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GeekNights Tuesday - Hansa Teutonica

MrPeriodMrPeriod
in GeekNights

Tonight on GeekNights, we review the fantastic 2009 board game Hansa Teutonica, designed by Andreas Steding. It's stood up to repeated play among skilled gamers, and provides a deeply interactive experience while minimizing the effect of politics. Ignore the awfully written rules (get someone to teach it to you) and their awful terminology ("merchants" vs "traders" and "supply" vs "stockpile").

In the news, WotC is releasing basic Dungeons & Dragons as a free PDF. making us wonder at the actual future of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition or even the franchise as a whole. Nintendo is lashing out against fans streaming their games with new monetization options (for them, not the fans, in most cases), which is extra worrying now that Youtube has purchased Twitch.

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  • pencepence
    I've never seen someone with so many Coellens in a single game. A White Coellen, a Pink Coellen, even a Black Coellen.

    Butt.

    I love Hansa Teutonica, and I don't need to own it now, because everyone I would play it with already owns it.
  • AndrewAndrew
    This game is bullshit and no one will convince me otherwise.
  • MattMatt
    Hasbro is no stranger to brand confluence. It would never surprise me to see them going down that road. ~3 years ago, they made a big push to condense brands. All of their pre-K toys and games were rebranded around the game Elefun, under a new "Elefun & Friends" brand, which took over Gator Golf, Mouse Trap, and a few other noteworthy properties. They also made a push to eliminate all non-Scrabble word game brands, resulting in such products as "Scrabble: Boggle."
  • RochelleRochelle
    pence said:

    I've never seen someone with so many Coellens in a single game. A White Coellen, a Pink Coellen, even a Black Coellen.

    Butt.

    I love Hansa Teutonica, and I don't need to own it now, because everyone I would play it with already owns it.

    This is because I originally thought I made the mistake of putting my first disk into the building between the Libre & the Privilegium. However, it ended up working to my advatange because everyone kept on scoring on those roads. Then you guys kept on getting in on the plates, buildings, and upgrades of other things before me, so the only thing I saw to my advantage was the Coellens. You guys ignored me. :P

    You took too long, now your Coellen's gone. Dats what happened...
  • AprecheApreche
    I thought it was colons, not coellens.
  • MattMatt
    Somebody might have to add the "You've really got to go after that colon," line to the "Why people think Rym & Scott are Gay" thread.
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    Andrew said:

    This game is bullshit and no one will convince me otherwise.

    "Ties mean 'try harder.'"

  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    The biking video TotD was way more entertaining than I expected.
  • ThatGentThatGent
    I've heard this game compares a lot to Terra Mystica. How accurate is that statement for anyone who played both?
  • pencepence
    The character of the two games is fairly distinct. There are some similarities (multiple upgrade paths, benefits for other players doing things near your pieces), but I would not put them on the same branch of the eurogame family tree. The pacing of Hansa Teutonica is entirely determined by the players, unlike Terra Mystica which will always go for six rounds before scoring. In Terra Mystica, your strategy is dictated by the scoring tiles, which dictate the players' decisions, beginning at turn 0 with your race selection. Terra Mystica is about looking at the board before anyone starts playing, and deciding "when, and where", but there is a lot of satisfying crunch in the "how". Hansa Teutonica is about looking at the board every turn and deciding "when, and where", and "how" is very straightforward.

    Of the two, Terra Mystica is my current favorite, but it lacks the thrilling, open quality of Hansa Teutonica. Terra Mystica is full of tiny races for resources - power actions, spots on the board, town tiles - but you need to manipulate a complex machine to get there in time. If your machine runs out of fuel, it won't do anything. In Hansa Teutonica, you just do it - bam, cubes go on the board. Upgrades allow you to be more agile, but every minute you have a decision to make regarding when and what to upgrade.

    In both games of Hansa Teutonica we played this weekend, I lost because I failed to control the pace of the game... first, I let the game go too long, and then I let the game end too fast. In each case, another player was able to take advantage of that better than I was.
  • okeefeokeefe
    D&D's largest competitor is Pathfinder. A free Basic version just makes a lot of sense to get those gamers looking at 5e. There's also the nostalgic naming factor, simpler setup, a big enough game to keep gamers busy for a while, as well as a nice tie in to the advanced, modular, optional rules and monsters in PH/DMG/MM. At a cost of free, I'm happy to check it out. I still want to know what their pdf strategy is. I don't anticipate playing 5e enough to want the books this time around; I learned that lesson with 4e.

    Licensing 3e under the OGL revivified the game market at the time. The pushback from using the d20 System everywhere both pushed designers to make new games (the indie games we love so much) and revisit and hack older games (the OSR movement) under a protected framework. It's not clear what state TTRPGs would be in had it not happened.

    A lot of the goodwill their base had from 3e and the OGL was lost when Wizards of the Coast completely severed 3e support to sell 4e—support that Paizo picked up and ran with. Those are the gamers Wizards needs to engage, along with new gamers, previous-edition gamers, etc.  Wizards has learned a lot from screwing up 4e. So far, I'm impressed with how they're handling 5e.
  • RymRym
    4 player is confirmed to be the worst number of players. Only play it with 3 or 5: never 4.

    Basically, the game is too open, people can do whatever they want upgrade-wise with impunity, and the game takes twice as long.
  • RymRym
    I've posted JUST the Hansa Teutonica review: no news or other bits.
  • RymRym
    Reddit tabletop!
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/comments/26veez/hansa_teutonica_2009_deep_review/
  • ColdguyColdguy
    Rym said:

    Reddit tabletop!
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/comments/26veez/hansa_teutonica_2009_deep_review/

    If you are in a cross posting mood why not throw it up on the BGG page? Plus if you want me to point people to the adbridged version I can make a few contacts.
  • AprecheApreche
    Rym said:

    Reddit tabletop!
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/comments/26veez/hansa_teutonica_2009_deep_review/

    /r/boardgames is the real place.
  • RochelleRochelle
    At first I was like, "Hey a comment from some random reddit person liking the article."

    Then I saw the name of the person. =P

    I hope Z-Man games reprints this mofo.
  • ThatGentThatGent
    Had the chance to it yesterday. Now to find a copy that isn't going for $100.
  • MattMatt
    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    Reddit tabletop!
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/comments/26veez/hansa_teutonica_2009_deep_review/

    /r/boardgames is the real place.
    Scott is right. I'd actually never even heard or /r/tabletop until Rym posted there, and didn't notice the error until Scott pointed it out. /r/boardgames is ~20x larger of a community.

  • RymRym
    Posted to the better reddit:
    http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/26vzrb/hansa_teutonica_deep_review/
  • ColdguyColdguy
    It appears the bigger reddit page removed the podcast, you need to get someone else to post it for you.
  • MattMatt
    Yeah, they have some strange rules. I got bit by them more than once when I first started posting there. You need to be VERY explicit that you are the creator of the work you are posting. It's pretty dumb. If it is mostly obvious (such as by your username), but you don't go yelling and shouting "this is me!" then it gets pulled. If you post it but they have zero reason to suspect it is you, then it doesn't get pulled.
  • RymRym
    Coldguy said:

    It appears the bigger reddit page removed the podcast, you need to get someone else to post it for you.

    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I never post to reddit. ;^)

  • RymRym
    So I guess one of you has to post that exact same thing then.
  • CremlianCremlian
    It just says it was removed because you didn't clearly state it was content you produced.
  • MATATATMATATAT
    phil_s_stein is such a hardass.

    Why are their rules so crazy? I suppose there's some justifiable reason...
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    Rym said:

    So I guess one of you has to post that exact same thing then.

    Or you repost it and put, say, "[self-produced content]" in the title.

  • ColdguyColdguy
    TheWhaleShark said:

    Rym said:

    So I guess one of you has to post that exact same thing then.

    Or you repost it and put, say, "[self-produced content]" in the title.

    This is why I don't go on reddit, ever.
  • RymRym
    Mostly, it's that I find the conversations on even "major" reddits to be mostly insipid at best. I visit only for links, and never for comments or discussion.
  • CremlianCremlian
    Fark only place for discussion :-p
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