Board With Each Other
A podcast that looks at Board Games / Tabletop Gaming through the lens of playing as a couple or with a regular gaming partner. Hosted by Al & Hannah, We review a game each episode.
Board With Each Other
Episode 26 - Brass: Birmingham: I'm Entering My Canal Era
Oh my, it's a biggie!
Thank you for joining us as we tackle the official 'Best Boardgame in the World' (according to Boardgame Geek at least), the dense and delightful Brass: Birmingham.
As always, we assess the game on its general merits, answer the question of how well Brass: Birmingham works as a two player game and try and answer the question 'is it overrated?'. We hope you enjoy!
Music
Al:Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Bored With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that takes board games and reviews them through the lens of playing them as a pair. Whether that's with your significant other, your BFF, or that rival industrial revolution mogul who somehow time-traveled to the present day and you just need to show him who's boss. I'm Al Simpson, your host, and I'm joined as ever by my lovely wife and player two, Hannah Kelly.
Hannah:Hi guys.
Al:And today we are doing a minor board game by the name of Brass Birmingham. I'm not intimidated. You're intimidated. Brass Birmingham is a modern day board gaming monolith. It holds the coveted number one spot on the Board Game Geek rankings for those of you who care about such a thing.
Hannah:And had done for quite some time.
Al:Yeah, a couple of years now. It knocked Gloomhaven off the top spot a couple of years back. So before I get into the rules and how the game plays I just want to add the caveat that Brass Birmingham is a deep heavy game and I don't want to sit here for 20 minutes boring in the pants of everybody talking all through all the rules. So this will be a bit of a whistle-stop tour. So I will gloss over certain things. I just want to sort of give a flavour of how the game plays. So in Brass Birmingham, you take on the role of an industrial revolution entrepreneur, magnate, whatever the term you want to use, who all have real histories, by the way, and are all real people. You can read up in the rule book if you're that way inclined. And the game is played on a board representing the Midlands, in the Industrial Revolution. And how gameplay works is you each have a hand of eight cards and you have a number of actions you can take. You also have a player board upon which are stacked tiles that represent different industries, so coal, iron.
Hannah:Beer.
Al:Beer. Factories, manufactured goods, pottery. I think that's most of them. And on your turn, any action you undertake in the game requires you to spend a card. So you can either, the cards are split into location cards, which will have locations in the Midlands on them, or industry cards. You can spend a location card to build any industry on one of the slots in that location, or you can spend an industry card to build a industry on a location that is within your network. More on that later. so that's the build action you can drop a card to build a um I can't remember what they're called. They're transportation link or a link, let's call them. I can't remember the actual term off the top of my head. And the game is played in two eras. In the first era, it's canals, so canal boats, so your transport links. In the second era is railways, so you build railways between the locations. And when you build a railway from one location to another, first of all, you need to have something down on the location you're going from, and then they've all got paths leading to the other ones, and then you can place one on there. That location and the link are counted as your network. If you build something else in one of the locations you've linked to, that also becomes part of your network. That's important because there are several resources in the game. There's coal, there's iron, and there's beer. You can use coal, iron, or beer from either your own tiles that you put down or other people's tiles if they are within your network. There are certain areas on the board where you can sell your goods but also link to them to obtain coal from the market. If you don't have any and you're not linked to your opponent or they have none, you can buy coal from the market. Iron you can buy from the market at any time. You don't need to be linked to it. When you put down a tile that has resources on it, either coal or iron, beer doesn't work like that, there are basic little spaces on the board that represent the marketplace. If any of those are empty, those cubes go straight from that location straight into the market and you get paid out for them. The third action you can take is taking a loan. Money is quite scarce at the start of the game. You need to sort of build up your industry and build up your control of the board before you start getting income at the start of every turn. There's an income track that goes up slowly as you either empty your reserves of coal or iron or you sell goods. When you take a loan, that income track represents how much money you get at the start of every turn, every round. You can take a loan, which puts you down on the income track, but gives you £30, which is quite a lot in early 19th century money. So a lot of the loan stuff is sort of strategically knowing when to take a hit on your income to try and get your industries going. You can... place a card down and spend some iron to develop, which is basically sort of researching. So all of the industries that you have, all the tiles on your board are separated into levels. Most of them sort of one through five, but some of them like manufactured goods have more than that. And you can basically use that action to discard tiles from your player boards without putting them down to basically make the ones that you do put down better.
Hannah:Yeah, because if you go to level two, three, four, they are more often than not worth more victory points.
Al:Yeah, more often than not. Not always. Some of them have different quirks. What's also really important about that is when you progress from the canal era, the first sort of half of the game, to the second... anything that's level two or above stays on the map. Anything that's level one basically gets wiped. And
Hannah:you can't develop all cards in the second era. So some you have to develop in the first or play
Al:in the first. Pottery. You can always develop. There's some cards you can't play in the second era but you can still develop them. Pottery is the exception where there's certain sort of red lines where you have to have built it in order to continue onwards. The other action you can take is called scouting where you discard two cards and you you take two wild cards, so a wild location and a wild industry. And each turn, on your turn, you have two actions
Hannah:to
Al:play. Yes, and you can sell. So at the start of the game, there are several selling locations, the number of which depends on the number of players, and they have randomized tiles that tell you what items you can sell there. To sell items, you almost always need access to beer. Beer starts at those locations, so you can use the beer that gets replenished at the start of either the canal or the rail error. You can use that beer usually to get a bonus as well when you first sell your goods there. However, that beer runs out and then you need to be producing beer on your own. When you sell goods, you flip them over and they'll usually give you a quantity of income. So you go up on the income track and they'll be worth victory points at the end of the era. You basically do a full scoring at the end of the canal era and the end of the rail era. You also get victory points at the end of each era depending on how many transport links you have. So each industry tile has a number of little transport icons on it and you basically count how many of those each of your boats or rails are connected to. play continues until the deck runs out at which point you end the error so when the deck first runs out in the canal error you then move the score and then you go over to the railway
Hannah:so it's not when the deck runs out but when the cards in your hand sorry
Al:beg your pardon when your cards in your hand yeah so once everybody's played all their cards in the canal error the deck has two less cards because you take two off right at the start and put them face down nobody knows what they are but they're basically missing and in the canal area you can only build buildings you can only build one building per location whereas in the railway area you can completely take over a location if you wish to
Hannah:so for example Birmingham has four slots with different manufactured goods you could in theory just colonise the entirety of the West Birmingham but you couldn't do that in the first era
Al:yeah exactly so I think I'll leave it there rules wise there obviously is a lot more to this this is this is heavy really really heavy as far as games go but that should give you a little bit of a flavour of how it plays the other intricacies of it I think we'll get onto with our review. As we come through to our review. How long does it play? I would say an hour and a half to two hours is pretty standard, I think, for us.
Hannah:Yeah, I would say that. And I don't think games get any shorter because you've still got a deck to work through.
Al:Yeah, I mean, games almost are like, I don't think you'd ever get through this unless there's sort of an hour and 20. And it's a thinky game, so there will be pauses while people try and think and plan and what have you. It's not simultaneous either, so add players, you're going to increase the runtime. I can see this with four players easily going sort of
Hannah:two and a half, three hours. Yeah, fully evening, yeah. awful evenings game,
Al:yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think we need to talk about why he picked this up. It's incredibly famous. It's number one in board game geeking. We've got to try this out. So, we did. So, shall we crack straight into scoring, then?
Hannah:Yeah,
Al:absolutely. This big one. All
Hannah:right. So, as always, we've got our general scoring criteria before we then move on to the two-player rating. And under the first under general is components. So, thinking about board space, set up, that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. So it's not my most loved game to set up.
Al:No, let's address the massive set up element of the room straight away, shall we?
Hannah:So Al said you've got your own player mat. And on that player mat, you've got space for all your industry tiles. And you get evolutions of each of those industry tiles. So boxes, for example, manufactured goods, I think there's about like... Nine. And each of them have multiple... tiles on that slot
Al:yeah most of them do
Hannah:so these are all individual tiles that you have to count out and put on the right slot and then you have this board that's stacked with loads of tiles and it takes forever
Al:yeah it does take a long time and there's no way through that the only way through it i've seen is some people who bought inserts that basically replicate the player boards so you just take them out and you just have your stacks and you put them on that is the only way you could speed this up yeah um aside from that you just got to do the old-fashioned way go oh that's a Number two box, that goes on the number two box. Start, repeat, ad nauseum. The rest of the game is fairly... easy and quick to set up. It's just the player board elements takes quite a while.
Hannah:Yeah. But that said, again, I've got used to it. But are there some nights where I look at it and go, I can't be faffed with that.
Al:Yeah, definitely. There have been nights where I'm like, I just can't be bothered with the setup really. Yeah.
Hannah:Which is unusual. I would say that's probably the only game, even Gloomhaven, for all its massive moving parts. Yeah, it just felt
Al:a little bit egregious for some reason. A little bit less egregious.
Hannah:What is really cool is with all your tiles you also get a player um a player
Al:icon
Hannah:icon yeah and that's two-sided and one's a man and one's a woman
Al:yeah i do like to undergo this exchange during my games yes i really enjoy that
Hannah:but also i think that's really cool i really like that
Al:yeah yeah um yeah two characters per icon in terms of the components themselves i think it's fine Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but there's nothing that blows me away either.
Hannah:No, I do really like the artwork, though. And although the artwork's not particularly... You know, it's not... There's no
Al:dragons.
Hannah:There's no dragons, no, and there are no elves. But it really does... make me think of the industrial era.
Al:Yeah,
Hannah:it has got that proper feel to it. Even like the industrial cards, location cards, everything has that kind of industrial feel to it. You've also got two sides to the board. So you've got Birmingham, you've got Midlands at night time and you've got Midlands during the day time. Exactly the same. Depending on your
Al:level
Hannah:of bravery. So you can flip the board, which I think is quite cute and quite nice.
Al:Same with the player boards as the night side and the day side. Yeah. I actually quite like the night side just because it's got this almost... gloomy quality to it that I don't see often in board games. I don't know what it is. There's a certain aesthetic to the night side of this that I quite like. Whereas the day side's a bit more middling.
Hannah:Yeah, I mean it still looks quite grey. Yeah, it's still quite grey. I mean it is Britain. It is
Al:the Midlands. So yeah, I mean everything's fine. I don't think there's anything that sort of wows me. I know a lot of people have upgraded the money tokens to poker chips and I understand And why? Because there's a lot of sort of stacking of money and putting stacks of money on the board. Sorry, I didn't mention the rules. The person that spends the most money gets to go first in the next round. So everything you spend during the turn, you kind of stack up in front of you and then put it on a pile. And if you've played with decent poker chips, you know there's actually quite a tactile, satisfying element to that.
Hannah:Clunking down. There's
Al:like that clunk. And I completely, 100% understand why people have done that. As they are, they're quite thick, chunky cardboard tokens, but they're not quite the same as poker chips.
Hannah:The rulebook. I have a feeling this is probably not your favourite rulebook.
Al:No, it's not bad. It's not bad. Again, there's some odd placement of things. There's much worse out there. I wouldn't criticise it for the rulebook. I just find there are a few odd bits and pieces that don't seem to be in the place you'd expect. And because there's a lot of rules minutiae, sometimes when you're looking something up, it'd just be nice if it was in a bit of a clearer order. It reminds me a little bit of the Nemesis one, but not nearly as bad, where things just seem to be in a really... sometimes slightly illogical place and order in the rule book. But for the most part, the rules themselves are really well written and really clear. They're dense and it'll take a while, but they are well put together.
Hannah:What I would also say is that Okay, so it does take up a lot of space from the table. However, I've seen worse table hogs from games that are less.
Al:Yeah, absolutely. For what it is, I don't think this is a table
Hannah:hog. No, I don't think what it is. I mean, you've obviously got quite a large map of the Midlands, which you need to have in order to be able to see and navigate your way around. But actually... It doesn't take
Al:up much more room than Dune Imperium. No, it doesn't.
Hannah:Which I think is
Al:quite impressive, considering how heavy a game it is. Because everything's sort of located on that board where you play a map. You don't need any other sort of extraneous space. Saying that, if you had four people around the table playing this, you would need quite a lot of room.
Hannah:Yeah, just because
Al:your player maps. Your player boards are quite large.
Hannah:Yeah.
Al:So, worth saying. So overall, I mean, what did you score this?
Hannah:So I scored it seven.
Al:Same, yeah, just so. Doesn't set the world on fire components wise and the setup is a bugbear. Tear down a lot quicker.
Hannah:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's so lovely is that as you score it, you just
Al:Yeah, you can
Hannah:just, you tear down one and As you score it.
Al:Yeah, but I went for seven on this. Yeah.
Hannah:Okay. So under our next category, we have complexity. So that includes things like how much we argue about the rules and our paralysis and always it's how, not how complex a game is, but how well that complexity serves the
Al:gameplay. Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to kick us off with this one?
Hannah:Yeah, so I would say... that there are still elements of the rules that I don't quite get and I fall afoul of. And I don't know, I don't think that's about the rules or how they've been explained to me, I just think it's one extra thing that I have to think about. So the example of this is around the concept of networks and what counts as your network, what doesn't count as your network, and the use of coal. So the idea is that you can access iron from wherever you are because iron's fairly light, whereas coal is not, it's heavy and you need to be connected to a network to be able to use it. And I often fall foul of that in the second era because I'm not necessarily connected to anything and I'm trying to build stuff that requires coal and go, oh shit, I can't
Al:because
Hannah:I don't have any coal.
Al:Top tip, you want to have coal when you go into the second era.
Hannah:Or you want to be able to build coal. Yeah, quite easily. You want to already be within a network because again, you get to leave level two industries on the board so that automatically, you automatically have a network when you start off in the second era.
Al:And why that's so key is you need coal to build railways. You can build canal boats in the first era without any resource, just money. but you actually need resources to build your link so you can actually get yourself quite stuck quite quickly if you don't have access to it
Hannah:particularly if the coal track is empty and you build coal and it just automatically just gets eaten by
Al:the bank then you're still without coal
Hannah:so is that is that one rule too many for me does that make it too complex I don't know or maybe that's just a me issue I'm not sure but I don't particularly struggle with rules and yet I feel that's just an extra element that often pushes me over the
Al:edge. Fair enough, okay. I don't think, as a core concept, this is heavier than some of the other things we play. I actually think it's a little bit lighter. I think where the complexity in this game lies is the consistent planning you need to do at every single step. Because if you don't have a plan... and your powder does, you're going to get left behind very, very quickly.
Hannah:Really? So I would say the opposite, actually.
Al:But you have to be reactive.
Hannah:Yeah, so I think you can pivot fairly easily in
Al:this. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes you can pivot, sometimes you can't. I think I'll probably loop back to that more in sort of the competitiveness and fun aspects. But in terms of the complexity... I think it is an exceptionally well-oiled machine. I think the rules are just as dense as they need to be. I think if you took things out, you would lose something. I think this is one of those cases where, yes, this is a heavy game, and yes, you will get rules wrong, and you will struggle to get your head around concepts sometimes, but... But again, I think that's just a learning curve issue.
Hannah:What's really interesting, though, is you talk, so for those of you that listened to us before, I often quite struggle with analysis paralysis. I really struggle with trying to make the most optimum move and sort of like, you know, try and calculate it out. And yet I don't have that with this. So you talking about it being quite strategic and, you know, the complexity coming from trying to plan stuff out, I don't necessarily feel, maybe that's because that lends more to what it is that I do anyway, perhaps. Perhaps,
Al:I just think you're brain works better with this one because full disclosure Hannah is so much better at this than me I
Hannah:wouldn't say so much better
Al:you've won the vast vast majority of our games
Hannah:yeah but you're getting closer
Al:no I'm not but thanks thanks for trying to make me feel better you are better at this than I am absolutely and I Don't know if that's because I find it more, because this is a very, very reactive game. You are constantly bouncing off what your opponent is doing, what the cards come up as, or even what the setup is. And maybe you are just better at pivoting to other things. I think I have a weakness in this game to get too wrapped up in a grand plan and not being able to deviate from it. And I think that's where I fall down part of my face a lot of the time.
Hannah:I also think that sometimes you approach board games as they're a problem to solve. And I don't think you can solve this problem. No, because there's too many
Al:variables. There's too much going on. But it's that level of too much going on which makes me really rate this on the complexity scale, like really, really high, because I think you could teach this to somebody, anybody who plays medium to heavy board games, they could learn this. This is not like absolutely out of the realms of, you know, study it, et cetera, et cetera. But to master this will take a lot of practice and a lot of experience to be able to have a pocket, number of strategies in your back pocket that you can pull out depending on what's going on will take a lot of time and a lot of gameplay.
Hannah:And maybe that's why I always struggle with the whole network thing and the iron thing because it really hits and it's a very, very key time point and a very small window of the gameplay and by which point I'm off thinking about other things. Yeah, I'm usually doing better
Al:than me so it matters less anyway. But yeah, I've given this a 9. Because I think out of a lot of games, this one's complexity, I think, is just... It's not absolutely perfect, but it's getting there.
Hannah:And what I would also say is that there's been a really strong... upward trend in our scoring as well so we do tend to score better each time we get better at the game
Al:we have seen ourselves get better at the game every time we play it which is great so yeah I've given this a 9
Hannah:so I gave it an 8 because I thought again it's probably a me problem more than anything else but I think it is a complex game and there's enough meat to it I think that keeps it engaging moving on to the next on that note shelf life that includes things like value for money and replayability. So let's start off by what does it retail as? 60. 60. Yeah. That's a lot of game for a decent price point, in my opinion.
Al:Yeah, I mean, this is a funny one. £60 for what comes in that box is actually on quite the expensive side, in my opinion. However... the stature of this game, and it being number one in Ballgame Geek, means they can just keep selling this for a virtually full price. I've never seen this on special offer anywhere or anything. They've got 60 quid, that's what you pay to play. I mean, it's not excessively expensive, but I have seen more for that price point before.
Hannah:So I suppose then my comment is around the replayability aspect of it. And so one of the things that I think makes this game so interesting is there's a level of randomisation that keeps it quite fresh.
Al:But very light. Very
Hannah:small amount of randomisation. So mainly what we're talking about is what you can sell and where you can sell it. Aside from that it's just luck about what you put in terms of your cards. And bearing in mind you can always trade your cards in order to get wild locations. The luck
Al:of mitigations through
Hannah:the roof. Luck's not really a factor. But that makes for actually quite different games. So we had a game recently where we could only sell two items.
Al:Yeah, because some of those tiles that you draw are blank, which means you can't sell anything there. So we ended up a game where you could only sell two out of the four different industries.
Hannah:Yeah, and that made for such a different game experience than when you can sell at every location and every depot, and you can sell a full range of items. It also changed your strategy quite a lot, because actually there might be no point in building boxes.
Al:Yeah, if you can't sell them. Or manufactured goods, I should say. Boxes.
Hannah:because they're not on the map. So it does make for a very different play experience.
Al:Absolutely, yeah. And I don't feel like any of the games that we have had at this have been anywhere near like.
Hannah:No.
Al:There's been a completely different experience every single time. And while you get better, the concepts, the actual... scenario almost that you're dealing with shifts so much and so much of this is dependent on your opponent's behaviour so what they do has to dictate what you do and you're constantly you know we'll often have turns where we both do the same thing right at the start but then we quickly go off on completely different paths a lot of the time which means the replayability for me is through the roof it's really really high I think as a concept With that sort of small amount of randomisation and the depth to it, you could play this forever.
Hannah:Yeah.
Al:You know? Would you want to, I think, is the different thing. Is there enough there to keep you endlessly interested in it? That's more the question for me.
Hannah:So one of the things that we've not talked about is that this can be played at two, or obviously more than two. Mm-hm. But when you play it at two, there is the entire north section of the Midlands, which is not accessible... Via
Al:cards.
Hannah:Via cards, unless you use wild locations.
Al:Or link to it and use industry cards. Yeah. And
Hannah:I guess that's a balancing act, so it's to kind of make you...
Al:It's to force people up against each other. And
Hannah:as a result, we have, I don't think ever... gone...
Al:I did in my last game. Did you? Yeah, I built something in my last game.
Hannah:Did you? You went north of the water, did you? Yeah, because I was
Al:just trying to become the beer baron of the Midlands.
Hannah:Yeah, it didn't work for him.
Al:No, it didn't work for me, but I was trying to build more beer than I could build in the map as it stood, so
Hannah:yeah. So I guess that's the other thing that we've never even explored that. We've just stuck to our original size map. Which you have
Al:to in a two-player game.
Hannah:Yeah, yeah. But again, I think we'll probably come back to that in the two-player rating.
Al:But yeah, I mean...
Hannah:What I would say is that I... you talk about needing to pivot for example I have never found myself feeling boxed in I'm going to compare this to June for example so sometimes particularly the base game of June I would feel that I just got really unlucky with card draws and what was in the marketplace and what I could buy and sometimes I lost games because of that and didn't necessarily play to my strengths whereas I've never felt that element of being boxed in with this I've always felt that there are options open to me I can always pivot and turn and I think that's also what keeps that replayability... for me as well. Like I never feel like I'm going to get trapped and therefore I'm just going to lose a game because I've got unlucky. You're going
Al:to be out halfway through a very long game. No I would agree to that to a certain extent. I've leant too heavily into things before and realised three quarters of the game that I am absolutely up shit creep without a paddle but that's again choices that I've made and I think when you play this there has to be an element of flexibility to your strategy and I think that's why I fall down sometimes. I think ah I've got it I know what I'm doing and then I just won't deviate enough from it but yeah I think obviously mileage may vary depending on how engaging you find it but as a core concept there's so much depth to this that you can play it forever and I've given it an 8 as a result
Hannah:I also gave it an
Al:8
Hannah:so then our final category under general is fun so do you have any fun when you play it
Al:yeah yes is the short answer I love Brass. It's very, very good.
Hannah:My answer was yes, and... And I think we're probably going to come on to more of that in our two-player rating stuff, so I might kind of just pause on that, and we'll come back to it later. But yes, I do love it, and I do really enjoy playing it, and there are other games of this... Elk?
Al:Medium to heavy Euros, basically.
Hannah:Yeah, that I would probably pull out before it.
Al:Yeah, which is really interesting.
Hannah:It is really interesting, isn't it? I say the same. And I don't know why that is, because there is some stuff that will hit on the two-player rating, but even then, I don't think that fully explains it for me.
Al:Yeah, I've been trying to articulate why it is that... And just to start out, I do really enjoy this.
Hannah:Yeah, I love
Al:it. Yeah. I think... It tickles my grey matter in a really satisfying way.
Hannah:But
Al:I think one of the things that I find quite difficult about it, and I think maybe dampens a little bit of the fun for me, is while there's a huge range of strategy and a huge amount of depth, I sometimes feel... almost shoved down a path. I don't know how else to explain it. Sort of the actions that I'm taking. There's almost a optimization thing, which I find to its detriment, where You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. That's what my brain's saying all the time. I
Hannah:don't get that.
Al:I get that all the time with this and it saps a little bit out of the fun for me because I feel like if I don't do this I'm making a massive mistake and therefore I'm going to lose. And I don't know why this does that to me because I don't think I've ever encountered any other game that does that. precisely but it makes me constantly second guess my decisions and constantly feel like my own brain is pushing me down a particular path whether I think that's the fun option or not and I feel like sometimes maybe that's what I'm trying to articulate maybe I feel like it's so intense in terms of my brain strategically, that I kind of forget to have fun. And that's a really odd one because I don't think I've ever found a game that does that to me.
Hannah:What's really interesting is that you do quite like fucking with me. I
Al:do, yes.
Hannah:So when there is an opportunity on the board to fuck my shit up, you will do that.
Unknown:Hmm.
Hannah:Even if that doesn't necessarily result in a win for you, you will do it just to fuck me. Yeah, I'm just
Al:a petty bastard.
Hannah:And you are. It's less easy to do in the first era. It's much easier to do in the second era. But actually, you don't do it all that much.
Al:No, because I'm too scared. I'm too scared of... going off down a rabbit hole that's then going to lose me the game and I think it's that almost fear is too strong a word for it but that constant second guessing of am I doing the optimal move that this game seems to breed in my brain that saps a little bit of fun out of
Hannah:it for me isn't that so weird like I'm the one that has AP and yet I don't have it with this but yet you do
Al:yeah I mean I do have AP whilst they're prevaricating over my moves but I feel like my brain's constantly beating itself up all the time and I think that's the easiest way I can articulate it because there is something in this that makes it less fun for me than an Ark Nova or Terra Mystica, for example, or Dune. I know Dune's a bit lighter, but I have so much, not so much more, that's an exaggeration, but I have more fun playing those games. compared to this because I think my brain doesn't beat itself up and I don't feel like everything I do needs to be optimal all the time
Hannah:and what I would say as well is that resources beer can be a finite resource but aside from that other resources generally you don't have an issue with that however your turns are really limiting so there is definitely a point where you're like yeah yeah yeah and they're like oh shit cards are running out I've got to nail this down yeah what
Al:am I doing here
Hannah:yeah exactly and I do think that feeds into it as well. Yeah.
Al:But on the flip side of that, when things do go how you planned them and you do execute what it is that you've pivoted to during the game, it's immensely satisfying. It's very, very rewarding. It's great.
Hannah:And it is a fun game.
Al:But if anything I've said resonates with you, you might not have as much fun as you expect.
Hannah:So how did you score it then?
Al:I really wrestled over a 7 or an 8 for this.
Hannah:Really? So what?
Al:Yeah, I'm a 7 or an 8. And it feels very harsh, but I'm probably going to go 7, because I think that's the honest answer for me.
Hannah:So, funnily enough, I wrestled over a 6 and a 7.
Al:Oh, really? Yeah. Lower than me.
Hannah:Yeah. Okay. And I eventually settled on a six, but I mean, 6.5 is probably where I would put it if I could. But I don't know if we're allowed to do that.
Al:No, you can't do half score.
Hannah:It's just a level of complexity too high. So I went for a six. And again, we'll probably come on to some of that stuff in the two-player category.
Al:Okay. So before we finish this, I think I have to ask the question, because this is the number one ranked board game in the world in the IMDB of board games.
Hannah:Oh, mate.
Al:Is Brass Birmingham overrated?
Hannah:I think
Al:this is a general point because I think the two-player debate is to come, but I think that's a slightly different thing. Is Brass Birmingham as a board game overrated?
Hannah:No. I'm
Al:going to say yes.
Hannah:Really? I
Al:looked down the top ten on Board Game Geek and out of all the ones I've played, I prefer them quite significantly to this. Ark Nova, June Imperium, Gloomhaven, Pandemic, Legacy Season 1, Spirit Island, I prefer all of them to this. Quite substantially.
Hannah:Right, but I think we're going to start teasing some of this stuff out when we come to the two player.
Al:Okay, well, let's title up those scores then. So that gives us a general score of 7.5. Ooh, as always we round, so that's an 8.
Hannah:Yeah.
Al:Okay, don't come for us, Pitchfork crew. Rosemary gives us an 8. Very good game.
Hannah:so after that somewhat contentious score we
Al:move
Hannah:on to our two player ratings what I'm also going to say before I start this is that a lot of these for me bleed into each other and so we will try to talk them under try and
Al:keep it to topics but
Hannah:I think probably I'm going to start bleeding don't
Al:start bleeding it's just a podcast
Hannah:cough so on to our first category we have table talk and that includes things like getting to know you
Al:and yeah and interaction I think increasingly for me player interaction which I think is a big one with this is that interaction point because everything you do as we've said in this is very dependent on your co-player your co-player that's not a thing your opponent's actions co-player
Hannah:that's why you lose
Al:it's not a co-op Al I just want to make Birmingham
Hannah:better
Al:no shade on No shade on Birmingham. Birmingham's great. A little bit more enthusiasm this time, please. I have my stag do Birmingham memories. They've been to Birmingham for years. Yes. So, yeah, the interaction on this, gameplay-wise, is through the roof. Whether that actually makes you talk to each other is a slightly different matter. It is quite a... silent thinky game. I mean, you're saying what you're doing, but yeah, there's not an awful amount of actual sort of table talk. But the interaction is very, very high. So
Hannah:you're constantly feeding off what your other person, your other person, your opponent
Al:does. How many names for an opponent can we come up with in one episode? The other person?
Hannah:But I think... For me, the lack of banter and the lack of trash talking It seems a missed opportunity.
Al:There's just too much thinking involved to even have space for that, I think. I think that's the thing there.
Hannah:I always feel that's just a little bit of a disappointment for me. That you are fighting head-to-head and you are competing for resources and spaces and stuff and you can fuck each other's turn up and yet it feels a bit lacking sometimes.
Al:Yeah, I guess. You know, I don't know what it is that I wanted to do. I think maybe for me there's just a lack of gotcha to it, to a certain extent. You never feel like you've done something like, ha-ha, look at what I've done. That's
Hannah:because you don't do that.
Al:No. And
Hannah:you don't know that I've done it until it's too late.
Al:Yeah, potentially. Or two turns later. I never feel like in that moment there's that element of, oh, how dare you, oh, damn it. Sometimes you get in competitive games, just for some reason it's not there.
Hannah:I also think there is, because you... You obviously, you have resources on the board. So if you need, for example, iron or you need coal, you will use your opponents, which can sometimes then lead them to scoring that tile, for example, and getting victory points out of it. So also kind of, it's the opposite. Like you can help them win a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so maybe that also kind of plays into it as well.
Al:Which is an interesting one. I found this one really difficult to score, and I did the classic fence-sitting thing, and I'm giving it a five, because I think the table talk is severely lacking, but the interaction from player to player is right up there. And again, is getting to know you absolutely terrible, but if it's somebody you know very well, it's nice to test your... reign against them in that sense and the interaction's high. So yeah, I've gone for the middle ground and given it a five.
Hannah:So I scored it a seven.
Al:Okay.
Hannah:Because I think you... We do talk all the time as we play this and I do think... Maybe I just
Al:don't remember it because I'm thinking too hard.
Hannah:Yeah, maybe. And I think... you are constantly having to react and adjust to what your opponent is doing, and the amount of pivoting that you have to do as a result, particularly in the early, the first era, because if they've taken that slot that you were desperately after, you have to really quite think on your feet about how to do that. However, it would have been higher if there was more... Trash talk. And that sounds bad, doesn't it? I don't think it's about trash talk. I think what
Al:you mean is about that moment where you feel like you've got one over on your opponent. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't get many moments like that. No. That promotes that interaction, doesn't it?
Hannah:Okay. Okay, so then our next category, competitiveness.
Al:Yeah, so this is completely the opposite end of the scale for me. I think the unbelievable depth of this game... And everything you do is your own choice. There is a huge amount of luck mitigation. The better player will win.
Hannah:Thank you.
Al:Yeah, well, it's true. You are better at this than me. And you win. Because you are. And it's right up there for me in terms of competitiveness. It is a very, very, very competitive game. In my opinion.
Hannah:Yep.
Al:I feel like there's a but coming.
Hannah:Yep. So, there are a lot of people, I think, I don't know, I think there are a lot of people that say that Brass Birmingham isn't playable at two because of the restrictions on the board and because you don't necessarily have the same level of... It's the Dune experience, again, because... you've got more options open to you so it's not so competitive in terms of resources or spaces, et cetera.
Al:I don't think that's necessarily true at two. I don't agree. I mean, we'll get onto something in the next...
Hannah:Yeah, that's what I mean. It's all kind of like bleeds into one another for me again. So I suppose... There is that element, and we'll talk about that when we come to the FOMO category, or scalability category. But then I think on the flip side of that, compared to other games that we've played where it's more complicated or it's more difficult to work out who's actually winning, it's a bit more... I find it easy to work out what your strategy is, and I can kind of work out from the board state who is winning, and therefore I can... intercept those plans.
Al:So you find it easier to read, basically.
Hannah:Yeah, so I find it easier to read and therefore I think that pushes the competitiveness up for me. Do I think it would be better with more? But we'll come back to that.
Al:Yeah, yeah. But just as a sort of core game, do you feel super engaged to win and very satisfied when you do win? Because I think that's what always comes down to in competitiveness for me. There's always two sides to it for me. How much control you have over winning.
Unknown:Mm-hmm.
Al:how satisfying it feels to win.
Hannah:It's never as nail-biting as Dune.
Al:No, no. I never feel that tension there.
Hannah:Because you haven't got this constant counter about who's winning. It's a bit more sort of vague. But I do still feel that element of I'm impacting your gameplay and I'm doing these things to have that effect on
Al:what you're doing.
Hannah:Yeah. more control over, yeah, in that control. So yeah, no, I do think it's
Al:very competitive. Yes. I would agree. It's a very, very roundabout route to say we both think it's a very competitive game. And I think, like we alluded to in some of the previous categories, it's the depth. to it. I think this is ocean deep. There's so far you could go with this.
Hannah:And I've not won the game for the same reason twice. No,
Al:you
Hannah:haven't. So once I won because of my network. Once I won because I evolved my factories to the nth level. So each game I play... Yeah, there's a lot of
Al:routes to victory but it's just which one you pivot to at the right time more than anything else and what your opponent's doing in comparison to that. So yeah, I've given this a 9 because I think it is absolutely right up there in terms of competitive experiences
Hannah:so eight for me yeah
Al:okay all right so this i think is going to be quite a big one scalability and FOMO yeah so would this work better with more people how feasible is it as a two-player game go on because I think you have quite a lot to
Hannah:say yeah so I mean there's an entire section in the map that we've never played with because we stripped ourselves but I think also what's quite interesting quite telling we don't feel that we need to go there because we have that competitive experience in that stripped yeah
Al:I think the two play experience in that sense is quite well designed I think it shrinks it enough
Hannah:what I would also say is that actually you strip out areas as well if you're playing three
Al:you do yes
Hannah:so your actual deck of cards will change depending on your number of players to make things more available or not.
Al:It's only the full thing with four. But I mean, yeah, this 100% would be better with additional people. There's no bones about it in my mind. I think having... even though you've got more space, having the extra person also doing things and that balance between who, not who to go after, but who to try and compete against, depending on what they're doing, I think would shift all the time. And this has obviously been designed to be played at four players. It's really, really apparent. And I imagine it would be an incredible experience at four players.
Hannah:And I think a lot of your complaints about, you know, strategy would become very quickly less pertinent because actually you've got so much less options in some ways. Yeah, I
Al:guess it's not just about that. I think it's like playing one person 1v1 and playing optimally versus the group of four people who might all be playing in quite different ways. I think it would make it a much more interesting endeavour. And I think I'd just have more fun with it with more people around the table.
Hannah:And things would open up a lot quicker as well because your networks because it's also not just about your network because once you're connected by canal boats or boats you know trains or whatever you can start using other people's lines so actually the whole map will begin to expand and gives you so many more possibilities
Al:yeah
Hannah:absolutely which I think is quite exciting actually
Al:yeah yeah absolutely
Hannah:I've never had that experience I want it
Al:yeah no I would love to play this with more people I think I've come across quite a few times where we've had games and people are like oh it's not very good at two you know the people you know the internet discourse this is probably the first one that I actually quite agree with the discourse I'm like yeah I get it I see why this should be played at three plus at the very least
Hannah:and I think then all those other things that we've talked about under the two player rating so I think it would be more competitive yeah I think you would would get more table talk potentially and a bit more you know I
Al:think
Hannah:everything else would go up with more players
Al:yeah saying that it works perfect it's not broken absolutely not broken and if you are a person that does have access to a gaming group but also plays as a pair this would be a really good one because you can practice playing it as a pair and then you know unleash on the wider group. Because as we've said, it's a game that you 100% get better at the more you play. So if you are a person who has a limited access to playing with three or four, but it does still happen occasionally, and they're into that sort of thing most of the time playing at two, I would 100% get this.
Hannah:But the learning curve is steep.
Al:Yeah, the learning curve is steep. And it's one of those things where the learning curve is so steep if you do have a limited access to a three or four player pool, like we do. We do have friends that will come
Hannah:out. We do have friends.
Al:We do. have friends we do have people that play games but this is this is difficult one to pull out because it is so intense in terms of weight you ideally need people who knew how to play it already or where to go away and study a rule book in their own time and come to the game ready to play because it would take you an entire evening to teach i think
Hannah:yeah
Al:So, yeah, if you are in that position, I do recommend it because it is workable at two. It's not one of those that's going to gather dust on your shelf just because you don't have a third or fourth person round. But
Hannah:it is a different... I do think it's a different experience. I can see it being a completely
Al:different experience. And I've given it a four.
Hannah:Oh, I gave it a four as well.
Al:Okay, well, there you go. Bang on.
Hannah:Let's add those scores up.
Al:So that gives us an overall two-player rating of six.
Hannah:Which
Al:I think feels about right to me.
Hannah:No, I think that's about right. And I think, I also kind of want to go back and caveat, when we talked about fun under the general criteria, I think a lot of this two-player stuff fed into that for me. So, again, if we had more people around the table, I probably would find it more fun.
Al:Yeah, no, I would agree.
Hannah:And hence why I don't think it's overrated.
Al:Ah, the conclusion, you don't think it's overrated.
Hannah:Yeah, I don't think it's overrated.
Al:I think it's a little bit overrated.
Hannah:Did Ark Nova come out before or after Brass?
Al:After. After.
Hannah:Oh, okay.
Al:Quite a while after. Yeah, yeah.
Hannah:But also I think Ark Nova's better at two than it is at four.
Al:And this has been through several permutations. The original game was called Brass. I can't remember when that came out, but quite a long time ago. And then you had Brass Lancashire.
Hannah:Oh, yeah, no, you did. Which
Al:apparently is better for two than this.
Hannah:Is it?
Al:From what I've heard, yeah. But it was apparently more punishing in terms of you make a mistake, you lose. That's what I've heard. I haven't played it. This is the third permutation of it. I'm glad we did that. A little bit intimidating taking on something of that stature. But I hope you enjoyed it if you're listening to us today.
Hannah:It is a good game. It does worth it too. And if you are into heavy games, which you must be, otherwise you wouldn't be listening to
Al:this podcast,
Hannah:definitely it's worth a
Al:punt. Definitely. recommend I just maybe don't think it's as good as I expected and maybe that's the classic like top of the ball top of the heat kind of thing which sets expectations that can't be met I do think it has its quibbles and its problems but overall a very very good game so thank you for joining us and until next time be good to each other have fun and play lots of board games
