Hansa Teutonica

After displaying donkey-like patience while waiting for our fifth player, it was time for the evening’s main course: Hansa Teutonica, with its charming retro-loving air and its reputation as a game many people adore. I went in cheerfully, ready to find out why. I came out cheerful in general, just not about the game itself.

At its core, it is an interesting marriage of worker placement and engine building. Its mechanisms are tightly interconnected and the flow keeps downtime low, so the game does not sit staring at the ceiling while the next player thinks.

But the opening felt rather scripted to me, as though you follow the prescribed route until something finally starts to deviate. Interaction can come through displacement, yet when the two players in front decide to support each other and keep displacing their own people, they build a lead that feels excessively unfair and is hard to stop. Wonderful: the top helps the top stay on top.

So, for me, it is another Chernobyl rating. I will reserve some judgment for the second map, Britannia, which seems to offer more openings. Perhaps there the machine will not roll out of the factory with the same lead already assembled.