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The Game
The Princes of Florence is a game of strategy and planning first, a game of bluff and tactics second. A good player will go in with the intention of executing one of the three “mainline” strategies, playing to execute the strategy to the best of his ability, but knowing when to abandon the main line and take what the game gives.
It is worth noting that The Princes of Florence plays differently in its three incarnations. The three-player game is a game of efficiency. A player can likely execute his chosen strategy with little resistance as there is less competition for resources. The five-player game is chaotic, with each player unlikely to be able to execute a coherent mainline strategy due to resource scarcity. This article attempts to describe a four-player game, but its ideas can be extrapolated to the three- and five-player games if the above comments are integrated.
Auction and Action
While the auction and action phases of the game are distinct, they are joined at the hip. Each succeeding auction or couplet of actions is influenced by the preceding and succeeding phase, subject to the planned strategy. To wit: You ideally want all of the jesters you plan to buy before you play your first work, in order to maximize their worth. Also, timing of planned auction purchases or actions can be influenced by the turn order. Therefore, one must think of the game as seven auctions, seven pairs of actions, alternating, instead of it being seven turns with an auction and action phase each.
Game Start
The game always begins with the four Person cards you are dealt. Common requirements are of course desirable. I would argue they are desirable in the following order:
1) Common landscape
2) Common building
3) Common freedom
The reason for this hierarchy is that landscapes are auction items, and are therefore scarcer. If you have played the game before, I guarantee you sometimes end up with an action you don’t know how to use, but you never have an auction where you don’t want anything. (I have seen actions passed, but never auctions.) Common buildings are important because buildings are the most expensive Work Value boosters in the game, in terms of both time and money. Having a pair of Persons with a common building is a significant advantage to begin a game with.
The Auction
Valuing the auction items, or ‘how much should I bid?’
Each item in the game translates itself into Work Value, and therefore into Florins and Prestige Points.
1 WV = 1 Fl. = 0.5 PP
This key formula is the only thing you need to know how much you should bid as a maximum. However, it is only a guide, and it won’t really help you decide *what* you should bid for. More on that later.
Jester, Juggler, Entertainer or Gaukler
The Jester is the most powerful item in the game, adding 2 WV to any and all works. There is no limit to the number of jesters a player can have. Therefore, the basic formula for valuing a jester is:
2 WV x # of works you plan to play x 100 Fl
Note that only you can decide how many works you plan to play. In a typical four-player game, you can expect to play six works (21 person cards / 4 = 5, + 1 Recruiter) on the average. Therefore, the ‘break even’ value of the Jester is 1200 Fl. In a five-player game, this goes down to five works on the average, unless you have second seat or are confident you can win two Recruiters. Therefore, on the average, bid no more than 1000 Fl for a jester in a five-player game.
As the game progresses, the value of the jester begins to decrease as works are played by each player, decreasing the expected returns from the investment. You might value the jester higher if you need one to make it to minimum work value, but there are other cheaper ways to get that done. We’ll talk about this later.
Recruiter Card
The recruiter has two distinct effects – it increases the WV of all the works you subsequently play by one and it becomes a Person card and thus an extra work. Therefore, you can value it as:
(# of works you plan to play x 100 Fl) + (expected WV x 100)
In many cases, the Recruiter Card is the most underestimated and undervalued item in a Princes of Florence auction. As long as your plans have at least one spare action to play the work brought in by the Recruiter, chances are you can make a tidy profit on it.
Builder, Architect or Baumeister
The Builder is an interesting item. It gives an incremental advantage on its second and third instance, and it also provides 3PP in the same cases. Valuation follows:
First builder: # of buildings you expect to buy x 400 Fl
Second builder: (incremental # of buildings you expect to buy x 400 Fl) + (3PP x 200 Fl)
Third builder: (# of buildings you expect to buy x 300PP) + (3PP x 200 Fl)
Prestige Card
This is as easy to value as it is random. However, accurate valuation requires that you know all 14 Prestige Cards, what they do, how much each can reward you, and which of them you can use at the time you win. Early in the game, you can almost safely say that you’ll make money on it, because you can tailor your game to convert the card. Late in the game, however, luck becomes a greater factor, as you’re hoping to draw a card that can help you, and you have little to no auctions or actions left to fulfill conditions you don’t already meet.
Remember, if you don’t meet the conditions on the card, it’s worthless. A draw is 3-4 PP. A full conversion is 6-8 PP. A worthless Prestige Card in a close game is crippling, so be careful. However, if you can’t win without converting one, check out your position and see which Prestige Cards you can fulfill. If there aren’t any, then there’s no real use in purchasing one late in the game.
Note that you can purchase Prestige Cards early in the game and work the requirements to fulfill them into your plans. This can be a strong play in a game where Prestige Cards are undervalued in early turns, and people are spending huge sums on jesters, builders and recruiters. In theory, one Prestige Card is about the equivalent of a medium-sized work, so it can be the edge in a tight game where everyone plays similar numbers of works.
Landscapes (Forest, Lake, Park)
Landscapes are often ignored, but proper play on them can mean the difference between a win and a loss.
It is critical to remember that an incremental landscape of the same kind is worth an automatic 3PP. Since you can oftentimes get a landscape for the minimum bid of 200 Fl, that’s a 400 Fl / 2 PP gain right there. In addition, five Prestige Cards are centered on landscapes, and three more have them as components. Buying an early Prestige can set up landscape plays later in the game. In most games, a player will ‘fall back’ to a landscape at least once after having been outbid for a more lucrative item. Make that count by planning what other uses the landscape choice can potentially have other than being +3 on a work or two.
Actions
Purchase Person Card
Unless you’re going to try for the pure Builder strategy, this is a no-brainer. If there’s a Person Card available, buy one. You not only get a +1 WV boost to all future works, you get to play one more work and you deny someone else one more work. The only time you might want to hold off is in a three-player game when you won’t have enough actions to play all the works.
As stated in the Game Start section, planning for common resources always factors into the choice of Person Card to take.
Purchase Freedom
Other than giving +3 WV to some works, they are central to one PP and components to another. Not great. There is usually little reason to purchase all three Freedoms unless you have the All Three Freedoms Prestige Card. You can get by with as little as one freedom up to four players, but usually need at least two in a five-player game.
One good reason to snap up a freedom you can’t immediately use is to deny another player a freedom he needs. If you only really need one freedom for the Persons you have in hand, and you see that there is one freedom of one type left, then it might be advantageous for you to purchase it. The one other player might need it, and it will probably be useful when playing Recruiters later in the game.
Purchase Bonus Card
I consider this the most advanced play of the game. Nothing can help a player’s cause more than a well-placed Bonus Card, especially in a five-player game. There are three reasons to purchase and play a Bonus Card.
The first and weakest play is for extra WV for cash or PP. This is sort of pointless, and shouldn’t be the reason to use a valuable action. The second is purely defensive, and that’s to meet minimum WV. A player should plan to meet minimum WV via infrastructure rather than via Bonus Cards. If circumstances work against you, so be it. However, I would consider this a waste that can be avoided. The third and best reason to purchase and play Bonus Cards is to win the Best Work Award for a turn. Thus, not only do you get the extra WV/Fl/PP, you get 3 PP more for free. This is a very strong play, and it is essential to doing well, especially in a five-player game.
Again, it is beneficial to know all 20 Bonus Cards, so you can determine how many can help you at any point in the game. It is also important to note what Bonus Cards the other players have used.
Purchase Building
It is too expensive to build a building at 700 Fl just to boost one work (or even worse, to get one work to minimum WV). (+400Fl + 600Fl – 700 Fl = 300 Fl) Don’t plan to do that. It becomes more tolerable at 300 Fl (with one or two Builders) (+400 Fl +600 Fl – 300 Fl = 700 Fl, slightly better than the gain for an incremental landscape) If the building boosts two works, it becomes a good play even at 700 Fl. It becomes very strong early in the game when the +4 WV can help win the Best Work Award in the first three turns.
Buildings are also key elements in satisfying Prestige and Bonus Cards. Three Prestige Cards deal directly with buildings, and another has them as a component.
When positioning buildings on the play mat, plan ahead for later purchases. This is particularly important when planning to build seven or even eight buildings (but beware that eight buildings precludes two large ones).
Play Work
As a rule of thumb, in a three-player game, play seven or eight works. In a four-player game, play six to seven works. In a five-player game, play five to six works. Save Recruiters for late in the game, to give you a better choice of targets. A look at the situations of other players can tell you whether or not they’ll recruit one of your Persons, so play that work and let your Person be taken. Recruit him back for a strong play, especially if you have all three requirements met.
Try not to play more than one work purely for Florin. If you’re forced to play two full works for Florin, you’re probably bidding too much for resources.
The early turns should be about building infrastructure so that you won’t be concerned with minimum WVs later in the game. However, never hesitate to play a work if you are certain that you’ll win the Best Work Award. This is most effective if you are last in turn sequence, and no one will have the chance to top your work. Otherwise, check the situations of the other players and estimate their ability to play a stronger work. It’s not too hard unless they’re all holding Bonus Cards. (As a gauge, it would be rare for a bonus card to give anything more than a +6, less if early in the game.)
Putting it all together (The Mainline Strategies)
Remember that I said Princes of Florence is a planning game? Well, there are two main lines that one can play. You can look to play as many works as you can get, with as many jesters to back them up. If you can win the jesters and the recruiters, you can reasonably play up to nine works in one game. The other strategy is to abandon jesters and works altogether, and get three builders as early as you can, then win Prestige Cards in the last four auctions. These two main lines can be completed, but not very often as your opponents will likely prevent it.
“The Fool’s Game”, or, “Jesters Work”
Shopping List:
Auctions: Jesters, Recruiters, Landscapes, Prestige Cards
Actions: Persons, Freedoms, Works
Probable Ending Inventory (4P game):
Auctions: 3 Jesters, 2 Recruiters, 2 Landscapes
Actions: 4 Persons, 2 Freedoms, 8 Works
To play The Fool’s Game, win Jesters as early as you can. Pay up to 1200 Fl for one, or 1300 if your opponents are savvy with the game and know the 1200 Fl breakpoint. Mix in a couple of recruits, three if you can. But a person every turn until they’re all gone. Match up the requirements if you can, but it isn’t necessary. You should get five or six persons. With your two to three recruiters, you’ll have a base hand value of eight. With three jesters, your base hand value will be 14. At that point, simply matching one landscape or one freedom will get you to 17 WV. Match two and get to 20. You’ll probably have to use up to two works for cash in the earlier rounds, but try to do nothing but play fully-loaded works with your last six actions. That will give you at least 48PP, which is rarely enough to win a 4P game. Every PP you can squeeze out of your first two works will help your cause. Every work that you can match both Freedom and Landscape to will also help immensely. When playing this strategy, you need to watch your bidding – if you pay too much for jesters and recruits, you will lose even with three or four jesters.
“Build Me a Home”, or, “Builder’s Prestige”
Shopping List:
Auctions: Builders, Prestige Cards, Recruiter
Actions: Buildings, Bonus Cards
Probable Ending Inventory (4P game):
Auctions: 3 Builders, 3 Prestige Cards, 1 Recruiter
Actions: 7 Buildings, 3 Bonus Cards, 4 Works
Perhaps the hardest strategy to execute, Builder’s Prestige relies on flexibility and shrewd bidding. You need to get three Builders by the fifth turn to have a chance. You must also stretch your starting 3500 Fl as far as it will go. If you can get through the game without needing to take money from works, you’re in good shape.
Ideal Builder’s Game:
Turn One: Win Builder, Build, Play Work (must win Best Work Award)
Turn Two: Win Builder, Buy 2 Bonus Cards
Turn Three: Win Builder, Build, Play Work (with Bonus Card, win Best Work Award)
Turn Four: Win Prestige Card, Build, Play Work (with Bonus Card, win Best Work Award)
And so on.
If you see the pattern, it relies on making the most of its three or four works to get the early Best Work Awards, using Bonus Cards. Luckily, there are several Bonus Cards that work will with buildings and builders. There are exactly four Prestige Cards that will help: Two Large Buildings, Least Empty Spaces, Most Buildings, and Most Builders. You need three of the four to have a good shot at winning. Remember to manipulate the Prestige Card deck if you run into two in the same pull.
This strategy scores this way:
3 Builders = 6 PP
7 Buildings = 21 PP
4 Works = 20 PP (5 PP average, on the low side)
2 Best Work Awards = 6 PP
3 Prestige Cards = 20 PP
Total = 73 PP
That’s more than enough to win a 4P game. Even with just two Prestige Cards you have a decent shot at winning the game. The hardest part of this strategy is winning auctions. If you are forced to spend a lot more than your beginning 3500 Fl, you're probably in trouble.
The Middle Route
Probable Ending Inventory (4P game):
Auctions: 1 Jester, 1 Builder, 1 Recruiter, 1 Prestige Card, 3 Landscapes
Actions: 2 Persons, 2 Freedoms, 6 Works, 3 Buildings, 1 Bonus Card
Of course, most games (especially 5P games) will end up with one having to take what the game gives you, for the lowest price possible. Therefore, If you can’t win jesters for less than premium price, or if your opponents won’t let you have builders or Prestige Cards cheap, then you play for least cost – a little of everything.
This is where person management becomes vital – the more common requirements you can produce, the better chances for victory are. This is especially true if you can match buildings up, and if you can entice your opponents to recruit your persons away so you can take them back and play them again. If you can get away with just one landscape type, so much the better, because then you can acquire the same landscape again for a cheap 3 PP gain. Finally, if you can win two or three Best Work Awards, there’s a great chance of winning the game. It all comes down to watching the opponents, the turn sequence, and playing the right works at the right time.
Finally, in all cases prudent bidding is always important. The more your opponents pay for the auction items, the better chance you stand of winning. The less you pay for things you can use, the better chance you have of winning. Each 200 Fl beyond your starting 3500 Fl is always worth 1PP.
Good luck, Prince.
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Fredrik Borg
Sweden
Lund
Skåne
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Fawkes (#36487),
thanx for a great article! I enjoyed reading it a lot. PoF is a great game.
Fredrik.
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Daniel Harrison
Australia
Sydney
NSW
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
FYI I have posted an experimental 'recipe-like' strategy for the five player game at the end of the article 'what builder strategy?' by montu.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/35613
The end result is similar to the The Middle Route strategy in many respects.
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Fawkes (#36487),
Thanks for the article ... it's just what I was looking for! I do OK, but just not consistent against some of those BSW players! Hopefully, this will help! ???
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Hiya snooze;
Haven't been to BSW in a long time. Don't worry, I get my ass kicked a lot there. Those Germans that play regularly (JIM, FTA, Pitjes, etc) are really, really good.  I should visit soon for my regular ass-kicking 
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
harro (#37765),
I read through your article and what jumped out at me is that you ignored Prestige Cards completely. In a 5P game, converted Prestige Cards are the margin between winning and losing. Since each player will be limited to around five works (4 Persons + 1 Recruiter) on the average (unless you have second seat), Prestiges need to fill the void. The bidding will likely take jesters and recruits into the price stratosphere, especially in the early going. That's when I like to buy a couple of Prestige Cards and complete them, giving me the equivalent of around 7 works at little or no cost. Try to choose the Prestiges that require actions rather than auctions to complete, unless they're landscape-based (All Three Landscapes, Most of a Landscape Type).
Good Prestige Card play in a 5P game = strong play. 
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Daniel Harrison
Australia
Sydney
NSW
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Fawkes (#38344),
Not completely, they are part of the fall back position mentioned in 'Auction rounds 4-6' and they are a significant component of the 'Auction round 7' paragraph. I had considered them not as valuable as the first landscape. That is why I don't mention them for Auction rounds 1-3.
You are probably right, I understate their significance.
Thanks.
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Chester Ogborn
United States
Albuquerque
New Mexico
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Richard, I think your formula for estimating maximum bid has one caveat that is worth mentioning. (1 WV = 1 Fl. = 0.5 PP)
You gave the example of a Jester and estimating his possible return based on the number of works completed. However, if the item causes you to win Best Work on a turn, then its possible that your return will exceed the maximum return of the formula.
I'm nitpicking, certainly, but if (theoretically) you are down to an auction and are vying with one other player for the lead...it could be very beneficial to 'overbid' and win the auction. If that's the difference between you winning Best Work and your opponent, that is a potential swing of 6 PP.
I grant that it would be difficult to have enough information to know that this is indeed the case during the auction phase...but its a theoretic possibility. In fact, the simple formula you posted assumes that your opponents scores are not diminished by denying them a particular item. While conceptually I agree with this formula as a rule of thumb, its important to recognize there are times to break that rule. If denying your opponent an item will diminish his score by more than your 'overbid' amount...do it, if you are sure that he/she is your most immediate competition.
I'm sure you are aware of all this, but I just wanted to comment on your great article. I sure do dig red!
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
That's a great point Ches, and one well worth making.
The Best Work award is one of the main weapons of a good PoF player. You describe a way to vie for it using an auction. The more common case in my experience is burning an extraneous action (if just for timing's sake and not for action count) to purchase a Bonus card which you can then sandbag for use later to win the Best Work award.
One needs to be aware of the other main option in the waning turns - buying an incremental landscape. If you engage in the cited bidding war for the jester, and it goes to an amount exceeding your expected returns, it's good to think about bailing and just taking an incremental landscape. It won't cause the swing, but it will neutralize the gain. It all depends on how high the bidding goes, and how much cash you have left.
Maybe Gerald can cover this line of play in his imminent PoF strategy article.
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Jason Little
United States
Eden Prairie
Minnesota
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Great article, Fawkes -- insightful, clever, well written. Can't wait to try some of these strategies out...
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Togu Oppusunggu
United States
New York
New York
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Re:Fawkes's Princes of Florence Strategy Guide
Thanks for the article, Fawkes. It's given me insight as to why many consider PoF to be a great game.
Just extending on cornjob's comments on your analysis, I sort of didn't see why one would bid $1200 on a jester if there's no net gain from doing so. So I kind of agree with cornjob that a main benefit is their ability to help gain Best Work bonuses. I think more important than even that is their value in helping gain minimum work value in each round, since their +2 to work value becomes permanent and applies to all works. Getting *two* or more jesters is a termendous advantage in trying to gain minimum value perpetually, so I think that is the main reason why bdding for jesters should be quite high.
By contrast, the first builder, according your analysis above, could be "worth" $1600 if you're building four buidlings, but you have to factor in the cost of buying specific buildings also to make use of the builder's benefit. (Hence, the builder becomes especially valuable if several works share the same buildings.)
Recruiter cards and profession cards are valuable like jesters in that their effect on work value is permanent and applicable in all works. Their incremental value of +1 is less than for jesters, but their value over jesters, of course, is that they can create more works.
Anyway, these are just musings about some dimensions to valuation that perhaps was not quite explicit in your analysis, though I'm sure you're fully aware of them. The more I think about about each category of items in Prince of Florence, the more I see how each item has a specific strength and weakness that allows for great variety in how stratgies develop. I'm also beginning to see that the more flexible a plan you have, the better you can afford to bid up prices on items that your opponents want.
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John Brier
United States
Aventura
Florida
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Fawkes is one of my best geekbuddies, so I'm sure he won't take this the wrong way, but I can't help but note as an experienced player that the real substance of the game is not so much strategic but tactical. I think the strategies are pretty clearly delineated in the general sense, and who wins the game often comes down to decisions made during and as a consequence of the auctions, and these are more tactical.
Of course, this article is useful as a beginners guide, but I think the finer points of the game are more subtle, which is what makes this the great game it is and not the constricted solitaire that some people accuse it of being.
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Alan Paull
United Kingdom
STROUD
Gloucestershire
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I agree, John. As in most types of resource management games, once players have the viable strategies off pat (and that includes the flexible middle-of-the-road ones), then winning is likely to come down to tactical tricks (or luck I guess).
I've noticed that in our group at least, there is a split between two types of player in resource management games. On the one hand, there is the 'efficiency' player, who plays to maximise score against the game system, for whom the other players are an inconvenience rather than the central factor. On the other hand, there is the 'competitor' player, who concentrates more on how his or her position relates to the other players, and cares less about maximising scores.
The competitor tends towards aggressive plays, will bid higher in auctions and will try to nick stuff that is important to rivals. He or she may constantly assess and review who is the leading rival and then gear auction tactics and purchases towards denying materials to that player. Against this type of player it pays NOT to be seen as the leader of the pack and there is the potential to exploit any over-aggressive play, for instance by tempting him or her to overbid.
The 'efficiency' player has usually analysed the game well in isolation, so will be familiar with the 'best' moves. Fawkes' article is particularly useful for this type of player, and all beginners probably need to start out like this, just to get a handle on the game. However the efficient player is vulnerable to plays that take into account the fact that, to win, you need to get more VPs than anyone else, NOT the maximum you can manage. As PoF is an auction game, there is a great deal of psychology involved. If you play with a regular group, then you get to know who tends to overbid or underbid, and you can exploit that. Also PoF lends itself to playing specific strategies, which can become obvious and therefore exploitable.
My guess is that the consistently successful PoF player is the efficient player who can play a flexible *strategy* that permits considerable tactical variation to exploit weak plays by opponents. The skill then boils down to recognising weak plays and knowing ones opponents! Not an easy task. It's also more difficult on BSW, because you cannot see the whites of the other players' eyes.
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John, likewise one of my best Geek/BSWbuddies, and Alan -
Like most games, PoF has a tactical element. It also has the psychological element of the auction. However, I challenge your characterization of the game as one that is less strategic than tactical.
Of all the games that I have played, PoF is the only one where by the third turn, you have to know *exactly* what you need to do over the course of the balance of the game. This does not eliminate the need to consider alternative plans, like "if I can win a jester for 1200fl or less in the next auction, my remaining eight actions will be play 7 works, build a Lab; if not, then I need to grab a forest and play works 13 and 21 in the next turn and hope for...". However, if you're still winging it by the fifth turn, you've probably lost.
You know exactly how much you want to spend in the auction, and which items you want (or more likely, need). This drives your planning in how much cash to have on hand. It's always a pleasant surprise to receive an item for less than you planned, but you did plan your spending regardless. Thus, the cash constraint makes the PoF auction more strategic than most. Values of everything are generally very discrete, from the 1200fl estimated barrier for the jesters, to the 200fl perceived value for the landscapes. To this day I still don't know why recruiters are often let go for so little.
If you want a strategic planning game, there is nothing better than The Princes of Florence.
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Aaron Pieper
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Great article. My playing partners pretty consistently undervalue Jesters and Recruitment cards, I'm glad to read this strategy guide which reaffirms their respective value!
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...Turn One: Win Builder, Build, Play Work (must win Best Work Award)...
How can you play the work with only One Building???
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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gatish wrote: ...Turn One: Win Builder, Build, Play Work (must win Best Work Award)...
How can you play the work with only One Building???
Minimum work value round 1 is 7.
You start with 3 profession cards.
Build a building: Adds 4 to the work value.
You can then publish at the minimum value of 7...remember, Profession cards in hand, Profession Cards previously played, and the Profession card that you are currently playing all add 1 to the work value.
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