Brass: Birmingham Link Scoring Math

There are only two ways to score in Brass: Birmingham. Industries score what you built. Links score what everyone built at the ends of your routes. The second one is easy to undercount, and it rewards players who do the arithmetic before they place a link.

The rule in one sentence

At the end of each era, each of your links scores 1 VP for each link icon in the two locations it touches.

The icons come from two places:

• Flipped industry tiles. The link icons are printed on a tile’s flipped side. Unflipped tiles show none. Ownership does not matter: a rival’s flipped tile pays your link.
• Merchant locations. Each one shows 2 link icons on the board.

Links score before industries, and then they leave the board. In the Canal Era, flipped level 1 tiles still count for your canals, because they are only removed after scoring.

A worked example

Say you place a canal between two locations:

• Town A holds your flipped tile showing 2 link icons and a rival’s flipped tile showing 1.
• Location B is a merchant location: 2 icons.

At the end of the era, your canal scores 2 + 1 + 2 = 5 VPs. It cost £3 and one action. If a third player flips a tile showing 1 icon in Town A before the era ends, the canal scores 6 without you lifting a finger.

Now compare a canal between two quiet towns, each with one flipped tile showing 1 icon. It cost the same £3 and the same action, and it scores 2.

Canal and rail costs

With 4 players you get 15 actions in the Canal Era and 16 in the Rail Era. Every link should earn its share of them.

A double rail costs more per link but saves an action, and late in the Rail Era actions are scarcer than money. A single rail is cheaper per link, which matters when money is tight.

Coal makes rails dearer than they look. Free coal from a connected mine keeps a rail at £5. Market coal adds its price on top, up to £8 a cube when the market is empty.

Where links score best

• Between two busy towns. Both ends count, so a link joining two crowded towns can score many times what a link to a quiet town scores.
• Into a merchant location. Those 2 icons are there whatever happens with flips.
• Next to tiles that will flip. Unflipped tiles count for nothing now and everything later. A rival’s full coal mine at the end of your rail may well be emptied before scoring.
• Where it also connects. The best link scores well and brings you coal, beer, or a merchant too.

The rulebook points out that you can spread across the board quickly by placing links and skipping industry tiles. That only pays if the towns at the ends fill with flipped tiles, yours or anyone’s.

Timing: the board at the end of the era

Your link scores what is flipped when the era ends, not when you placed it. An early link has the most time to collect flips, and it connects you sooner. A late link is a safer read, because you can see what has already flipped.

In the Rail Era, last-round flips by any player add to your rails. If you act late in the final round, you can count almost exactly what a new rail will score.

Industries and links together

Industry VPs come only from your own flipped tiles. Link VPs come from everyone’s. A strong position uses both: flip your high-level tiles in a few towns, then run your links into those same towns. Each tile then pays you twice, once as an industry and again through every link of yours that touches its town.

That is the heart of the math. A flipped tile showing 2 link icons, in a town your three links touch, is worth its own VPs plus 6 more.

A link checklist

Before you place a link, count:

1. The icons in each location right now.
2. The tiles likely to flip there before the era ends, and who controls that.
3. What it connects: coal, beer, or a merchant.
4. Its cost in pounds, coal, and actions, against the VPs you expect.

Our guide to the game night lineup names Brass as a main event for an experienced group, and shows how to build an evening around a long game like this one.