The Princes of Florence



Designer: Wolfgang Kramer, Richard Ulrich
Publisher: Rio Grande Games/Alea
# of Players: 2-5
Play Time: 90 minutes
BGG Rank/Rating: #8/8.1
Weight: Medium Heavy

(This review was first posted at www.gamerchris.com)

For May, the Hypermind BoardGamers chose what has become my favorite game as Game of the Month!, The Princes of Florence. The game is set in Renaissance Italy, where players assume the roles of wealthy patrons of the arts and sciences who are competing to gain the most prestige amongst their peers. That's the theme anyway, which I think works very well to give background and context to the action, but is not really all that necessary to how the game plays. To me, however, game play in "Princes" is all about managing limited resources, which I'll talk about in depth later. All in all, I think that The Princes of Florence is the most clever and interesting game that I've ever played, and I've been looking forward to this chance to share some of what I've learned so far about it.

Components and Setup

There are four basic areas in which play occurs:

1) In the central area is a common tracking board which includes a turn marker and a scoring track. In addition to keeping up with the overall "prestige" score, this scoring track is also used to temporarily record the value of each player's completed works for the current round.

2) To one side of the central board, you usually arrange all of the components used in the auction phase of the game. Items which can be bought only at auction include Landscapes (Forests, Lakes, and Parks), Builders, Jesters, Prestige cards, and Recruiter cards.

3) On the other side of the scoring track board, there are placed all the items which can be obtained during the action phase of each turn. These include Buildings, Freedoms (of Religion, Travel, and Opinion), Profession cards, and Bonus cards.

4) Finally, each player has their own player board, which contains space representing their "palazzo" (where most of their purchases are placed) as well as quite a bit of reference information about the different professions, turn order, actions, and scoring.


All of the components (of the Rio Grande version, anyway) are of moderate to high quality. The boards have a little tendency to warp, but not enough to affect game play. The cards are nice but perhaps a little thin. The player pawns and markers are nicely colored wood. And the other components (Buildings, Landscapes, Jesters, Builders, and Freedoms) are made of standard weight cardboard.

Overall, the art is nice and not too obtrusive. The graphic design lends significantly to the theme while not proving to be too much of a distraction on either the cards or the boards. There is even a nice box insert which has spaces adequate to hold all of the bits in a more-or-less organized way.

To set up, each player is given a player board and the matching colored markers. Each player is given 3500 Florin (which I assume is what they called their money back in Renaissance Italy) and four Profession cards, from which they choose three to keep. The central board and pieces are arranged as I indicated earlier, with the player pawns on the "0" space of the scoring track, and a starting player is chosen.

Basic Gameplay

Like I've already mentioned, The Princes of Florence takes place over 7 rounds, each of which is divided into two phases (auction and action), with the goal being to accumulate the most Prestige. The main way to do this is to complete "works" by playing Profession cards while having certain components already in place to increase the value of these works. I'm now going to go into a pretty detailed explanation of how the game is played, so if you already know how to play or just don't care to read all of it, just skip down to "What I think..." for my commentary on the game.

Each round begins with an Auction Phase. The starting player for that phase chooses one of the available items and starts the bidding at 200 Florin. Going around the table, players can continue to raise the bid in increments of 100 Florin until all but one person passes. Whoever was the highest bidder takes that item and places his marker on the remaining stack of that item, which may not be auctioned again that round. If the starting player did not win the auction, they begin again with a different item; otherwise, the next player gets to choose and start the next auction. This continues until everyone has won an auction (with the last player just paying 200 Florin and taking one of the remaining items, but they may also choose not to buy anything if there is nothing they want).

The different items available for auction are:

-Landscapes (Forests, Lakes, and Parks) - These provide 3 work value if preferred for a particular Profession. Multiples of the same landscape don't add more to the work value, but provide a one-time bonus of 3 Prestige Points (PP) to their owner's score. They each have a particular shape and when purchased must immediately be placed onto the palazzo. Palazzos (palazzi?) only have a certain amount of space, and landscapes and buildings have to be fit in "Tetris"-style and may never be rearranged once placed.

-Builders - Each player may obtain up to three Builders during the game. The first one for a player reduces the cost to build buildings from 700 Florin to 300 Florin. Normally, buildings may not be adjacent to one another in your palazzo, but a second Builder allows this to happen. And the third Builder a player owns allows them to build buildings for free. In addition, the second and third builder earn their owner a one-time bonus of 3 PP.

-Jesters - Apparently, having nutty acrobats and funny men around must have helped the great minds of the Renaissance churn out better work, because having a Jester adds 2 work value to every work you complete.

-Prestige Cards - These are kind of like "secret mission" cards. They have some condition that must be met at the end of the game (having the most Jesters, having the least empty space in your palazzo, having one building of each size category, etc.) as well as listing a certain amount of PP that will be earned if successfully completed. When won, the player takes the top 5 cards and chooses which one they would like to keep, then replacing the rest to the bottom of the stack (which is true of pretty much all cards except Recruiters).

-Recruiter Cards - These allow you to steal a completed Profession card from another player and complete that work yourself. All are the same and let you steal any profession, so you don't need to "draw 5 and choose one". While in your hand, they count as Profession cards (more on that later).

After the auction phase is complete, the starting player takes his or her Action Phase. They get to perform two actions from the list below. Some may be chosen twice by a player, while others may only be taken once each round.

-Buy a Building - For 700 Florin, the player chooses one of the remaining buildings and places it immediately in his or her palazzo. There are three sizes of buildings: Large - which is preferred by 3 different Professions but takes up 7 spaces on the palazzo, Medium - which is preferred by 2 different Professions and takes up 5 spaces on the palazzo, and Small - which is preferred by only 1 Profession but only takes up 3 spaces on the palazzo. Buying a building gives an immediate bonus of 3 PP, and having the preferred building for a Profession adds 4 points to their work value. This action may be chosen twice.

-Buy a Freedom - For 300 Florin, the player chooses one of the remaining Freedoms (of Religion, Travel, or Opinion). Having the preferred Freedom adds 3 points to a Profession's work value. This action may only be chosen once each action phase by a particular player.

-Buy a Profession Card - For 300 Florin, a player takes the top 5 Profession cards and chooses one to keep. In addition to being available to complete as a work, each Profession card a player has either in hand or already completed on the table adds 1 point to work value for completing a work. Players may only purchase one Profession card per round.

-Buy a Bonus Card - For 300 Florin, a player takes the top 5 Bonus cards and chooses one to keep. Similar to Prestige cards, these cards have some condition listed on them, but they provide a bonus to work value rather than to Prestige. Therefore, when completing a work, a player may use as many bonus cards as they like to increase the total work value. Players may use both actions to buy bonus cards if they so choose.

-Complete a Work - As either one or both actions of the round, a player may play one of her Profession cards as a completed "work". The work value is then calculated based on the different preferred items that they currently have in place: 4 value for the preferred Building, 3 value for the preferred Landscape, 3 value for the preferred Freedom, 2 value for each Jester, 1 point for each Profession card in hand or play, and then the appropriate value for each Bonus card played. In order to even complete a work, it must be of a certain value depending on which round you are in. For instance, in the first round, players may complete works of value 7 or higher, but in the final round they must be worth at least 17. One a player has played the Profession card and calculated the work value, they are given 100 Florin for each point of work value. At this point, they may immediately buy 1 Prestige Point (final score) for each 200 Florin they wish to spend from the money they have just obtained. In addition, the player who completes the single work of the highest value in a round gets 3 bonus PP as well.

What I think...

Okay, so I call The Princes of Florence my favorite game... But why? It's almost a cliché these days to say that a game forces you to make "difficult decisions", but Princes seems to define this whole idea for me. At its core, this game is all about managing limited resources. You've got limited money, limited time (only 7 rounds), limited actions, limited availability of items, and limited space (in your palazzo). It requires you to make long-term plans early on, but also forces you to make tactical changes to your strategy based on the actions of your opponents. You have to decide at what point you must win an auction versus when you can just pick it up later. You have to figure out whether to go ahead and complete a work now and get the money you need or wait until next round when it will be worth more. You have to decide if you should buy that last freedom now or wait until later, hoping that no one else buys it first. Every round and every action is riddled with such decisions, and the sense of tension it brings is just exhilarating!

But the genius of the design, in my opinion, is that along with such a tight economy of resources, there is also a terribly wide breadth of viable strategies available. In addition to all the other reasons I'm giving here, one of things that is most fun for me is experimenting with these different strategies. For example, in previous games I had dabbled with using only the "generic" work value boosters (Jesters and Profession cards, as opposed to Profession-specific items like Buildings and Landscapes) and had a little success, so on the first week of May I decided to go all out for this "Jester" strategy. By the end of the game, I had 4 Jesters, one Building, one Freedom, and had completed nine (!) different works, finishing with 77 points and beating the next closest opponent by more than a dozen prestige. Then, one of the next times I played I went for a "Builder" strategy, filling up my palazzo with buildings and winning on the strength of two Prestige cards.

But along with developing these long-term strategies, you also have to react to the short-term conditions that change from opponent to opponent, game to game, and even round to round. One complaint I've read from some people about Princes is that the game is essentially "multi-player solitaire". But I just don't think that this complaint holds water. With the auction mechanic, the limited numbers of many resources, and the competition for best work, there are lots of ways where players "get in each others' way", both intentionally and unintentionally. While it may not be interaction in a "I'm invading your palazzo, killing your Builders and molesting your Jesters" kind of way, the economic and opportunity-loss competition involved here can have just as real an impact on other players.

The other thing I really love about this game is the real sense of "building something" that I feel. You start with a plan, invest in it from time to time while also covering contingencies that arise, and then at the end get to see if your efforts succeed or fall flat. Along with this also comes that sense of tension that I mentioned earlier. As the rounds progress, you can feel time slipping away as you try to get all your pieces in place. Every round there are four or five things you'd like to do, but you can only choose the three you need the most. And then at the end of the game, you make that one, last play to try and push yourself over the edge, hoping that it will be enough to claim victory. Just thinking about it gets me a little excited! (Yeah, I agree. Maybe I've got a problem...)

I could literally keep writing for pages and pages more, but I'll be merciful and stop here, hoping that my love and respect for this game have been made clear to you. So, on to my final judgment.

The Verdict!

-Rules: Simple bits that are put together to form an exceptionally complex whole. It usually takes playing through one game to get people to really understand how to compete in the game, but understanding the rules themselves is relatively simple.
-Downtime: Never enough. The auction phase involves everyone, and having only 2 actions a turn keeps things moving well. The downtime involved is needed to plan your next moves.
-Length: With experienced players, games run just over an hour. The limited turns and natural tension of the game make this seem even shorter, though.
-Player Interaction: Very little directly, but competition for resources generates lots of indirect interaction (see above).
-Weight: Medium Heavy. Rules are medium weight, but thought and strategy can be heavy and intense at times.
-GamerChris' Rating: To me, this is everything that a modern board game should be. I could never see myself turning down a game, so I rate it a legendary 10.



(Edited to reflect the actual rules of the game... see comments below.)