Brass: Birmingham Industries Compared, Level by Level

Your player mat is a menu. Every slot shows a tile’s cost, the coal or iron it needs, the VPs it scores when flipped, how far it moves your income, and the link icons it adds to its town. Reading that menu well is most of what separates an intermediate player from a beginner. This lesson reads it for you, industry by industry.

The rulebook does not print these numbers; they live on the player mat, so trust your own mat if anything here differs.

Two families of industry

• Resource industries: coal mines, iron works, breweries. They flip when their last cube or barrel is used, often on a rival’s turn. You build them; the table flips them.
• Goods industries: cotton mills, manufacturers, potteries. They flip only when you Sell them to a connected merchant, usually paying beer. You build them, and you flip them yourself.

Resource tiles tend to be cheap and fast. Goods tiles tend to cost more, score more, and need a plan to sell.

Coal mines: income now

Coal mines score few points but raise income more than almost anything else. A level 2 mine moves your income 7 spaces for £7. And because coal must come from the closest connected mine, rivals often flip your mine for you.

Iron works: points, and a gift to everyone

You have only one iron works of each level. Iron needs no connection, so anyone can drain yours from anywhere, and a new works always moves what it can to the iron market for cash.

Breweries: the quiet engine

Every brewery shows 2 link icons once flipped, and each holds 1 barrel in the Canal Era and 2 in the Rail Era. Level 4 can only be built in the Rail Era. For the price, breweries offer a strong mix of points, income, and link value, and they supply the beer your own sales need.

Cotton mills: the steady scorer

You have 11 cotton mills, as many as manufacturers and more than any other industry. Every one needs exactly 1 beer to sell. The rulebook’s own example is a flipped level 3 mill scoring 9 VPs in each era.

Manufacturers: the zigzag

Manufacturers have eight levels, and they do not climb in a straight line. Some levels lean toward income, such as level 4 (£8 and 1 iron, +6 income, 3 VPs). Others lean toward points, such as level 8 (£20 and 2 iron, 11 VPs, +1 income). Level 5 needs 2 beer to sell; levels 3 and 7 need none and show no link icons. Read the next slot on your mat before every manufacturer build: the tile after this one may be a very different deal.

Potteries: big points, big price

Levels 1 and 3 show the lightbulb: they can never be developed away, only built. Levels 2 and 4 are cheap stepping stones that score little. Level 5 can only be built in the Rail Era, and at 20 VPs it is the biggest single tile in the game. Pottery is a long plan: two expensive builds stand between you and that tile.

Reading the menu

A few patterns hold across the mat:

• Higher levels lean toward points. In iron works and cotton mills, the top levels score far more VPs than the bottom ones and raise income less. Early tiles fund the game; late tiles win it.
• Level 2 and higher tiles survive the Canal Era, so a level 2 tile flipped early can score twice.
• Link icons matter. A brewery or a level 1 coal mine adds 2 icons to its town, which raises every link that touches it, yours or a rival’s.

Brass runs on the same curve as any engine-building game: income first, points later. The mat simply prints the exchange rate.