I stumbled upon Hansa during a recent Tangathon Tanga. For $12, I figured a game that supports a minimum of two players and has good ratings here at BGG was worth a try.

Description
Hansa is a two to four player game published by UberPlay. It is set in the Baltic Sea area, around the 14th century and focuses on the buying and selling of goods and establishing trade markets among the Hanseatic League. The player who acheives the most victory points through sold goods and markets is the winner.

Hansa comes in an abnormally dimensioned box - about as wide as most boxes, but a bit longer and thinner than most - sort of like a Monopoly box. The slim and rigid box makes it a bit difficult to take the lid off without having to readjust it a few times. Once opened, the box fits the large board and all pieces quite nicely. The board sits atop all the pieces, but no box organization is provided for the pieces themselves aside from one large inset and a small plastic bag for the wooden pieces.

The board is a good size, and will comfortably support players without taking up too much table space. It has been designed to give the similar appearance of an old map, focused on the Baltic Sea. The board is made up of towns connected by sea routes (with the exception of one route on land). Each city has at least one incoming route and one outgoing route, but may have more depending on its location. Each town has either one or two warehouse spaces which respectivley hold goods.

There are three main kinds of pieces - coins, goods, and markets. Coins and goods are round and made from fairly thick cardboard which initially gave me the impression that overtime and if not taken care of, the carboard layers might begin to ruffle and separate slightly. Goods are represented in six different colors with one, two, or three barrels depicted on each. Markets are smaller, round wooden pieces in the four player colors. In addition, there are four moneybag tiles in player colors made from cardboard for storing money, and there is one uncolored wooden ship which seems a bit cartoonish in style with plenty of curves and not a lot of detail.

The rulebook is very detailed, and is written across only four pages. It took me two reads and one play to fully understand how the game worked, but I believe that this was simply due to the fact that the rules described as much as possible at once.

Rules
Hansa is started by eliminating unecessary goods determined by the number of players: with two players - four colors are used, with three - five colors, and with four - all colors are used. The used colors are shuffled face-down, then one good is placed on the board in each warehouse space and flipped face up. The remaining goods are stacked face-down into five roughly equal stacks and set on the board.

Players will choose a color (their moneybag tile and market pieces) and take three Talers (coins) to start out with. The starting player is randomly decided, but must be noted as each player will get an equal number of turns. The starting player then places two of their markets onto a city (with the exception of Copenhagen), and each player clockwise does similarly until each player has exactly two markets in three differnt cities.

A player's turn is carried out in the following way:

1. Income - The player takes three Talers as income.
2. Replenish goods - The player may opt to replenish every empty warehouse space with new goods by paying one Taler to the bank. If all spaces are empty, the player must perform this action. Replenishing is done one good at a time starting with first available stack of goods from the left.
3. Actions and movement - The player may move the ship around the board and perform actions. Moving the ship can be done along any route coming out of a city - hence movement is always constrained to the same routes. The player may perform only one of the following actions during a dock at each city, including where the ship is docked at the beginning of a players turn:
* Buy a good - The player may buy one good from a city at the price of one Taler. If the player has the most markets in that city, the good is free. Otherwise, payment is made to the player with the most markets in the city. If there are no markets or players are tied for the most markets in the city, payment is made to the bank.
* Sell goods - The player may sell at least two goods at the cost of removing one market. In order to be able to sell a good, the player must have a market in the city they are docked at. Sold goods must be of the same color and more than one color set of goods may be sold. The sold goods are then turned face down in front of the player to be scored at the end of the game. When the player sells goods, all other players must remove from play one good of that color, if held.
* Establish markets - The player may establish one, two, or three markets at the cost of one good. The player determines the amount of markets placed based on the number of barrels on the good. The good is then removed from play.
4. Taxes - The player may only have a maximum of three Talers and three goods at the end of their turn. Extra Talers are given back to the bank, while extra goods are removed from play.

The game ends after the final stack of goods has been drawn from to replenish empty warehouse spaces. The current round continues to the last player - even if some players have already had a turn in the current round, they do not get another turn when this condition is met.

Victory points are totaled for each player in the following manner:
* Each sold and unsold good - 1
* Each barrel on sold goods - 1
* Cities with at least one market and other players markets - 2
* Cities with at least one market and no other players markets (monopoly) - 4

Review
Hansa is a very tactical, economic game - actions will cost something. The only exception to this is if the player has the most markets in a city and takes one good for free. (though, technically it did cost the player to build the markets in the first place)

The economy in Hansa seems to be very well balanced in the games I've played. Because movement and actions cost the player something, players will need to think before carrying out actions to maximize their own profits. We all hate taxes, but they are vital in Hansa so that one player never gets a strong arm on their own accord.

Movement and actions are also going to be determined by how they will affect the next player. Players wouldn't want to give their opponent too much money. For the most part in two player games, a player would avoid cities with opponent market majority. This strategy may change with more players, though, as there would probably many cities with opponent market majority. Players also would stray away from leaving the next player at a city that would give them an immediate advantage, such as leaving them with a free good.

Players will be able to cash in on free goods from cities where they hold the market majority. This may not necessarily benefit a player to sell goods, but free is free and it seldom hurts to have spare goods even if they are subject to tax.

Using the moneybag tile, Hansa also allows players to plan out actions before paying for them - keep all starting money on the tile, push off spent money as actions are carried out, then pay the spent money at the end of the turn. This allows players to backtrack if they choose to do something else during the movement/action steps.

The game's end is triggered by drawing goods from the last available stack. Because of this, players can use this to their advantage, or their detriment. A keen eye is necessary when thinking of replenishing, or noticing that the game will most likely end shortly.

The last round may well be the most tactical. To me, it seems that the last round forces players to make one of two decisions:
1. Try to bulk up and sell as many remaining goods as possible; Or
2. Establish as many markets as possible in hopes of monopolizing available cities or prevent other players from getting monopolies. In this regard, the last turn is definitely a scramble for as many points as possible.

Because of the high level of tactics, Hansa can be analysis paralysis fodder. If a player is extremely analytical and always plays to win, they could take quite a while in thought and backtracking before their turn is finished. Thankfully, I haven't played with anyone like this, but I imagine if it did happen it could get quite annoying.

In Hansa, there is a minimal level of chance with the replenishing of goods and where a player's starting position will be. Regardless, Hansa is one extremely tactical game with a bonus in my book of absolutley no dice!

A two player game of Hansa will only take about a half hour from setup to finish. The more players involved, the longer it will be.

I feel that Hansa's components could use some improvement. The pieces could be a bit higher quality and have just a tad more detail on them, especially the ship. The board itself only folds in half - folding into quarters would have shortened the size of the box. The rulebook could be organized a bit better in my opinion and not attempt to explain all scenarios at once - personally I like to know the general rules and then read about specific scenarios.

I've found good success in introducing Hansa to my friends as "The Game of Scandavian Sea-Merchant Trading!" I do this as opposed to something like "You have to try this really fun game!" beacuse it seems to lower their expectations before they play, letting them build up their own enthusiasm and appreciation.

Overall, Hansa is a great game and definitely worth investing in. Once the rules are understood, players should be able to quickly delve into the game's tactics. The economics of the game are balanced out so that players shouldn't acheive a large advantage. However, the combination of economics and tactics could give some players cases of anaylsis paralysis. And while the game's components are ok and don't detract from the game, they could use some minor improvements.