{"id":3909,"date":"2003-10-31T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2003\/10\/31\/princes-of-the-renaissance\/"},"modified":"2003-10-31T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-10-31T11:00:00","slug":"princes-of-the-renaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2003\/10\/31\/princes-of-the-renaissance\/","title":{"rendered":"Princes Of The Renaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Princes Of The Renaissance<\/a><\/h2>\n

Review by Moritz Eggert<\/h3>\n

One of the games that I awaited most in Essen was this new offering from Martin
\nWallace, who is increasingly becoming one of the best and prolific game designers in the
\ngaming world. So it was easy to talk everybody into trying out this game immediately
\nafter the fair.<\/p>\n

“Princes of the Renaissance” (or PotR) is thematically very close to games
\nlike “Princes of Florence” or “Age of Renaissance” – Players are
\nnoble families in Renaissance Italy who vie for power and influence in the various large
\ncities of the time. The game covers three decades of intrigue and war, and each decade
\nequals one round with an undetermined number of player actions (a decade ends when all 4
\nevent cards of the decade have been auctioned off). After the third decade, victory
\npoints are counted (quite an involved process – but more about that later) and the winner
\nis decided.<\/p>\n

First each player selects a noble house of the 6 available ones – each family has one
\nsmall special ability connected to one of the game mechanisms, two families can buy
\nartists (most of the events are artists who give you victory points or raise the status
\nof cities) one gold cheaper for example. As you buy perhaps 2 or 3 in a complete game
\nthis is not really that big an advantage – you save only 2-3 gold!<\/p>\n

Then the game begins: On the relatively small board the 5 major Italian cities of the
\ntime are depicted: Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence and Milan. Each city has a marker which
\nshows its status at the beginning of the game: Status can range from 3 (lowest) to 10
\n(highest). \"PrincesATTENTION: The first edition
\nmisses any mention of where these makers start – These are the correct starting
\npositions: Venice 7, Florence\/Milan 6, Rome\/Naples 5!<\/p>\n

Each city has 6 tiles connected to it which can be bought after a player auctions them
\noff. These tiles work a little like shares in 1830 – The city status will change during
\nthe game through wars and artists, and at the end of the game the value of the city’s
\nstatus will be transformed into a point value between 10 and 2 that will be the net value
\nof each of the owned tiles. A player can buy a maximum of 6 tiles of up to three
\ndifferent cities, so great care has to be taken when buying tiles.<\/p>\n

In addition all tiles have some special ability, which is historically flavoured.
\nMerchants earn money, the Borgia family excels in treachery and gets free treachery tiles
\n(see below), some historical personalities give bonuses with certain army tiles, and so
\non. The different abilities are quite daunting at first play (one has a selection of 5×6
\ntiles plus the pope tile at the beginning of the game), and you should take your time to
\nlook at and explain all the city tiles before starting the game, as they are the most
\nimportant element of the game.<\/p>\n

Each player takes one action when it’s his\/her turn. One can either buy one tile
\nof the various groups of army tiles (these give bonuses in defence or attack when war
\nlooms) or one of the random treachery tiles, using the two currencies of the game,
\ninfluence (square tokens) and money (round tokens). Treachery tiles function like event
\ncards that give players advantages – one tile paralyzes one army tile in war through
\nbribe, another prevents the next player from bidding higher than you, and so on.<\/p>\n

Or one can auction off a city or event tile – the first bid of a city tile has to be
\ndouble its influence, so successful cities become increasingly expensive! The third
\noption (apart of simply passing) is starting a war, which is always very exciting. The
\nwarmonger determines an attacking city and a defending city. Then “condottiere”
\nrights are auctioned off, first for the attacking city, then for the defending city. Each
\ncondottiere also earns the value of the city in money as a fee for fighting, but this can
\nonly be collected at the end of the decade. Now each combatant rolls a die, adding the
\nvarious bonuses of his armies and special abilities. The higher result wins – now the
\nwinning city gains one status (or two, if the result was double that of the defender),
\nand the losing loses one (or 2) status. In addition the winning condottiere gets one
\n“victory” marker, the more you have of them the more dramatic the victory point
\ngain.<\/p>\n

There can be a maximum of 4-5 wars per decade (depending on the number of players),
\nbut it is also possible to have a couple of “extra” wars by playing certain
\ntreachery tiles.<\/p>\n

Players can either “push” the decade end by auctioning off the 4 event
\ntiles, or delay it as long as possible. But before long money and influence run out, and
\nthe actions become increasingly limited – so one moves on to the next decade. Now each
\nplayer gets his basic allowance in money and influence, which can be increased by income
\nfrom wars and income from special tiles owned (for example “Merchants”).<\/p>\n

A special tile deserves to be mentioned: The Pope, which is a single tile that
\n“leaves” the player after one decade. The Pope gives the special ability of
\nbeing (once per decade) able to assist another player in a war without being part of it.
\nThe Pope becomes especially interesting in the last decade, when he gives 3 extra Victory
\npoints.<\/p>\n

After the third decade the game ends. Now each city tile gives VP’s as explained
\nabove, but also other tiles like artists might give extra points. The player with the
\nmost and second most money gets 6 or 3 VP’s, the player with the most influence 4.
\nThe Victory counters from wars also increase the tally considerably, if you have lots of
\nthem.<\/p>\n

So how does it play? As with many of Martin Wallace’s games, there are many ways
\nto win. One can play the game as a kind of historical stock market game, watching the
\ncity tiles that other players buy and trying to be on the sunny side of business. Or you
\nact aggressively, building a large army that attacks the cities of your enemies to
\ndestroy their value. Or you act treacherous, deviously stealing influence and money from
\nother players via the use of special abilities and treachery tiles.<\/p>\n

The rules are elegant and simple (they come on 4 pages, one of which is a long example
\nof play), and the first game should take around 3 hours with 4 players. But be warned –
\nit is very difficult to decide what to do sometimes, as the choices are overwhelming
\n(especially in the first rounds of play). Even our experienced group seemed a little
\nbefuddled at first. But quickly the game runs at a good pace, as the actions of each
\nplayer usually don’t take long, and there is loads of interaction through the bidding
\nand the treachery. Through the complicated victory point calculation the winner can be
\nsomething of a surprise, which is not necessarily bad.<\/p>\n

Comparable games that come to mind are “Republic of Rome” (through the role
\nof wars) and even “Puerto Rico”, as there seem to be many strategies that can
\nbe realized by the careful selection of city tiles and their special abilities. The only
\ncomplaint was that some of the treachery tiles were considered a bit annoying – The
\n“Pope” cost reduction tile was useless after the pope was acquired, and the
\n“steal 3 gold” or “steal 2 influence” were regarded as bringing too
\nmuch needless “little” aggression into the game – Walter was especially annoyed
\nby them! Also the game’s graphic design, although generally good, was considered
\nconfusing – the German and English tiles use different colour codes for the gold symbols
\nfor some reason, and the army tiles confusingly use squares differently than in the rest
\nof the game, which doesn’t make them easy to decipher. And of course there is the
\nomission of the city start status on the board itself. But “Warfrog” is a small
\ncompany that tries very hard (and successfully) to produce professionally looking games
\nin sturdy boxes, so these are minor complaints, especially when you compare them to the
\nsometimes incredibly awful typo orgies of Euro Games for example.<\/p>\n

Our first game was not yet an extensive insight into the game, certainly one would
\nplay the next game very differently, and the one after it probably as well. This is, all
\nthings considered, certainly the sign of a good and lasting game design. In our opinion:
\nHighly recommended!<\/p>\n

Westpark Gamers rating: 7.5 (on a scale of 1 to 10)<\/p>\n

\u00a92003, Moritz Eggert<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Princes Of The Renaissance Review by Moritz Eggert One of the games that I awaited most in Essen was this new offering from Martin Wallace, who is increasingly becoming one of the best and prolific game designers in the gaming world. So it was easy to talk everybody into trying out this game immediately after … Princes Of The Renaissance<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":5,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}