There's a great description on BGG of the history behind Hansa. After reading that and upon playing the game one might wonder "So where are the Pirates?"
A friend and I were discussing how Pirates could be worked into the game and we came up with a couple of ideas. I thin kthe best of them was this:
Add another boat to the box, this one painted black. It is the pirate ship. As an action a player may place the pirate on one of the paths going into or out of the city they're currently in. This should cost something, perhaps a gold, or maybe something like 'remove a market booth in your supply from the game' would be neat. When a player crosses the Pirate ship, that player loses [soething], where [something] could be...
1 Taler,
ALL their Talers,
1 (or all) of their Goods tokens,
Both Talers and Goods tokens...
Or since everyone is supopsedly on the boat, maybe EVERYONE should lose a taler/goods marker.
Then the pirate would either stay put or leave play (not a choice for the player, I mean those are the optionts for the rule).
This may not be the best implimentation of the Pirate. For example, based on the rules I just mentioned, a player would never have to cross a Pirate, in the worst case they could pay to move the pirate to the other side of the port. This could be disallowed by either saying you can't MOVE a Pirate, just place one if there's not already one on the board, or perhaps by saying the Pirate must be placed on an EXIT (or entrance I guess) of the city... probably entrace, so you could place one and then move without crossing it.
Any other ideas on how to fairly and effectively add a Pirate to Hansa??
- Seth
