The Princes of Florence

From: Rio Grande List Price: $40 Players: 3-5 Playing Time: 90-120 minutes  Type of game: Family Strategy Skill level: 9 Complexity: 8  Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 24, September 2000

Anybody reading reports from this year’s Gathering of Friends has heard of The Princes of Florence, the latest game from the El Grande team of Kramer/Ulrich. It generated a lot of instant buzz, with people calling it the hit of the show and lavishing ratings upon it in the 9-10 range. I was a bit more reserved. My one play left me intrigued by its systems but gravely disappointed by its enormous lack of player interaction. That’s a hot button for me. Long-time readers know of my disdain for the essentially solitaire n-Rails games. In a puzzle game like Take it Easy I don’t mind competing more against the system than my “opponents”, but in a longer and more complex game my demands are different. I want my actions to affect my fellow players. I want to be forced to adjust my strategies to compensate for theirs. I want to spend the time playing, not waiting. In these areas The Princes of Florence didn’t seem to make the grade.

First impressions, however, are not always the best. The game had enough meat on its bones to interest me in trying it again, especially given the near-universal praise the game was receiving. Now, after half a dozen outings, I feel like I have the game’s measure and can understand what the fuss was about. But I still haven’t shaken off all my concerns.

The game drops players into the roles of princes of Florence, each striving to raise his prestige within the city by attracting men of science and the arts to his estate to create impressive works. These men are fickle, and require certain amenities before they’ll accept a prince’s patronage. These amenities provide points—inspiration, if you will—towards the creation of a work. The greater the inspiration, the more impressive the work and the higher the prestige it brings. The winner is the player with the most prestige after seven rounds of play.

Each round is split into two phases. Phase A, the auction phase, is the interactive one. The start player chooses one of seven possible items to put up for auction. Auctions are regimented, ‘round the table, raise-by-100-or-drop affairs. High bidder claims his prize and sits out for the rest of the phase; each player can therefore buy only one item each round. The yin to that yang is that each of the seven items can only be auctioned once per round, so if you want an architect this turn you’ll have only one shot to get it. A simple but brilliant piece of this system has the auctioneer automatically making the first bid for each item. This means he can’t just choose to auction dreck nobody wants, because he’s likely to get stuck with it. That fear is an undercurrent throughout the auction process. Running up prices for opponents is vital— as we’ll see later, saving money (especially early in the game) is tantamount to earning victory points. Among experienced players this turns the auction into a game of chicken as players push each other higher, hoping to bail just above their opponents’ pain threshold.

Even more so than in other auction games, having inexperienced players in the mix can throw the balance out of whack. There’s no way to really appreciate the value of each item until you’ve played the game, so new players can’t be counted on to raise the bidding to appropriate levels. Left alone with one in an auction, an experienced player can walk away with a steal. We try to combat this effect by emphasizing the point to new players, but it’s hard to play chicken when you don’t know when to swerve.

Once everyone’s bought something the game moves on to the non-interactive phase B. Here each player in turn carries out two actions—buying things or creating works—before play passes clockwise. Everyone else is completely uninvolved while you take your turn which can take a bit of time to complete. There’s little excuse for not having one’s actions well-planned when the turn comes around—even with experienced players there’s inevitably some thumb-twiddling, and it can become agonizing with newbies. You can’t just play simultaneously because your actions can be affected by those before you, so there’s really no choice but to hurry up and wait.

Much of the game revolves around the creation of works, which is accomplished by playing cards representing artisans and scientists. Each creator derives inspiration from a different combination of buildings, landscapes, and freedoms (always one of each). Landscapes (forest, lake, or park) are bought at auction in phase A, while the rest are bought in phase B. Freedoms (of movement, religion, and expression) are marked by tokens placed on special spaces on a player’s playing mat. Landscapes and buildings are variously-shaped polyominoes which must be immediately placed the 7x7 estate on a player’s mat. Landscapes can always go anywhere they fit, but until a player buys his second architect buildings may not touch each other except diagonally. Estate construction has a puzzle-like quality to it, with each player engaged in a private game of Tetris to maximize his usable space. Actually, part of the game’s appeal is that this packing problem is only one of many routes to success. It’s possible to win the game without adding a thing to your estate.

To create a work a player simply spends one of his phase B actions laying down a creator card, counting up all the work points contributing to his effort. Each round the threshold of required work points increases, and players cannot play a creator card unless the resulting work equals or exceeds that threshold. Fortunately other factors beyond a player’s estate contribute work points. Every creator card in a player’s possession, played or not, adds a point. Additional cards can be bought in phase B, but only one per round. There are a very limited number of these so they tend to vanish quickly. Players are wise to buy them whenever they have the chance, as they represent the highest prestige-cost ratio available.

Even better are “enticement” cards, available at auction, which our group has taken to calling “clones.” Clones act in all ways as creator cards do, with one significant difference—they duplicate any creator already on the table in front of any other player. This means if an opponent plays a creator who uses a building you’ve already built in your estate, you can clone him and gain work points from a building without having to spend time, money, or space constructing a new one. If the cloned creator matches with one of your landscapes or freedoms, you gain those work points also.

Jugglers, purchased at auction, are perhaps the most valuable items in the game. Whereas buildings, freedoms, and landscapes only match up with certain creators, each juggler adds work points to every work a player builds. Their importance cannot be overstated. They routinely fetch the highest prices in the game at auction, which is as it should be; their versatility means they continue to pay off throughout the game, and so players should be made to pay dearly for them. Acquiring 2-3 jugglers early in the game has proven to be one of the most common paths to victory.

If a player still needs more work points he can purchase a bonus card. These cards are one-use wonders which provide work points based on a player’s infrastructure (2 for each lake, 1 per juggler or freedom, etc). Purchasing one entitles a player to draw five cards and pick one to keep, returning the others to the bottom of the deck. This vital rule slows the game down a bit as players mull over their choices, but it means such a purchase is far less of a crap shoot—you’re almost guaranteed to find something helpful. Bonus cards can be saved and combined, as needed.

Work points are significant for reasons beyond meeting the minimum requirement. When a player builds a work, he earns 100 florins for each work point it amassed. This is the only means of income in the entire game. But it’s also not that simple. At the moment that income is received, the player has a one-time opportunity to trade any portion of it for prestige at a rate of 200 florins per prestige point. Typically players take it all in cash in early rounds, with the prestige portion increasing as the game progresses. If a player discovers he needs more cash than he has, he can always trade prestige for cash—at a rate of 100 per prestige point. Obviously this is a painful thing to do, and so careful management of one’s cash supply is critical. This is why I noted earlier that saving money is equivalent to earning victory points, since every 200 florins you avoid taking as income means one more prestige instead.

At the end of the round a prestige bonus is paid to the player who built the best work that round, defined as the work which amassed the most work points. The start player rotates each round, and going last in the turn order obviously gives a player an advantage in seeking this bonus. Players should therefore always plan to build a work on such turns.

Although works are the largest source of prestige points, they’re not the only one. Prestige cards, purchased at auction, are kept secret until the end of the game. At that time, if their owner has met the conditions on the card (all 3 freedoms, most jugglers, fewest open spaces in his estate, etc) he earns anywhere from three to eight prestige. As with bonus cards, purchasers may draw five and choose one to keep. These cards can be game-winners. Unlike other items available at auction, these cards only pay off at the end of the game rather than repeatedly throughout— consequently they’re often eschewed in the early game for items offering more pressing benefits. Grabbing a prestige card early, however, gives a player lots of time to achieve the card’s goal and can shape subsequent strategy, a delightfully natural design balance.

The Princes of Florence is daunting at first, not least because of a large amount of German on the components. The graphic designer should be commended, however, for highlighting key words such that it’s very easy for non-German speakers to identify cards at a glance and understand their meaning without needing them translated. Once you get over the initial shell shock of a foreign language being thrust in your face, it’s actually very easy to understand and use. A small crib sheet is available at BoardGameGeek to help when needed. If the German worries you, I can tell you that I’ve played with about a dozen different people and all have been able to adapt easily.

This is a difficult game to teach because everything interrelates, making it hard to explain one concept without pausing to explain another, which in turn requires a third. The ramifications of these relationships can be difficult to appreciate at first, making The Princes of Florence one of those games where halfway through your first game you’ll realize all the mistakes you’ve made.

The game is all about making the most of limited resources— time, space, and money. Each player can only purchase seven auctionable items during the game and can take only two other actions each turn. Success depends on creating synergy among your purchases. What makes the game compelling is the wide spectrum of synergistic choices available, offering numerous paths to explore.