Hansa is an old game, published by Uberplay in 2004. Uberplay no longer exists, but back in the day it released quite a few decent games, including China, my favourite incarnation of Michael Schacht's Web of Power. Hansa is also a Michael Schacht design, with a very 90's and 00's style. Simple mechanisms, yet having plenty of tactical decisions and much player interaction.
A game set up for 4 players.
After seeding the board with initial goods discs, the rest of them are organised into five face-down stacks. Goods on the board will be claimed by players. They are worth points. As they get depleted, players can decide to replenish from these stacks. Once you touch the 5th stack, the game will end after the current round.
The merchant ship starts in Copenhagen. You are all merchants aboard this same ship. On your turn, you play captain and decides where the ship will go and how many cities it will visit. You can decide to stay put too. The ship must follow the paths on the board. At some cities, you have two or three options. At others, like Kalmar on the right side of this photo, there is only one outgoing route.
At each city, including the city you are in at the start of your turn, you may perform at most one action. There are three action types. The first one is simply to buy a goods disc. You just take one from the city. If one player has the most market stalls, you pay $1 to him, else you pay $1 to the bank. If you are the one with the most market stalls, you pay yourself $1, which means the goods disc is free.
The second action type is to sell goods. To do so, you must have at least two goods discs of the same colour. You may sell discs in two or more colours, but for each colour you must have at least two discs. To sell, you must also have a market stall (those small wooden discs in the cities in player colours), because the selling action consumes a market stall. The action of selling simply flips your goods discs face-down. It increases their victory point values. At game end, a face-up goods disc is worth 1VP, but a face-down goods disc is worth the number of barrels plus 1. So a 3-barrel goods disc will be worth 4VP.
One important impact of selling goods is you may force other players to lose goods discs. If the colour you sell in is being collected by others, they must lose one goods disc of that colour. This can be painful. When you collect goods discs, you must watch out for signs of danger.
The third action type is to set up market stalls (those discs in player colours). You discard a goods disc to gain as many market stalls as the number of barrels on the disc.
When the game ends, you score victory points for only two things - your goods discs, and your market stall presence. At every city where you have market stalls, you gain 2VP. If you are the only player with market stalls in a city, you score 4VP instead of 2VP.
The goods discs come in 6 colours. With fewer players, you use fewer colours.
Replenishing the board is a decision you have to make at the start of your turn. If you decide to replenish, you must do it for all empty spaces on the board. The cost is $1.
The Play
Hansa is not new to me. I wasn't blogging yet when I first played it, so I have never written about it. Most of the game is quite tactical (i.e. short-term). You can't really plan too far ahead. You just analyse the board situation and make the most of it. You must consider the board situation you will leave for the next player. You don't want to leave too good a situation for him. You have to watch what your opponents are trying to do.
Setting up market stalls is the strategic, i.e. longer-term consideration, part of the game. You want to spread out a little, so that you won't get into a situation where it's hard to get things done. If you lack market stalls in a certain section of the board, and you keep finding the ship there on your turn, you will have a tougher time selling goods, and you won't enjoy those free goods or those $1 payments from other players. Setting up market stalls is board positioning that you have to plan for.
I played a full 4-player game with my family. The rules are simple and there is not a lot to explain. You have to really sit down to play to get a better feel of how the actions relate to one another.
Even though we were careful in watching what colours others were collecting, we still got into situations where we were forced to discard discs because others were selling goods in our colours. In the early game everyone tried to sell as efficiently as possible. Only after the first few rounds we started realising the importance of setting up market stalls. They provided longer-term and ongoing benefits. Selling goods consumed market stalls, so we needed to create more market stalls.
The Thoughts
Hansa reminds me of snooker. You are not just trying to do what's best for yourself on your turn. You must also create the worst possible situation for the next player. Send the ship to some corner where he has no market stalls, or where there are no goods to pick up anymore. Force him to spend money to replenish. He might get lucky and draw a goods disc that he wants, but it's usually worth trying. You can also send him to cities with goods he doesn't want. Every player should try to screw the next player. This is that kind of game.
It feels good to revisit this very 90's / 00's German game. Minimalistic yet clever.
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