Brass: Birmingham is an economic strategy game sequel to Martin Wallace’ 2007 masterpiece, Brass. Birmingham tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870.
As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands.
Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following actions (found in the original game):
1) Build – Pay required resources and place an industry tile.
2) Network – Add a rail / canal link, expanding your network.
3) Develop – Increase the VP value of an industry.
4) Sell – Sell your cotton, manufactured goods and pottery.
5) Loan – Take a £30 loan and reduce your income.
Brass: Birmingham also features a new sixth action:
6) Scout – Discard three cards and take a wild location and wild industry card. (This action replaces Double Action Build in original Brass.)
The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870). To win the game, score the most VPs. VPs are counted at the end of each half for the canals, rails and established (flipped) industry tiles.
Birmingham features dynamic scoring canals/rails. Instead of each flipped industry tile giving a static 1 VP to all connected canals and rails, many industries give 0 or even 2 VPs. This provides players with the opportunity to score much higher value canals in the first era, and creates interesting strategy with industry placement.
Iron, coal, and cotton are three industries which appear in both the original Brass as well as in Brass: Birmingham.
New “Sell” system
Brewing has become a fundamental part of the culture in Birmingham. You must now sell your product through traders located around the edges of the board. Each of these traders is looking for a specific type of good each game. To sell cotton, pottery, or manufactured goods to these traders, you must also “grease the wheels of industry” by consuming beer. For example, a level 1 cotton mill requires one beer to flip. As an incentive to sell early, the first player to sell to a trader receives free beer.
Birmingham features three all-new industry types:
Brewery – Produces precious beer barrels required to sell goods.
Manufactured goods – Function like cotton, but features eight levels. Each level of manufactured goods provides unique rewards, rather than just escalating in VPs, making it a more versatile (yet potentially more difficult) path vs cotton.
Pottery – These behemoths of Birmingham offer huge VPs, but at a huge cost and need to plan.
Increased Coal and Iron Market size – The price of coal and iron can now go up to £8 per cube, and it’s not uncommon.
Brass: Birmingham is a finely brewed sequel to one of history’s most industrial economic games. It offers a very different story arc and experience from its predecessor. Many of the tried and true strategies of the original are no longer as powerful as they once were, and other interesting new strategies are waiting for you to discover.
AWARD-WINNING DESIGN: Critically acclaimed and Winner of multiple Game of the Year Awards, including the #1 Board Game of All-Time on BoardGameGeek
FUN FOR ADULTS AND FAMILIES: An extremely fun, well-designed board game that is perfect for game nights with your family or friends
THEMATIC GAMEPLAY: Players take on the role of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham and its surrounding areas during England’s Industrial Revolution in 1770 – 1870.
HIGHLY STRATEGIC: Players must develop, build, and establish industries and networks to best exploit low or high market demands. Effective planning is integral to each player’s overall success, as decisions can have long-term effects, impacting the actions that are available to them on later turns.
BALANCED RULESET: The rules in Brass: Birmingham have been tweaked to improve the overall balance for all player counts, including the rules for two and three players.
Customers say
Customers find this board game to be a great strategy game with thoughtful design and high-quality components. They consider it worth the time and money, and one customer describes it as the best economic game ever. The game takes time to learn and has complex rules.
Acalanaatha –
gooood
very good
Mathius17 –
It’s the top 1 game in BGG for a reason
It’s the top 1 game in BGG for a reason
D Darkman –
My teen kids love it!
My 17 year old and his friends seem to play this whenever they get together. And theyâre enthusiastic. Theyâll play it a couple hours at a time. To me, it looks complex because there are little pieces, but my kid tells me âabsolutely not complex, itâs pretty easy to play, but the game play itself is great.â Thatâ all I know.
M57 –
#1 board game on BGG — AND in my home.
It speaks volumes that such a heavy (complex) game is #1 on Board Game Geek. Save a few brain cells and precious time by watching a tutorial or two on youtube before opening the box. Oh, and do your best to convince your player friends do the same.
Gennel –
My 17year old’s favorite game
My son and his friends absolutely love this game. They set game nights to specifically play Brass. Highly recommend.
Luis Ospina –
Caja un poco maltratado, buena atención del servicio al cliente
La caja vino maltratada por un lado, pero el equipo al cliente fue efectivo en ayudarme con una solución, ya he comprado anteriormente en Roxley, me gusta como diseñan los componentes, 100% recomendado
Scotty H. –
Best game in my collection
Brass Birmingham absolutely lives up to expectations. Let me first talk about the art. The main board and player boards are probably my most favorite components. Whether you choose to play the light or dark side, I feel the look really brings this one to shine on your table. The buildings, cards, and resource components are all top notch. I love the beer barrels especially.But where the game really shines is in the play. This one really challenges you to build the best economic engine. You have an incredible number of options on your turn. For this reason, I could see this being a challenge for new players. But as you learn the game, the choices become more clear. The choice of which cards to play from your hand, and when, is absolutely amazing. You are constantly fighting over locations, routes, and resources with the other players.Planning is critical, as you realize that halfway through the game you will lose your level 1 buildings and your canals. What you do in the canal era will dictate how you will fare in the rail era. The players who plan best will start the 2nd half of the game on a strong foot. It’s a great game for those who enjoy looking ahead and putting themselves into a position to succeed.While some may complain at the length of the game (it can take 2-3 hours with 4p), I find the game never tires and will always have a place at my table. This board game will NEVER leave my collection!
Jui Lin –
Fantastic game and nice board quality
I have a group of friends who play board games weekly. We really love the game and already played 3 times in 2 weeks which is rare because we all have busy work schedules and still try to make time for Brass Birmingham at least 2 hours game. Good token and standard cards quality.The game has high playability.
Snorks –
Não é a toa que este jogo é atualmente o top um no ranking do maior site de jogos do mundo, ele é muito bom mesmo
Ryan –
All the components inside the box were in perfect condition but the box came with a couple of scratches. I imagine that this was due to the lax packaging but it doesnât personally both me that much.
Filipe –
Es un juego muy bonito e interesante sobre la revolución industrial en Inglaterra. Ofrece muchas posibilidades al jugador y es muy estratégico. El juego llegó en perfectas condiciones y mucho antes de la fecha de entrega prevista.
Juan Pablo Rebolledo –
Muy bueno, con una estrategia muy profunda y no tan complejo de entender. El mejor juego de economÃa que he jugado
Martina –
Gioco ripetibile, non stanca. Belle miniature, bei disegni, ottima struttura di gioco. Devi costruire il tuo mercato (metallo/birra/legname etc) nell’epoca vittoriana. Utilizzati buoni materiali. Unica pecca, la tavola di gioco è molto buia, si fatica a vedere e non è possibile giocare di sera senza una luce potente.