In 2013 Z-Man Games brought us Bruges from Stefan Feld. It is considered, by many, to be the best game Feld has ever produced. Well, Bruges is back baby! It has been re-released as Hamburg, the first game in the Queen Games City Collection.
With this new version, Stefan has revised and updated his game, which now includes many elements from the hard to find Bruges expansion along with a lot of totally new content. Is this new version better than the original? We think so, read on to find out why.
Disclosure: Thanks to Queen Games for giving us a review copy of Hamburg. Links below may be affiliate links, using those costs you nothing extra but helps us offset the cost of hosting this blog. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Table of Contents (click to jump to that section):
Hamburg is a new iteration and update to Bruges
Hamburg was designed by famed game designer Stefan Feld and is a new iteration of his game Bruges. It features artwork and graphic design by Christian Fiore and his Fiore GmbH studio. It is a pretty meaty point salad for one to five players that often takes over two hours to play, though it does get quicker as you learn the cards. This updated version of Bruges comes from Queen Games and is the first game in their new Stefan Feld City Collection (SFCC).
One of the things Queen has done with this series is publish a variety of different versions of each game. We were given the Classic Edition of Hamburg, which is what I’ll be discussing here. There is also a Hamburg Deluxe Edition which has component upgrades, GameTrayz inserts, and other upgrades which was available through Kickstarter. On the other end of the price spectrum, they also have the Hamburg Essential Edition which has a much smaller and broken up board, less wooden components, and a lower price point.
What’s important to know, is that all of these editions of Hamburg play the same, there are no gameplay changes between the editions. The card count is exactly the same. You aren’t getting more or less game depending on which edition you pick up.
The more important paint I want to make here though is that Hamburg is not just a new printing of Bruges.
While the games are similar, and many of the mechanics are the same, Hamburg is a new standalone game that is significantly different from the original. One of the biggest changes in Hamburg is that you get to choose what colours of cards to draw each turn instead of being limited by the cards on the top of two decks.
In Hamburg, players are competing to become the first mayor of the free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg. They do this by playing different coloured multi-use cards to take various actions, the strength of which is impacted by the roll of the dice. Players build foundations, erect buildings on those foundations, create parks and zoos, contribute to the city walls, deal with disasters like flood, fire and decay, and more. Hamburg also comes with six optional expansions that add more decision points, variability, and variety to the game.
Component wise, Hamburg, even the classic edition, is up there with some of the best produced board games we own. It has a ton of wooden components, dual layered player boards, standees, many tiles and tokens, a separate board for sorting the cards and a huge main board that includes spots for all of the expansion content as well as the core game. Yes it takes up a lot of room, but it’s not quite too much.
My only complaint, component wise, is the amount and variety of icons used in the game. This is a card driven game and the cards are designed to be mostly language independent with no text on them besides the card name. All of the game information is presented by icons, and every one of the two-hundred and eighty cards in Hamburg has it’s own unique set of icons.
While Queen Games did include a rather large appendix book to help with this, it can be very overwhelming. Even after multiple plays we still find we need to use the appendix often. The other issue is that there’s only one copy of the appendix book and all of the players are getting new cards at the beginning of each round as well as at times during the game.
We originally talked about Hamburg on The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast Episode 253, Size Matters: Great Microgames, as a bit of a joke, as this game is definitely not a microgame in anyway. I encourage you to check out that episode for some additional insight, including Deanna and Sean’s thoughts on the game.
High level overview of Hamburg from Stefan Feld
Hamburg is a meaty Stefan Feld point salad with a lot going on, plus the game includes six optional modules. For the purpose of this review, I’m sticking to a high level overview of the game, followed by a bit about each of the modules. If you want more a more detailed overview of play, check out one of the many how to play videos out there, I personally recommend watching Paul Grogan’s Hamburg – Tutorial and Playthrough from Gaming Rules!
Set up in Hamburg mainly involves placing various tokens and pieces onto specific spots on the main board and the player boards. You separate the massive stack of cards into five decks based on their colour, and give each of these a good shuffle and a discard pile is created by drawing one card from each deck.
Then everyone draws a hand of five cards which can come from any or all of the five decks, but players must choose all of their cards before looking at any of them. The game recommends one card of each colour as a starting hand for anyone just learning the game, but players are free to chose any mix.
A game round in Hamburg starts by rolling six dice. Next you check the value of the black die, and a cleric is placed on the spot in the church matching that number. Each cleric awards points to players for collecting a specific card type at the end of the game.
Each die that shows a five or six increases the chance of a disaster happening. Each player board features four disaster tracks and players move a token on each track matching the appropriate die. For the black die each player gets a random disaster token instead and they move up the track shown on that token.
Whenever a player hits the end of any of their disaster tracks that disaster happens, and the track resets. Every disaster is terrible and can really mess with your plans. They include things like like losing all of your workers to a plague or losing a building to flooding.
Next, everyone gets a chance to advance up the City Hall Square Track on the main board. The cost to do so is the total of all of the 1s and 2s on the dice. This track awards points at the end of the game based on each players progress and is something you can score points for having a majority in at the end of the round.
That’s all for the start of round stuff, next up is the action phase. Each action phase, players will take one action each, going around the table four times. On their turn players play one card from their hand and take an action based on that card. The cards are multi use and the colour of the card matters, as may the value on the matching coloured die.
Cards are two sided with one side representing a building site and the other side a specific building. Buildings show a cost to play, how many victory points they are worth, a building category, and some form of ability represented by icons.
There are a number of actions in Hamburg where the cost is discarding a card. For example, you can discard a card to take two workers matching the colour of the card discarded, or you can take money equal to the value of the die that matches a discarded card’s colour. You could choose instead to score a point and decrease the level of a disaster matching a discarded cards colour, or you could construct a wall segment. Wall segments have to be built in a specific order and the cost increases based on how many walls you already have. Walls award points when they get to a specific length, are part of end of round majority scoring, and offer a big bonus if completed. Every time a player completes a wall section they get to take a statue, which are worth diminishing points the more statues get built.
Instead of being discarded, cards can be added to your tableau. You pay coins to place a Park or Zoo to the left of your player board. You can pay a worker to play a card face down on the left of your board as a construction site with the worker colour matching the colour of the card. Finally, you can play a card face up as a building onto a construction site by paying the buildings cost in coins. Note that the building colour doesn’t have to match the site color (this is easy to forget).
Every building in Hamburg, is worth points and each gives some form of ability. Every single card does something different from every other card, though some abilities are similar. Cards can affect different phases of the game like letting you draw additional cards or generate money at the start of the turn, or letting you take additional basic actions, or scoring you victory points at the end of the game.
While some building abilities are constant or don’t come up until the end of the game most need to be activated, and each building can only be activated once per game round (not turn). This is tracked by placing tokens on cards as you activate them. Activating buildings is a free action but has to be done on your turn. Most abilities also have a cost. You may end up paying money, points, or workers to do something else like score points, draw cards, gain money, or build walls.
Once all players have played four cards and taken any card actions they wish, the round ends and you check for majorities. Earning a majority gives that player four points, and each majority can be scored by each player only once per game. Majorities in Hamburg include the player highest up on the city hall square track, player with the most current points, the player with the most walls built, the player with the most buildings built, and the player with the most zoos in their tableau.
After this there is a quick cleanup phase and a new round begins with players refilling their hands to five cards, the dice being rolled, etc. The game ends at the end of the eighth round which is tracked by the number of clerics in the chapel.
At the end of a game of Hamburg, players add up the points for all of the cards in their tableaus and add any points for end game scoring buildings they have built, and their majority tokens. Players can get up to six points for building wall segments and add those to the points on any statues they claimed. Clerics award points for specific types of cards players have in their tableau and finally players add points for how high up they are on the city hall square. The player with the most points wins.
What I’m not sure I made clear in that description of play, is just how important the choice of what buildings to actually build is and how a key aspect of playing Hamburg is trying to find synergies and combos between your buildings and their abilities. This game is all about taking what you are given and trying to form some form of engine out of it.
For example, you may build a park that gives you a grey worker at the start of each round, then build a building that allows you to spend that grey worker to get two workers of any colour, one of those workers is blue which you then use to activate another building that costs a blue worker, that gets you points based on the number of orange construction sites you have built. To keep this going you make sure to collect a lot of orange cards and use your turns to build more construction sites with them.
Learning the card options in Hamburg and figuring out these kinds of combos is key to playing the game well and there’s a learning curve here. The engine building opportunities aren’t easy to spot and the sheer number of cards means that you can’t rely on any specific combinations.
That covers the basics and I hope gives you a feel for how Hamburg plays.
Before moving onto my thoughts on this game, I want to say a bit about the optional modules included in Hamburg. One cool thing about them is that they are on their own separate punch board in the box, so it was easy to keep the pieces separate until we were ready to try them.
The first optional expansion module in Hamburg is The Mayors which adds an asymmetric start to the game, with each player getting an in game ability and different starting resources. As a huge fan of asymmetry in games I love this module. I also like that it helps give players a bit of direction at the start of the game.
Next is the Hans Hummel and Lemonjette Statue expansion. This adds in more statues which are awarded for completing walls. The big change here is that the Lemonjette statues award coins instead of getting coins when a wall is complete. Players get to choose which type of statue they want when one is earned. It’s a welcome option in a game where money can be very tight.
Then there is a set of special intrigue tokens. You add these to the exiting intrigue tokens to add more variety when a black five or six is rolled. These new tokens include ones that show two disaster types, as well as some that give a bonus in the form of points or coins along with a disaster.
The biggest, most game changing, optional module in Hamburg are the Ships. Many consider this to be a must use expansion and I agree as long as you aren’t playing with new players. When using the ships, when a die rolls three or four at the start of the round you move a matching ship token into port. Then when players take the build walls action they can discard a worker to activate any of the ships in port. These ships each offer rather powerful abilities ranging from getting some coins to being able to re-activate a one time use building.
The Ships module makes every die roll more interesting as every value now does something and makes the game less punishing overall. It often presents ways for players to take actions that wouldn’t normally be available to them. Expect a higher scoring game when using ships.
The Stock Exchange is an odd module. With it, one of the standard actions becomes more powerful the first three times anyone takes that action and becomes less powerful or costs more the next three times it is used. Then the same happens for a different action.
For example, if the building actions is up in the Stock Exchange, the first person to build gets a discount of one coin, then the next player a gets a discount of two, then the third saves three. At this point the card flips over and instead of costing less building actions cost more.
The main thing the stock exchange does is encourage or discourage players to take specific actions, and works to prevent players from just doing the same thing turn after turn.
The final optional module in Hamburg are Cleric Tiles. One of these is placed randomly onto each of the six cleric spots and each tile modifies an in game action. They are two sided, one side makes an action more powerful, the other side adds a cost. A random side is face up at the start of the game and each time a cleric is placed where one is located it’s effect is in play that round, and then at the end of the round that tile is flipped.
This last module has a similar effect as the stock exchange and isn’t meant to be used at the same time, as that can cause some actions to become either too good, or near useless. You need to use either one of these two modules or neither.
Read on to find out what I thought of each of these modules, and the game overall.
Why we prefer Hamburg to Bruges
Before I share my thoughts on Hamburg I want to start by saying that I enjoy Bruges but I’ve never loved it. I own the game, I have played it many times and have enjoyed every play, but it has never been my go to Stefan Feld game. The only time my copy gets played now is when others ask to play it.
The biggest difference between Bruges and Hamburg is that you get to pick which of the five card colours to draw from at the start of each round. Other differences include a board that is much larger, more than double the size.
In Bruges you play people into buildings where as in Hamburg you build buildings onto sites, which is more of a thematic change than a gameplay one. Hamburg includes two card types, parks and zoos, which were not part of the original Bruges (but were available in a mini expansion). The Black Die, the Clerics and the Intrigue Tokens are all totally new.
The game end in Hamburg is fixed at eight rounds. Where as Bruges ended when the deck ran out, which also meant every card ended up in play. Buildings in Burges were worth one point each whereas sites in Hamburg are worth nothing (this was replaced by the cleric scoring). The ships concept comes from the Bruges expansion, but is implemented differently in Hamburg, with each boat having a specific ability. The other optional rules in Hamburg are all new.
Finally, another big change, is that there are way more cards in Hamburg than were in Bruges, even with the expansion. This means that there are also way more card abilities, potential combos, and strategies, along with a steeper learning curve to match.
The way you draw cards in Hamburg gives the game a very different feel than Bruges. By only having two choices each draw, and making that choice one card at a time, Bruges was a very tactical game. You had to plan your turn based on what came up. Hamburg on the other hand is more strategic. Players end up taking cards based on what they already have going on and what they plan for the future. It is much easier to create an engine and run it in Hamburg.
I think different people are going to either like or dislike this change. My own thoughts on the card drafting system changed the more I played Hamburg. At first I preferred the Bruges system of having my choices limited. Less options means less thinking required as well as being more forgiving for new players. There were often cases where my actions were completely driven by what cards were available, but those options weren’t always what I wanted to do.
Picking what cards to draw in Hamburg is more difficult, but presents a much wider variety of options. As I grew to learn the card decks and discover various combos I could make that choice more intelligently. I could draft based on what I wanted to do. Most importantly though, to me the worst part of Bruges was having an engine I couldn’t run when I wasn’t able to get the right card colour options and that is something that does’t happen in Hamburg.
Now that’s not to say you can always get what you want or need in Hamburg. The decks are huge, and there’s a ton of variety in the card types. You just won’t have to worry about getting the right colour of card you need. While you can get always get the workers you need or the construction site colour you need, you are still taking chances on getting useful buildings or cards you can afford to actually build.
Additional randomness in Hamburg comes from the dice. How much money you can earn, whether or not players can go up the City Hall Track, when and how many disasters happen, what colours of buildings will score additional points at the end of the game, what boats will be available, and more is all driven by the dice.
I feel like the two aspects of the dice and the card draw options combine to be the perfect level of randomness. While the card drawing has become more strategic, adjusting tactically to the dice is still required. I also have a soft spot for games about disaster mitigation. Stefan Feld’s In the Year of the Dragon is one of my favourite games, and I like how disasters are represented here, though not mitigating their damage can cost you the game in Hamburg.
The biggest, most significant, and honestly potentially game breaking problem with Hamburg is the iconography.
The problem isn’t just the number of different icons, it’s also how similar they are and how they are used. Often, while getting a new card in Hamburg, I’ve thought I knew exactly what a card did based on seeing similar cards or icons only to be totally wrong. There might be some slight difference in the iconography I missed, that completely changes what the card does based on what I thought it does. The result of this is that every player has to look up every card in the reference book every time, even after playing the game multiple times, even if it’s just to verify that the card this does what you thought it did, and that has a huge impact on the game length.
We highly recommend that you download the PDF version of the Hamburg Rulebook and Reference Book and make sure every single player has a copy of that available to them at the table. Either digitally or printed out. Then, each round after drawing cards, everyone takes out their copy and confirms what each of their cards does. This will save you a lot of time, like an hour every game if not more.
While I understand the reason behind all of this iconography is to make the game language independent, I think it was a mistake and I think Queen Games realized it. They started selling decks of language specific cards for Hamburg on their website and even included them in their last City Series crowdfunding campaign. Unfortunately these quickly sold out, and don’t seem to be currently available (I’m still trying to get a copy myself).
I like Hamburg a lot. I’m currently working on this review thinking about how we need to play this again soon. We have a game night tonight, but we’re going to have too many players to play Hamburg, and I’m sad about it.
I mentioned earlier I didn’t love Bruges, however, I do love Hamburg. This is one of the best Stefan Feld board games I’ve played (and I’m a bit of a Feld Fanboy, we own most of the games he’s designed over the years — yes even Rum & Pirates and The Speicherstadt)
I love the decision points in Hamburg. I love the mix of tactics and strategy required and have even grown to appreciate when I push my luck and my game gets ruined by a badly timed disaster. This is a game I expect to continue to be playing for years to come and one I look forward to sharing with other Feld and point salad fans.
As for the expansion content, I love the ships and mayors and will always use them. I liked the stock market more than I expected and I’m neutral towards the statues and new intrigue tiles, I will use them if people want to but also don’t mind leaving them in the box. The one module I didn’t really enjoy was the cleric tokens, especially when combined with the stock market (I had missed the bit in the rules about not combining those two. The rulebook is right! Don’t mix those.)
If you are fan of Stefan Feld’s games I strongly recommend picking up the version of Hamburg, that best fits your budget.
If you are a Bruges fan you will probably also want to pick this up. What you have here is a new game that feels like Bruges but isn’t actually the same. It scratched a slightly different itch for me (or maybe it’s the same itch but it scratches it in a different way). I still have both games in my collection.
If you are gamer who likes euro style games and have been curious about trying out a Feld, I think Hamburg is a decent choice if you are already familiar with modern hobby games. Don’t let the massive decks scare you. It’s one of those games that’s seems way more intimidating than it actually is to learn.
FAQs
Is Hamburg just a re-release of Bruges?
No Hamburg is a stand alone game that’s based on Bruges. There are a number of changes and updates made to the game, the most significant being that you get to choose what colours of cards to collect each round.
What is The City Collection
The Queen Games Stefan Feld City Collection (SFCC) is a series of games featuring reimplementations and new games from famed game designer Stefan Feld. Each game is set in a different city and is being released through crowdfunding with various versions of each game ranging from cheaper essential editions to expensive deluxe versions.
If I own Bruges do I need Hamburg?
While I get into this in much more detail in the review I will say that I still own both games. While they are similar in mechanics and feel, they are each distinct games with multiple differences that set them apart. Bruges is quicker and more tactical, whereas Hamburg can be a brain burner and is all about recognizing and building combos.
So far we are really enjoying the Queen Games Stefan Feld City Collection. We first fell in love with Marrakesh (check out our Marrakesh review to learn why) and now Hamburg. Since originally talking about Hamburg on our podcast we have gone on to play and enjoy both New York City, and Vienna. We even got a chance to playtest Chichén Itzá, the 9th game in the collection, when we were at ATOM 2025.
Have you tried any of the games in the City Collection? Which are your favourite?
Let us know in the comments below!
– An update to Bruges
