Princes of Florence, St. Petersburg Opinions

I'm working through a game purge at the moment to free up space. I have several games on the chopping block, but I'm trying to decide on two I've owned for a bit but have never played. I'm intrigued by the puzzle building stuff in Princes and a buddy of mine recommends St. Petersburg highly, but I just can't bring myself to get either them to the table. Every time I sit down and try to learn the rules to Princes, my eyes glaze over. St. Petersburg simply looks ugly.

My favorite Euro is probably Vinci (though I still haven't played Tigris & Euphrates, which I'm assuming I will like). I love Settlers, LotR: Confrontation, Jambo, and a few others. I'm lukewarm on Puerto Rico (actually prefer official 2-player version) and Traders of Genoa. I hate Arkadia and almost every heavy Euro I've played from the last 2 years.

Given all that, should I at least give those two a try? Anyone here who claims either of them as their favorite Euros? I hate getting rid of games before at least trying them, but I used to have some bad purchasing habits.

One's dry and boring, and the other is feeble and boring after a few plays .... dump both asap on TOS, plenty of TOSers who like them - take their money.

They have a similar flaw, there isn't any interaction in either of them.

Princes has an auction for certain pieces that you work into your puzzle, but other than that it is effectively a solitaire game. If you like "puzzle" games with little interaction, Princes is a really good model of that genre, but for me, those games aren't fun more than once a year or so.

St. Pete's only interaction is buying stuff before other people, other than that it is a solitaire economic VP engine game. If you have played Through the Ages, its like that with all the good stuff stripped out.

Southernman wrote:

One's dry and boring, and the other is feeble and boring after a few plays .... dump both asap on TOS, plenty of TOSers who like them - take their money.

Which is which?

Thanks for the input fellas. I think I'm going to let these two go.

Saint Petersburg is a bad game. It has only one viable strategy. My understanding is that there is now an expansion that seeks to fix the game, but I haven't bothered with it, because my copy of the base game is long gone.

Princes of Florence is OK. I think there's more interaction in it than Tom claims, but it's still a game in which the players each get their own little board to stare at so that they don't have to make eye contact. If you're lukewarm on Puerto Rico and Traders of Genoa, then you'll probably be lukewarm on this one, too.

Black Barney is looking for a copy of PRINCES OF FLORENCE, so you could sell him yours.

Thanks Schweig. I sent him a message.

Nick Warcholak wrote:

Thanks Schweig. I sent him a message.

Patrick (Black Barney) is a good friend of mine. Cut him a deal and he will be all over that.

Traders of Genoa has about 100x the interaction as princes of florence. Every turn in Traders, you are negotiating and bidding against each other to get the 1st player to go where you want him to. I've only played traders once, am I remembering it wrong?

hancock.tom wrote:

Traders of Genoa has about 100x the interaction as princes of florence. Every turn in Traders, you are negotiating and bidding against each other to get the 1st player to go where you want him to. I've only played traders once, am I remembering it wrong?

I've never played Princes, but I've played Traders once and St Petersburg a few times. Your comment could easily be about SP instead of PoF and still be true.

Playing St Petersburg when it came out was when I realized I didn't like the same games my old group did anymore. Previously we all played stuff like RoboRally and Catan. Now they wanted to play the lastest math exercises and I wanted to have fun.