disc. If you fulfil all six types of contracts valued from 1 to 6, you score a bonus of 7 points. This is a long-term planning aspect. For experienced gamers, adding the two small expansions are fine even if it is your first game. For casual gamers it will be better to exclude them in the first game. 

That little house (i.e. finca) at the top left is the countdown mechanism. With 2 players, there are 4 houses used. Whenever a stack of contracts is exhausted, you place a house. Players have some control over how soon the game ends. You want to manipulate the pace of the game to your advantage, ending it when you are ahead. 

The Thoughts

Finca is a mid-weight strategy game with a pleasant play experience. It's resource collection and contract fulfilling, but I enjoy the clever resource collection mechanism.