Hansa Teutonica rules: how to play and how to score

Hansa Teutonica quick rules

The goal

You are a merchant of the Hanseatic League. Your tradesmen occupy the routes between cities; when a whole route is yours, you create a trade route and earn a trading post or a better ability. The most prestige points at the end wins.

Your tradesmen and your writing desk

The cubes are traders, the discs are merchants; together, they are your tradesmen. Only those in your personal supply can be placed on the board, the others wait in the general stock. Developing an ability removes the leftmost piece from its track, and that piece joins your personal supply.

The five abilities

Actions: 2 to 5 actions per turn. Bank: hire 3, 5, 7 or all of your tradesmen. Book of Knowledge: move 2 to 5 of them. Privilege: the orange, pink, then black trading post spaces. City Keys: the multiplier for your network at the end.

A turn

You take as many actions as your Actions ability allows, in any order, repeating the same one if you like. Income moves tradesmen from the general stock to your personal supply; Place puts one on a free connection point of a route; Move shifts several of yours already on the board.

Displacing an opponent

You displace an opponent’s tradesman from a route by putting one of yours in its place, and you pay a penalty to the general stock: one tradesman for a trader, two for a merchant. The displaced player takes back their piece, gets as many as your penalty, and places them right away on adjacent routes.

Creating a trade route

When every connection point of a route is yours, creating the trade route costs one action. In each of the two cities at its ends, the player with the most trading posts scores one point (on a tie, the rightmost trading post). Then you take the route’s bonus marker, if any, and draw a new one.

Trading post, ability or Coellen

You choose one reward: a trading post on the leftmost free space of one of the two cities (a cube on a square, a disc on a circle, with the Privilege of that color), developing the ability shown by one of the cities, or, between Coellen and Warburg, a merchant on a Coellen space. The other pieces from the route return to the general stock.

Points during the game

You only score when creating a trade route: one point per controlled city at the ends of the route, one point for a trading post on a gold coin, and 7, 4 then 2 points for the first three players to link Stendal and Arnheim with a chain of trading posts, the East-West Connection.

Bonus markers

A marker you take is played later, during one of your turns, without costing an action: extra actions, a developed ability, two exchanged trading posts, an additional trading post in a full city, or three opposing tradesmen moved. It still scores at the end. At the end of your turn, each drawn marker goes by an empty route leading to a city with room left.

The end of the game

The game stops at once when a player reaches 20 points on the prestige points track, when a bonus marker must be drawn and the supply is empty, or when a 10th city is completed. The active player finishes their action, then nobody plays again.

Final scoring

Add to the track your fully developed abilities, bonus markers, Coellen points, 2 points per controlled city and your largest network, multiplied by your City Keys. On a tie, the player who developed their Actions the least wins, then the one with the most network points.

Beginner pitfalls

Reach three actions per turn early. Keep pieces in your personal supply, or you can neither place nor displace. Being displaced gives you free pieces on the board. And think about City Keys, which boost your network.

Two-player game

A neutral player, who cannot win, starts on the routes to the ability cities, to Coellen and to the bonus markers. A displaced neutral trader comes back with one more neutral trader; a fully neutral route is created at once, with a neutral trading post; each new bonus marker gets a neutral trader.

East Expansion

Its nine Mission cards, for the base game board, name three cities: one point per city where you have a trading post, five more if you control all three, so 8 at most. Its Eastern board adds maritime routes reserved for merchants, each with a permanent bonus, and three cities you can only enter through a bonus.

Britannia

Placing and displacing in Wales or Scotland requires the rightmost trading post in Cardiff, Carlisle or London, for one action per turn. The game ends with 8 completed cities, and the majority of cities in Wales, then in Scotland with 4 or 5 players, earns 7, 4 and 2 points.

How to score Hansa Teutonica

Prestige Points track

Points scored during the game: cities controlled at the ends of created trade routes, trading posts with a gold coin, East-West Connection.

Fully developed abilities

4 points per fully developed ability, except City Keys: 16 points at most.

Bonus markers

Every marker collected, used or not: 1 marker 1 point, 2 or 3 markers 3 points, 4 or 5: 6, 6 or 7: 10, 8 or 9: 15, 10 or more: 21.

Special Prestige Points for Coellen

7, 8, 9 or 11 points per space occupied by your merchants (Königsberg on the Eastern board, Plymouth on Britannia).

Controlled cities

2 points per city where you have the most trading posts; on a tie, the rightmost trading post wins.

Largest network

The trading posts in your largest network of connected cities, multiplied by the highest value uncovered on your City Keys.

Mission card (East Expansion)

1 point per city on your card where you have a trading post, 5 more if you have the majority in all three: 8 at most.

Wales and Scotland (Britannia)

The majority of controlled cities in Wales earns 7, 4 and 2 points; same scoring in Scotland on the 4-5 player side.

Actions ability (tie-breaker)

No points: on a tie, the player who developed their Actions ability the least wins, then the one with the most network points.

Worked example

Emma ends with 18 points on the track, 2 fully developed abilities (8 points), 7 bonus markers (10), a merchant on the 9-point Coellen space (9), 5 controlled cities (10) and a network of 9 trading posts with City Keys at 3 (27): 18 + 8 + 10 + 9 + 10 + 27 = 82 points.

Common mistakes

• Forgetting the bonus markers you already used: they count too.
• Scoring 4 points for fully developed City Keys: they only boost your network.
• Counting the cities in your network instead of the trading posts: two trading posts in one city count twice.
• Adding Coellen points during the game: they only score at the end, and not toward the 20 points.

How to set up Hansa Teutonica

Follow the three parts in order, plus the fourth with two players. The start player is chosen at random.