Hi and welcome to Watch It Played!
My name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the two to four player game
Brass: Birmingham designed by Martin Wallace, Gavan Brown
and Matt Tolman and published by Roxley Games
who helped sponsor this video.

You may have heard of the game Brass
published in 2007 and designed by Martin Wallace which had players acting as entrepreneurs
during the Industrial Revolution. Well that game has now been reprinted as
Brass: Lancashire. This can be played exactly as the original game was printed, or with its included updated rules

and of particular note is all the new
artwork and updated components. At the same time, this edition of
the game Brass: Birmingham was also released which includes
a new map and additional rules allowing you to experience the
classic game in a brand new way

and it is this version that we're going to learn here
so join me at the table and let's get started. To set up, place the board on
either the night or the day side both are laid out the same way so just
pick based on your preferred art.

Now go through all the cards and
check this area which will show symbols representing either two, three, or four players. Return to the box any showing only player counts
greater than what you have. We'll set up a two player game in this video which means none of the cards in this stack will be used

because they all show player counts
of three and four only. From the ones you kept, find all of the
cards with a white border like this and then separate them into
two groups based on their art putting each group into its own face up pile
into the spaces for them on the board.

Then shuffle all remaining cards into
a face down deck beside them here. These are the merchant tiles, and again, check
the symbols here for the number of players, returning any that don't apply to the box. Some of the leftovers will be mostly blank
and that's okay.

Shuffle all the ones you kept, randomly placing one face up onto each of these
merchant spaces that show your number of players. When you're done, in a two player game
you'll have tokens on these locations while these ones will remain empty.

Next to each placed tile
is a space for one of these beer barrels. Put one of them there as long as the tile isn't blank…
so in this situation we'd leave the space here empty. On all of these spaces,
except for the one with a dot at the bottom

place one of these black coal cubes
so that when you're finished it looks like this. Likewise, in this area place one of these iron cubes on each of the spaces except for the bottom two. Beside the board put all remaining
cubes, barrels, and these money tokens

and for the purposes of this video
I'll keep these components off screen and
just bring them back in as necessary. Now each player will collect
one of these double sided mats, and aside from the time of day pictured,
there's no difference between the sides
so just pick the one you prefer.

Then take one of these character tiles
in the color of your choosing and pick
which side you want to keep face up. Again, this will have no particular effect on the gameplay, but you will then also need to collect all of these square industry tiles in the same color
and there'll be quite a few of them.

and they're double-sided as you can see. Stack all of these into the matching spaces for them
on your player board, ensuring that the side with a
black top half is face down. It will look like this when you're done.

Near the board, also put all of these
double-sided link tiles in your color and collect seventeen pounds from the general supply. Now draw eight cards from the deck
to form your personal hand, which you can always examine but
must keep secret from the other players.

Also draw an additional card unseen
to place beside your mat as a personal discard pile. Next, put your victory point marker on
this zero space of the progress track and your income marker on this ten space. Finally, shuffle all the character tiles together and then place them randomly onto the turn order track here.

And that's the setup! In Brass: Birmingham, players will take on
the roles of competing entrepreneurs during the Industrial Revolution, and this is represented by
two distinct eras that you will play: first the canal era and then the rail era, and each of these eras is divided into rounds

and during a round, each player will take a single turn. Turns will start with the player in the
first position of the track here, and they will be followed by each other
pictured player in this order. On your turn, you'll perform a total of two actions

except during the first round of the game, where each player will only perform one action on their turn. There are six different actions you can perform,
as shown on these reference cards, and there's one available for each player. To help me explain how the actions work, I'll be adding things to the board throughout the video.

as if we were already a few rounds into the canal age, as this will help me more easily explain the various actions. But first, let's start by taking a tour of the board. To begin, you will note that there are a variety of named locations printed on it

and many will have various printed lines between them. Some will show just a blue band representing a canal where boat tokens can be placed. Others have only a train track representing a railway where train tokens can be put. Some will have both types, meaning that the locations on either side can be connected

by either a boat or a train. These modes of transportation are represented by double-sided link tiles like this, which will be placed on the paths to connect the locations on either side of them. In the canal era, which begins the game, you will only be able to place your link tiles with their boat side up

and these can only go onto paths that show a canal. So, a tile like this could not be placed here as it shows only rails, but it could go here or here as this shows both. Two locations are considered connected if you can trace a route of link tiles between them, no matter the color.

For example, these locations are considered connected because there is an uninterrupted line of link tiles between them. On the other hand, these two locations are not considered connected because the line is interrupted here with a gap. Although any player's pieces may connect to locations,

a separate concept is understanding which locations are a part of something known as your network. A location is only considered to be a part of your network if it contains one of your industry tiles already or if it's adjacent to at least one of your link tiles.

It's also likely that another player's network,
made up of their tiles and links will also overlap into your network and that's okay. For example, all of these locations are considered
to be a part of this player's network because they either contain their industry tiles
or their locations adjacent to its links.

A single player can even have several
different networks on the board. Although these two locations are separate
from the rest of this player's network, they're still considered to be a part of
that player's network because again they either have an industry tile in that location
or are adjacent to one of their players' links.

With those basic ideas understood,
let's go back to learning about the actions but remember during the first round of the game each player will only perform a single action on their turn but in all future turns they'll perform two actions. Let's start with the build action, where you first discard a card from your hand into your personal discard pile

and there are four different types of cards
you may have to use. If you see names printed in these areas,
then it's a location card meaning that you'll be able to build in that printed location no matter where it is on the board

even if it's not a part of your network
or connected to anything else. This is a wild location. When you use it for the build action pick any location to build in, even ones whose cards were removed from the deck. For example, in a two player game, these locations had all of their cards returned to the box

but when using a wild location card
you can still choose to build in them. The only exceptions are these two locations
which are known as farm breweries they don't have names and you can not use wild locations to build there. This is an industry card – it doesn't show the
name of a location, instead you can pick any

location to put a tile in as long as
that location is connected to your network and if it shows one of the card's symbols
here within one of its spaces. So, for example,
I could use this card to build here or here as they both show coal mines
and are part of my network.

If you have no links or tiles on the board, which would certainly be the case at the beginning of the game, then you can play an industry card from your hand and then build in any empty location
of the board displaying its icon. It does not have to be a location connected to your network since you don't have a network yet!

There are also wild industry cards
which work the same as regular industry cards but they can be played as any industry symbol. We'll see how you can gain wild cards later but any time one is used,
no matter which action was performed you will always put them back into the space for them here on the board, not into your personal discard pile.

Only non-wild cards that you
play from your hand will go here. On the back of your player aid you'll find a list of the distribution of cards found in the deck based on the number of players and
you'll notice there are duplicates of many of them.

Once you've played and discarded a valid card for where you want to build, examine your player board. Here you'll find a variety of different
groups of industry tiles each with their own symbols and levels
found in their upper left-hand corners.

Any time you want to build an industry
you must take from the lowest available level. In other words, only once all of these tiles are gone will we be able to build level two tiles from this industry. Also, tiles with this black half moon
to the left of their slot

can only be built in the rail era,
which comes later in the game, and ones with this blue half moon in their slot can only be built in the canal era which we're currently in. If you used a location card for your build action, then you can claim the lowest level from any industry

but if you use an industry card then
the tile that you collect must match its symbol. In this case, I have chosen to
play the Wolverhampton card, and I'm going to build this manufacturing tile. Once it has been collected, you then place
that industry tile into the appropriate location,

following these restrictions: First, it must have a matching symbol for
that industry within one of its spaces. If there's an empty space showing only its symbol,
your token must be placed there first; however, if this space had already been covered, then

you may place it into a space where its icon is sharing its symbol with another industry icon like this one. If neither of these spaces were showing
the manufacturing icon, then this token could not be placed there. Also, in the canal era, a player can never have more than one of their tokens within a single location.

For example, once I build here, I cannot put
another one of my tiles into this location, though other players certainly could. The industry token you're placing will also have a cost which is shown to the left of its slot on your board.

This will always show a certain amount of money, but also may cost either black coal cubes, orange iron cubes, or both, as we see over here for this tile. Money is paid from your personal supply, and this manufacturing token that I wanted to build
will cost me eight pounds.

All money you spend in the game
is placed on top of your character token. The cost also requires me to consume one coal cube,
but this must be spent from the main board. To do this, after placing the tile I want to build,
I must collect the cost in coal from

the closest connected coal mine
that still has cubes on it, no matter who owns it. So, for example, by placing here
I can trace a line to either this coal mine, or this one, but this one is closer so I must
spend the required one coal from here

returning it to the general supply. If this coal mine had been empty when I placed this tile then I would instead take from this coal mine. If two different coal locations are equally distant from where the coal is needed then
the player can pick the one they wish to take from.

I should also point out that once a coal mine tile no longer has cubes on it because they've all been spent it flips over right away, giving its controlling player an immediate bonus to their income level which is shown by this symbol. So this player would now
move their income marker four spaces up

so their marker would move from here to here. Just keep in mind your income can never be increased beyond this final space here. At the end of the canal era, flipped tokens like this one will be worth points for the player who originally built them, which is represented by this symbol here

so this is something to consider when you're consuming coal – always claim cubes from your own mines when you can so that you're helping yourself
get closer to flipping your own tiles rather than helping to empty an opponent's. If you are placing a building and need coal to spend
but there are no mines with cubes connected to it

You can instead buy the required coal as long as you can trace a connected line to one of the spaces on the edge showing this coal symbol and these double arrows. This is known as a coal market which allows you to buy coal from here.

You'll always take the required coal from the bottom most row, paying the cost shown to its left. So in this case, the coal I need to buy would cost me one pound. A player needing to purchase coal later would then have to spend two pounds.

In the event that all of the cubes have been purchased from the market, you can still always purchase coal at a cost of eight pounds each, which is shown here at the top. Some industries you would build, like this brewery, will require you to consume iron.

Unlike coal, this cost can be taken from any tile on the board. It doesn't have to be the closest, or even be connected to the location you're building on. This is because unlike coal, historically iron was required in lower volumes and could be transported more easily.

Now, if your action requires you to spend more than one iron, you can take them from the same or different tiles. And like coal mines, if you empty an ironworks of its cubes, you flip it over and its owner increases their income accordingly.

If there are no iron cubes on any of the locations of the board, instead you can buy from the iron market, but unlike buying from the coal market, you do not need to be able to trace a route to any particular location to do this.

simply pay the cost of the lowest valued iron
on this track and remove it from the board. You can also pay six pounds per iron you need
if its market is empty. No matter which kind of tile you're trying to place,
if you cannot pay the required

money, coal, and/or iron
you cannot build the related building. Now, if you're building a manufacturing,
cotton mill, or pottery tile once it is placed on the board your action ends but if you build a brewery like this then you'll place a single beer barrel on it from the supply.

If you build a coal or iron works, place the number of cubes indicated in its
bottom right-hand corner onto the tile instead. In the case of an ironworks, once its token has been placed and you've put all the required cubes on it,

you then move as many cubes as possible from it
to fill in empty spaces in the iron market (if any) starting at the most expensive spots first and for each one moved this way, you'll collect an amount of money
equal to what is showing across from it.

This represents you selling iron
to eager buyers in the region. You'll even fill in these spaces which were
initially left empty during the setup so in this case our player has returned three cubes, one worth two pounds, and two of them worth one pound,

for a total of four pounds which they'll collect from the general supply. After building a coal mine
and placing the required cubes on it you will then sell them back to any
empty spaces on its market in the same way but only if the coal mine that you just placed

You can trace a connected path back to one of these coal markets that show the double arrows. You will collect money in the same way, and again, you can also fill in these initial spaces that were left empty during the setup. So in this case, the player would gain two pounds.

Now, keep in mind you will only sell back to the market when a building is first placed with its initial cubes. If spaces open up in the market after it's already been built, no cubes are then sold to it from there. Also, if these initial sales empty a tile that you just placed, flip it over

and then move your income marker the indicated number of spaces. Another option with this build action is called overbuilding. This is where you replace a tile that you already built with a new one from your board that is from the same industry but a higher level.

You can always build on top of your own tiles, and if there were coal or iron cubes there, return them to the supply, putting the replaced tile in the box. But you do not lose any income bonus it may have provided you with if it had already been flipped over.

After placing the overbuilt tile, add any pieces that would normally be produced there. You can even build on top of an opponent's tiles, but only if it's a coal mine or ironworks and only if there are no resource cubes on the entire board, including here in the market

that would match the cubes that the newly overbuilt tile would produce. For example, this player could not place a coal mine on top of this one because there are still cubes here on the board, and even here in the market place. On the other hand, they could build over their opponents' 

ironworks because none of its cubes are found anywhere on the board or here in the market. And with that we've covered the
build action, which is the most complex. So now let's examine the network action and to do this you'll discard any card from your hand

remembering that if it's wild you return it to
this area here on the board, not to your own discard pile. Then spend three pounds and place one of your
link tiles on any empty line of the board so long as it is adjacent to a part of your network.

However, if you have no industry or link tiles
on the board at all, when you perform this network action
you can place your link on any valid line. Remember in the canal era,
which is represented by this symbol, your links must be placed boat side up
on a path showing this blue line

which will sometimes also be paired with
a rail like this meaning a boat could go here whereas we saw earlier a boat
could not be placed on this line. The cost to place one of these boat/canal links
is also shown here printed on the board

and just remember any money that you spend
during a turn is placed on your character's tile not back in the general supply. As we've seen, building industries and links costs you money so if you're running low then as an action you might perform a loan by discarding any card from your hand

and then taking thirty pounds from the general supply. You then move your income marker
backwards on the track three levels, not three spaces. Levels are indicated by these gold and silver coins 
showing on the progress track so, for example, if I was here and then took a loan

I would go back one, two, three levels to this one and if there's more than one space within a level, after taking a loan, put your marker
on the highest valued space. Just note, you cannot take a loan
if your income would drop below minus ten.

We mentioned earlier that when you take a build action you must use the lowest level token that you have
from the industry that you've chosen to build. However, there is a shortcut to get to
some of these higher levels sooner through what is known as the develop action.

With this, you again discard any card from your hand and then remove one or two tiles
from your player mat, returning them to the box. Each tile you pick doesn't have to come from the same industry but they must always be the lowest values
from the industries that you choose.

You must also consume one iron for each tile removed this way, following the rules that we saw before, taking them either from tiles on the board, or if there are none then buying them from the marketplace. In this way, by using this action you'll more quickly
gain access to the higher level tiles

which may yield better production, income, or points, however there is one exception – any tile with this crossed out light bulb symbol may not be removed with a develop action, these must be built before they can leave your board. We've seen previously how you flip over
coal, iron and brewery tiles.

You first have to empty the cubes on them. However, if you build a manufacturing, cotton mill or pottery tile
no cubes are placed on these. Instead you need to flip them with
a separate action called selling. To do this you first discard any card from your hand

and then choose any one of these unflipped tiles that is connected to a merchant tile
featuring that industry's icon. In other words, if I wanted to flip this cotton mill, I would need to be able to trace a connected line over to a merchant tile like this which also shows its symbol.

You'll notice that some merchant tiles
show more than one industry symbol, so I could instead sell to this location with my mill
since it also has a mill symbol there. Just keep in mind that a valid connection can be made up of anyone's link tiles

it doesn't just have to be your own. Now before continuing with this action,
I check to see if the tile that I want to flip has any of these beer barrel symbols
showing in its top right-hand corner. If so, I must consume that
number of barrels to sell the good.

and there are two different ways to do this: first of all, if there is a beer barrel in the space here beside the merchant I am connecting to,
I can take it from there and then as a bonus I gain the reward that was showing here beside it.

If you see a light bulb like we find here
then you can perform a develop action on one tile of your board. You'll remove it using the develop rules
that we just learned about, except that you will not have to
pay an iron cube to do so.

if the barrel you collect has this income symbol beside it then you will increase your current income
that number of spaces. If you see this money symbol,
collect that amount from the general supply. Finally, this symbol, as we saw before, represents points.

So a beer taken from here would advance your victory point token that number of spaces along the progress track. Now, sometimes beer that you would need to consume will not be in the space adjacent to the merchant tile you're selling to because perhaps somebody else claimed it first

or maybe the industry you're trying to flip needs more than one barrel or perhaps you just want to get the barrel from somewhere else. In those cases you also have options. If you had previously built any breweries that still have barrels on them

you can always pay beer costs by discarding these even if that beer is not connected to a location where it needs to be consumed or instead, if an opponent has beer you can also consume it from their tile but only if it is connected to where the beer is required.

In both of those cases if taking a barrel would empty a tile (yours or an opponent's) it is immediately flipped over and the player that owns the flipped tile has their income increased by the amount shown here as usual. Either way, once any beer costs have been paid

the industry tile that you targeted with the sell action is flipped over and you advance your income based on the value shown here as we've seen previously. After following these steps, within the same sell action as many times as you like you can now repeat this process for any other of your unflipped industry tiles

that could be targeted with the sell action even those in a different industry than the first one that you sold. So for example, I could now also flip this tile assuming that I have a connection to the related merchant and can pay the beer costs.

Finally, we come to the scout action
where unlike the previous actions, you will not discard just one but instead
three non-wild cards from your hand, placing them face up into your discard pile. You then take one wild location
and one wild industry card.

Just keep in mind you cannot perform this action if you already had at least one wild in your hand. And remember,
any time you use one of these in the game, be sure to return them to their position on the board. Now that we've gone through all the actions

I'd like to go back to a couple of concepts that we'll be better able to understand now, starting with farm breweries. These are the two unnamed locations
on the board here and here. You may only build in these locations using
either an industry card showing the brewery symbol

or a wild industry card, and then only if you have one of
your link tiles adjacent to it. This particular farm brewery is a little different,
as it appears to have a branching path, but a link here is considered to
also be extending in this direction

so a second link is not required
or allowed to be placed in this area. Though we've covered all the
actions that you can perform, I should also mention that
you can choose to pass for an action, but you will still need to discard one card
for each pass that you perform.

After completing your actions, you will then
draw back up until you have eight cards in hand, and then the next player will perform their turn
following the turn order. Once all the players have taken one turn, it is now the end of the round, and you'll check to see how
much money each player spent.

by counting the total on their character token. You then rearrange the tokens so that the
player who spent the least is now first down to the player who spent the most being last. If there's a tie, keep those tied players in the
same order relative to their earlier placement.

In this two-player game, it's very simple –
these two would just switch places, but let's say we had a third player who also
spent as much money as the current first player. The second player who spent the least
would now move into the first position

and these two would stay in the
same positions relative to each other with this player ahead of the one
who had been previously further behind. Either way, once the order has been adjusted, remove all the money from the character tokens and return them to the supply.

With that step complete, each player collects an amount of money from the bank equal to their income level, which is shown by this coin symbol
beside their income marker. So if I was here,
I would collect two pounds from the bank. If your income is instead negative, then you
must pay that amount of money to the bank.

Brass: Birmingham - How To Play

Brass: Birmingham - How To Play

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