| Manufacturer | Warfrog |
| Year | 2003 |
| Designer | Martin Wallace |
|
|
Princes of the Renaissance
Families
vie for control of cities in renaissance Italy, using war, gold,
influence and
treachery to achieve their goals. The latest from designer Martin
Wallace.
Martin
Wallace is quickly becoming one of my favorite designers. His games are
complex
and rick in theme. Age of Steam is one of my favorite games, and
Princes of the
Renaissance may soon gain that same designation.
The game
is played over three decades, (rounds), with the length of each decade
being
solely determined by the auctioning of four event tiles per decade.
When the
fourth event tile is auctioned off, the decade ends. The four event
tiles are
displayed, as are the Troop tiles, and six city tiles for each city. A
stack of
Treachery tiles are placed face down, usually with the troop tiles.
These are
the only tiles which are not openly displayed. The board shows five
Italian
cities, with a status track in the lower left-hand corner. Markers are
placed
on this track to show the current status of each city. ERRATA: The
starting
values of the cities was omitted from the game, they are Venice: 7,
Milan and
Florence: 6, Rome and Naples: 5. Each player is given 40 gold and 12
influence,
(the two types of currency in the game), to begin the game. Each player
then
selects a family, and the game begins.
1) They
can purchase a Treachery or Troop tile. Treachery tiles cost one gold
and one
influence, and Troop tiles cost between one and six gold, depending
upon the
type of troop represented. ERRATA: A player can only purchase one troop
tile of
each type.
2) A
player can put a tile up for auction. These can be either one of the
city
tiles, or one of the event tiles, or the Pope. City tiles are always
auctioned
using gold, and the player that chooses to auction a city tile must
make the
first bid, AND the starting bid must be at least two times the current
status
value of the city. So to auction a Venice tile at the start of the game
will
require a starting bid of at least 14 gold. Bidding is standard "around
the table until all players have passed but one", type of bidding.
Event
tiles are auctioned using either gold or influence, depending on the
tile in
question. The player who chooses to auction one of these can
immediately pass,
and they can also make a zero bid.
3) The
player can choose to start a war between two cities. When a player
chooses to
start a war, that player decides which city will be attacking which
other city.
An auction is then held, paid with influence, to determine which
player's army
will be the condotierre representing the attacking city. After that has
been
determined, another auction is held to determine who will be
condotierre for
the defending city. Any player with at least one troop tile can be the
attacker
or the defender, (although not both). The attacking player adds up the
attack
values of their troops, and the defender adds up the defense value of
their
troops. Both sides roll one six-sided die, which is added to the troop
values.
If the attacker is higher, that city wins. If not, then the defender
gets to
counter-attack, adding up the attack values of their troops and
comparing that
to the defense value of the attacker's troops. Again the dice are
rolled. If
the original defender beats the original attacker, the defending city
has won
the war. IF a city wins a war, its status marker is moved up one space,
and the
losing city's status is lowered by one. If the winner's total value was
twice
as big as the defender's total, then two steps of status are
gained/lost.
Regardless of the outcome of the battle, the condotierres for the
cities
involved receive gold equal to the status of the city they represented,
although they don't get to collect that gold until the end of the
decade. The
winning condotierre, if there is one, receives a "laurel" chit, which
will be worth victory points at the end of the game. A maximum of 5
wars, (4
when playing with less than 5 players), can be fought per decade.
4) The
player can choose to pass and do nothing.
So
players take turns performing these actions until all four event tiles
have
been auctioned off. The decade ends and each player collects the gold
earned
for being condotierre, plus gold and influence from the tiles they have
purchased. If this is the end of the third decade, the players add up
their
victory points.
Victory points come from
a bunch of different places. Laurels
for winning wars score based on how many you have, where the first
scores one,
the second two, the third three, etc. So four laurels will score you 10
VPs.
There are event tiles which represent artists which score from 2 to 4
VPs. Most
gold at the end will get you 6 VPs, and second most gold will get you 3
VPs.
Most influence will win you 4 VPs. IF you have the pope in the last
decade, it
will get you 3 VPs. Then there are the city tiles. When the game ends,
the
cities are arranged from highest status to lowest status, with various
criteria
for tie-breaking. Each city tile from the city with the highest status
is worth
10 VPs down to each city tile for the lowest status city being worth 2
VPs.
As you
can see from the above description, there's quite a bit going on in
this game,
and I didn't even discuss the Treachery tiles nor the function of the
Pope. Nor
did I mention the fact that each family has a special ability, and
about half
of the city tiles give their owners some additional special benefit as
well.
Treachery tiles allow a player to steal gold or influence from a
player, bribe
a troop tile to remove it from a battle, freeze a player's bid in any
of the
auctions, veto a war before it starts or start an extra war in a
decade. The
Pope can form a "Holy League" once per decade, and throw the troops
of the Pope's owner into a battle on whichever side the player chooses,
and
allowing the Pope player to use Bribe Troop tiles in that battle. The
wars are
very interesting, as if you have a terrible army, and a city you have
city tiles
for is attacked, you can try to win the auction for the attacking city,
therefore deliberately losing the war, and helping your city. You must
carefully allocate how you are going to spend your gold and influence,
as there
is nothing worse than having all of the players but one out of gold,
and being
forced to watch that player win city tile auctions for the minimum bid.
There
are not only several viable overall strategies to follow in this game,
there is
also the need to recognize tactical opportunities that arise as well.
In this
regard I find Princes of the Renaissance to be a lot like Puerto Rico,
as the
interaction of what options are available and what each player is going
to want
to see happen play a huge role in how the game progresses.
There seem
to be two schools of thought as to why this isn't a great game. The
first is
the repetitive nature of the game, because it is a long game, and it's
pretty
much all auctions. If you dislike auctions, you won't want to play this
game.
It tends to run from around 2-4 hours, and some will be turned off
right there.
I think it's a very worthwhile 2-4 hours, but some people simply won't
want to
invest that kind of time in a game. It also has a rather steep learning
curve,
not in terms of the rules themselves, which are actually fairly simple,
but in
terms of how the interactions of the tiles work and how one can form a
coherent
strategy from those interactions. The other big complaint about the
game has
been the feeling that there is one overpowering strategy that will win
almost
every time. I saw this in the first game I played, where one player
absolutely
ran away with the game, but I haven't seen it since.
| Strategy: | 9 |
| Complexity: | 9 |
| Fun: | 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |