Brass Birmingham Final Thoughts

[@bgm-1961]

I don't get why he (green shirt) doesn't get why "they needed to make a spin off [and have it set in Birmingham]". He's missing the significant point that Roxley wanted to offer the original Brass, except with a facelift. And given how much the original Brass is cherished, it would be a facelift only... no rules or gameplay changes. But they ALSO recognize that the original Brass - despite it's cherished status - has room for improvement gameplay wise. There were several elements of the original Brass that could benefit from the evolution of game design since then. And THAT'S why they developed Birmingham... to offer an *improved* version of Brass. So I don't know why the green shirt guy doesn't recognize that. (Plus of course while still offering the original Brass with it's original gameplay untouched for all of it's fans). Hence why the two different titles. Finally, about the use of Wild Cards, which green shirt guy had an issue with... I might be mistaken, but in Birmingham, the number of cards in each player's hand IS the game's timer. So the wild cards and the method used to gain them is such so that the timing mechanic stays intact. I might be wrong on that, but that's how I understand it. Also, I have nothing against 'green shirt guy'... I'm just too lazy to go back to the start of the first episode to learn his name, so I'm rudely calling him 'green shirt guy' in this comment. Sorry for that. I DO like his shirt, though! Archery is one of my favorite sports. Final Finally.... I love how you talked about the box cover art. Both box covers are superb. But as a owner of Birmingham, I wish that the Birmingham game had the Lancashire box art. I love the look if that dude in the top hat!

[@NB-jp3wm]

@@SingularSuperNinja His (green shirt) obviously doesn't understand the huge improvements Birmingham has made over the previous games - especially the improved Wild cards action. This mean you have to play to play a wild a head of time and can't play 2 back to back without drawing them first. Also, the "fiddly" action of playing one card, and discarding 2 others to draw 2 wilds makes sure that the number of cards in hand it kept the same. Thus allowing you to count the number of actions each player has left. It's actually genius.

[@jamesclease9171]

@@NB-jp3wm Having played this game and the original many times, I can say that Birmingham is far superior to the original in several ways. The wild cards are superior to the discard 2 cards for a wild location action from the original. In Lancashire, you discard 2 cards, take what is essentially a wild location action and it uses your entire turn. You then draw 2 cards from the deck. In Birmingham, you take one action to discard 3 cards to get 2 wild cards. So your hand is 1 card smaller than it was. Then you can take either the wild location or wild industry action as your second action of the turn. You have taken 2 actions, and your hand is 2 cards smaller than it was at the start of your turn, exactly the same result in the original Brass. You then draw 2 cards to fill your hand and end your turn. But now, you have another wild card in your hand, either the location or industry wild that you didn't play last turn. This gives you more flexibility than Lancashire does. If you take one scout action per era, which is all you ever need, it gives you added flexibility than the double action build from Lancashire. The built in markets to sell your goods to is also an upgrade compared to ports. Having the goods locations randomized at the start of the game is better than simply knowing where you are eventually going to build your ports. Birmingham solves this problem by having different goods able to be sold to different locations and it is randomized at the start of the game. The distant cotton market is also bland and leads to feel bad moments. The idea that other players flip over your ports selling their cotton, only to have you turn over a high value tile when you sell your cotton, fail the sell action, and are left with an unflipped tile does not lead to happy players. In Birmingham, this cannot happen. Instead of this fiddly market, you get beer. Beer acts as iron if its yours, and coal if its your opponents, as far as connections work. It combines with the other industries to create a better feeling experience over the ports and cotton market. Pottery is superior to shipyards. The shipyards were a very bland way of packing victory points into late game plays. But it is cluncky and required you to develop away locked tiles. Locked tiles are gone in Birmingham and instead, you have Pottery. Which proved good victory points when flipped, but also has a few tiles that cannot be developed, and a couple that arguably should. It's a more balanced and deep mechanism than the shipyards were. The timer of the game being the entire deck of cards is also a plus. The game provides that you will get to play every card in the deck allowing for maximum opportunity. Top to bottom, Birmingham is a better game for almost everybody. There will be very stodgy defenders of the original game, but it isn't as good as Birmingham at about everything the game wants to do. The way I see it, Birmingham has made Lancashire obsolete in the way that the Automobile made the horse drawn cart obsolete. Sure, some people still use their horses, but the vast majority of the world uses automobiles.

[@partypao]

In Birmingham, getting wilds by picking wild cards warns other players that you now have this ability. They are 2 distinct wilds (wild industry card and wild location) and not just any wild like in Lancashire. Birmingham therefore lessens this power a bit.

[@chakrum82]

Jesus christ. What happened here? The tension between the guy in the green and the two others is so uncomfortable.

[@partypao]

The differences are big. Birmingham has a bigger map (more locations to build). Lancashire not only has less locations, but 8 of them are just for ships and the 'anchor' buildings. There are also more industries in Birmingham = 6. In Lancashire you basically only have 3 industries, 1 = cotton mill, and 2 resource industries coal and iron. The ships and 'anchors' are a waste of a game mechanic, = they are just building your own markets to sell to. Why do you have to 'build' your own market? Brimingham removes these 2, pastes them on the board (adds randomness per game) and adds 3 more industries you can build. Birmingham is simply a bigger and better Brass game. Just check the BGG ranking, thousands of gamers agree that Birmingham is not only a much better game than Lancashire, but is--- simply, the best Euro game ever made.

[@bushibayushi]

About the wild cards - it may seem fiddly, but you get double the benefit: a wild location AND a wild industry card (in the original you only got to build in any location, without the second benefit). So you get more bang for your buck doing the wild action in Birmingham ;).

[@pete7421]

Seems like the green shirt dude lost a game against the other two guys and is bitter about it. 😂

[@victorlamy6590]

I thought the first half of the review (which turns out to be the pros), is well prepared and insightful. However the second half, which is originally supposed to be the comparison with Lancashire and ends up being the cons section of the review felt quite unprepared, and mean. Calling Roxley rats for producing a game that is number 3 on BGG feels a bit uncomfortable and borderline disrespectful. I agree they could have bundled the classic version and the Birmingham version in one box, using the double sided feature for the board and player mats as all the other components are the same, a bit like what Vinhos Deluxe did. But nobody forces anyone to buy both games, it is not like the only way to get one is to buy the other one at double the cost of one game. So I don’t get the point, as it offers more options to people, which is ultimately a good thing. Also we don’t know the context that led to the decision to produce both games, could be strong fan base, contractual agreements with M Wallace, and it would have been way more interesting for you to do some research in that space and enlighten us rather than calling them rats or suggesting they only designed a new version because they liked the beer tokens.

[@SaintWiccan]

WHAT IS THE NEW GAME!?! I hate waiting! LOL