You Can't Go Wrong with Hansa


I'm a sucker for a good deal and that's why Hansa ended up in our closet. It was packaged two-for-one with a game called China (review forthcoming) and the price was too low to pass up. So I bought it, thinking it was hard to go wrong, and it's been one of the better deals I've ever snagged, second only to a hail-damaged Geo Prizm we once purchased.

I had my doubts to begin with, though. The box is slim and doesn't look like it could hold much at all. The instruction booklet looked to be in German and I thought I'd been duped. But two pages in, English appeared and we were set.

The premise is this: you're a merchant traveling the Hanseatic sea, buying goods and setting up booths in various cities so you can sell those goods. There's a cute little wooden boat, shared by all players, which means that where you stop your turn, someone else picks up. This mechanic leads to more interaction that some Euro games and more opportunities for you to foil your neighbor.

I love a game that lets me think I'm planning several moves ahead. Of course, things never work out according to my grand design, but that usually means they don't work out for the other guy, either (bwahahaha). Hansa is easy to learn and fast to play, which makes it a good filler between longer games or something to grab when you don't have a lot of time

Honestly, I've been surprised by how much we've played and enjoyed this game. We've definitely gotten our money's worth.

By the way, there's another game out there called Hansa Teutonica. That one might be fun, too, but don't confuse it with this one.

# Players . . . 2-4
Game time . . . . . . . . 60 minutes
Set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 minutes
Luck . . . . . . .  .  8 . . . Strategy
*Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Visual Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Component Quality . .. . . . . 8
*Replayability . . . . . . . . . . . 8

*See "How we Rate" for a definition.

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