Brass: Birmingham Canal Era Strategy

The Canal Era is the cheaper, quieter half of Brass: Birmingham. Canals cost £3. You may have only one industry tile in each town. Everyone opens with a single action. It is easy to treat it as a warm-up. It works better as the era where you build the base the Rail Era stands on.

What survives the end of the Canal Era?

When the era ends, links score and leave the board. Flipped industry tiles score. Then every level 1 tile on the board is removed. Level 2 and higher tiles stay, flipped or not.

That gives you three kinds of tiles:

• Level 1. Scores once at most, then it is gone.
• Level 2 or higher, flipped. Scores now and again at the end of the game. The rulebook’s own example: a flipped level 3 cotton mill scores 9 VPs in each era, 18 in all.
• Level 2 or higher, unflipped. Scores nothing now, but stays. You can still sell it, or empty it, in the Rail Era.

Surviving tiles do one more job. Every link comes off the board at the end of the era, so your Rail Era network starts as the towns where your tiles still stand.

Develop past what disappears

Develop removes 1 or 2 tiles from your mat for 1 iron each. The rulebook calls it “your friend,” and the Canal Era is why. Each level 1 tile you develop away means your next build of that industry is a tile that survives.

While any iron works on the board still has iron, that iron is free and needs no connection. Building an iron works early helps every player who wants to develop, and each cube they take moves your tile closer to flipping.

Clear your level 1 coal mine and iron works

Level 1 tiles cannot be built in the Rail Era, with one exception: the level 1 Pottery. A mark beside a slot on your mat shows when a tile is limited to one era. A level 1 tile still on your mat blocks that industry in the Rail Era until you spend a Develop action to clear it.

The rulebook’s tip: build or develop at least one coal mine and one iron works in the Canal Era. Every rail in the Rail Era needs coal, and you will want to build mines then without a Develop action first.

Canals: cheap points with a short life

A canal costs £3, uses no coal, and you may place only one per Network action. At the end of the era it scores 1 VP for each link icon in its two locations: the icons on flipped tiles, whoever owns them, and 2 for a merchant location. Then it leaves the board.

So a canal earns its place in one of two ways:

• It connects. It brings a merchant in reach for selling, or a coal mine in reach for building.
• It touches towns that will fill up. If both ends will hold flipped tiles by the end of the era, the canal pays you for work other players do too.

Level 1 tiles count for canal scoring. Links score before level 1 tiles leave the board.

Income early pays every round

Income is collected after every round except the last round of the game. With 4 players, that is 15 paydays: 8 in the Canal Era and 7 in the Rail Era. An income gain in round 2 pays out in nearly all of them.

Two industries can give cash and income in the same action. A new iron works always moves as many cubes as it can into the iron market. A new coal mine does the same with the coal market, if it is connected to a merchant location. You collect the price beside each space you fill, most expensive first. If the last cube leaves your tile, it flips at once and raises your income. This only happens on the turn you build it.

Sell while merchant beer is on the board

Merchant beer only works for a Sell to that merchant, and it brings a bonus: a Develop with no iron at Gloucester, 2 income spaces at Oxford, 3 VPs at Nottingham, 4 VPs at Shrewsbury, and £5 at Warrington.

At the end of the Canal Era, every empty merchant beer space refills. Barrels used now come back for the Rail Era, so Canal Era merchant beer is there to be used. The player who sells first to a merchant gets its barrel, which is one more reason to plan a sell early.

One tile per town, so choose towns with care

In the Canal Era you may have one industry tile per town, though other players can build there too. A town with several spaces can hold your tile and rivals’ tiles, and a canal into it scores from all of them.

Pick Canal Era towns that will still help you in the Rail Era: close to merchants for selling, and close to coal for building. A level 2 tile in the right town becomes the anchor your rails grow from.

The first round

Everyone takes one action, in random order. What you spend sets the next round’s order: least spent goes first. An action that spends little, such as a Loan or a single canal, tends to put you earlier in round 2. The loans and turn order lesson in Level 2 covers this in depth, and the openings lesson in Level 3 plans the first rounds in detail.

Brass: Birmingham is a classic eurogame in style: little luck in the moves, lots of planning. If your group is new to that style, our explainer on euro games and their labels sets expectations before the first canal goes down.