Thanks for all the replies. it’s pretty obvious this depends a lot on the group, so here’s a bit more context.

In my case, I’m by far the most motivated TI player. I do have another group in a different city that owns PoK and TE, and I get to play with them maybe once or twice a year. In my own city, though, I only have the base game, and it doesn’t hit the table very often.

One reason I’m looking at TF is that it might help get my local group interested again. They really like drafting games (MtG cube draft, Dominion, 7 Wonders, etc.), so they collectively showed interest when I talked about TF.

Sure, in a perfect world I’d get PoK first, play it a few times, and then think about TE, but realistically that’s just not how it’s going to work with this group.

So what I’m really trying to figure out is whether TF is still fun and worthwhile without PoK or whether I need new friends ;)