Can Hans win the hunt?
It seems like Hans never wins the hunting contest in KCD1's The Prey. I've also seen some reports that Hans can't possibly win because he doesn't loot his kills. Is this quest bugged? Did Warhorse screw up? Time to test it!
Does Hans loot hares at all?
Yes! Kinda!
Under the following circumstances, Hans will try to collect his hare meat:
The hunt has ended (i.e. the quest has moved on to the "Return to camp" segment)
Hans has shot 3 hares in a row
Hans has shot all possible hares
The way looting is supposed to work is:
One of Hans' dogs runs over to the latest dead hare and barks
Hans walks over and praises the dog
Hans loots the hare
One of the dogs moves onto the next hare and this repeats
However, what actually happened when I observed Hans is that he only looted one hare successfully. The dog then ran to the next hare but Hans just stood in place forever. When I went with the dog instead and then teleported back to Hans to check what he was doing, the game just kinda skipped the looting sequence and Hans went back to shooting. There's clearly some bug here, maybe involving the dog getting too far away from Hans/the player and the AI shifting over to some off-screen-simulation mode.
Can Hans win?
Yes, but the player is 'cheating' so it's very unlikely.
Hans gets 5 hare meat per looted hare.
The player gets a randomised amount (also based on hunting skill I think?), but it's likely to be 10-20 meat.
The quest compares the amount of meat each person has.
There are seven hares in total for Hans to hunt. If Hans kills and successfully loots all seven, he will have a maximum of 35 meat. So Hans has to kill a lot more hares than the player to have a chance of winning.
(To be fair, Hans can also cheat a bit: if you shoot the hare he's targeting, it will still count as his trophy and he'll loot it.)
Hans is also, well, really bad at shooting the hares. He misses the vast majority of his shots. Add that to his inability to loot them all, his nerfed loot amount, and his propensity to get stuck, and it's extremely unlikely he'll win.
What if you don't follow Hans?
AI works differently offscreen. Most players won't follow Hans, they'll go off and hunt their own hares. Can Hans even kill and loot hares if the player isn't looking at him?
I ran three tests on new debug games where I just skipped time at camp until 1300 each time. Hans had 0 hare meat on all three tests (whereas when I followed him he always managed to loot at least one hare).
I also ran a test where I waited in place but didn't skip time. He had 0 meat in this test too.
So I'm assuming that if you don't run into him and follow him long enough for him to shoot and loot, he's always doomed to lose.
What happens if Hans wins?
Nothing interesting. He just says "A pretty poor catch, Henry. See, unlike you, I know how to hit a target."
If both of you have >25 hare meat and you didn't follow him around (which seems to be an impossible condition based on my tests) then he says "My word! The two of us could supply the whole of Rattay with game!"
Bonus fun fact
Hans' dogs are just called 'Dog' ingame, but in the code they're named Packa and Tapka.