Tag Archives: Brass: Birmingham

Boardgames in the News: The Best Game EVAR?!?!

BoardGameGeek is the largest and most comprehensive website dedicated to board and card games, with a database comprising nearly a hundred and fifty thousand games. These games have a ranking based on ratings submitted by account holders. While these rankings are obviously skewed by the characteristics of the contributors, the number one ranking game clearly has significance. In the twenty-two years that the rankings have been in place, there have been just ten games to achieve the top rank, but as of today, there is an eleventh, with Brass: Birmingham taking the top spot from Gloomhaven.

– Image from boardgamegeek.com

Of these now eleven games, three held the top rank briefly, for a day or two only. The first of these was The Game of Life, and it’s top rank was the result of a software bug when on 25^th February 2006, a User gave it a rating of sixty-five thousand five-hundred and thirty-five out of ten. Just over a year later, as an April Fool, another User encouraged his friends to give Monkey Auto Races a rating of ten. With just three hundred ratings, this game went from unranked to number one overnight, only to plummet back down the rankings just a day or so later. Three years later, the site owner pulled his own April Fool stunt and set the ranking equal to the data base number, making Die Macher number one for a day.

The list of eight genuine Number One Games and the date they first achieved the top ranking are:

Paths of Glory (August 2001)
Tigris & Euphrates (February 2002)
Puerto Rico (June 2002)
Agricola (August 2008)
Twilight Struggle (January 2011)
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (January 2016).
Gloomhaven (December 2017)
Brass: Birmingham (February 2023)

– Image by boardGOATS

3rd May 2022

Like the last few games nights, this one started with Pink and Blue playing the deck-shedding game, Abandon All Artichokes. This is a very simple game where players start with a deck of ten artichoke cards from which they draw a hand of five, then, on their turn, they take one card from the face up market, play as many cards as they can, before discarding their hand to their personal discard pile. If, on drawing their new hand of five cards they have no artichokes, the game ends and they win. In the first couple of games a few weeks back, Pink struggled somehow, and Blue won.

– Image by boardGOATS

Then Pink got the hang of it, and won several games on the trot, but this time it was Blue’s turn to finally get back on terms, just before supper arrived. They were just finishing when Black and Purple, and then Teal arrived. Although it was still very early, it was a perfect opportunity to play the “Feature Game” as it was Moneybags, a quick little social deduction, filler game. The premise is similar to that of Ca$h ‘n Guns, where players are thieves dividing up the spoils from a robbery, stealing from each other and generally trying to deceive everyone so that they come out on top.

– Image by boardGOATS

In Moneybags, one player takes the role of the Godfather, divides the loot “evenly” amongst the players’ small hessian sacks. Holding only the top of their sack, each player takes it in turns to Pass, Stick, or Rob another player. Pass and Stick are simple actions (pass and remain in the game, pass and stick with the total in their sack so they can neither Rob nor be Robbed), but Rob is the interesting one. The active player can Rob any other player that is still “in”, taking some or none of the loot from their sack. The thief mustn’t be too greedy, however, as the victim can challenge—the protagonists compare their loot and the one with the largest stack loses, the winner takes all the loot and the loser is eliminated.

– Image by boardGOATS

After two turns round the table, the game ends with the Godfather (or arguably Godmother), taking their second turn. The winner is the player with the most loot. Moneybags can be played over three rounds, though like Saboteur it is probably best when one round is considered “the game” rather than playing in campaign mode. Pink started as the Godfather and divvied up the money. In addition to coins, there is also a Diamond in the loot; this is worth roughly ten coins. When comparing spoils, the coins are stacked with the Diamond placed on top so that the tallest stack loses when Robbed or wins at the end of the game. The Diamond is comparatively light, so it adds a little bit of additional ambiguity to the proceedings.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink, made a point of taking note of where the Diamond went and then stole it back later in the game giving him the first round, slightly ahead of Teal in second. Lime arrived during towards the end of the game, so the rules were explained to him. Then Ivory joined the party so Blue swapped out and gave him a quick summary as well, while Purple, as Godmother, divided up the spoils. With a slightly better idea of how the game played, the second round went even better with more players Robbing and challenging each other. As a result, the Diamond went round the table several times. There was much hilarity as players tried to guess how much cash people had, and Pink showed his age when he commented that someone’s stash “chinked like a bus conductor’s money bag”.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once again, the Godparent finished with the Diamond, but Purple had very little cash to go with it and therefore only made third place. This time the winner was Ivory, in a very, very tight finish, just ahead of Black. It had been a lot of fun and although we could easily have played another round or two, we also wanted to play some longer games. Moneybags fills a similar role to 6 Nimmt! though, so it will get another outing soon. In the meantime, Viticulture (Essential Edition), Roll for the Galaxy, and Brass: Birmingham were all suggested for the next game, but Pink always loves playing Viticulture and Teal has been keen for a while, so Ivory took them off to play that while the others decided what to play.

– Image by boardGOATS

Viticulture is a worker placement game where players plant and harvest grapes, make them into wine and fulfill contracts to get points. The first player to reach twenty points triggers the end of the game, and at the winner is the player with the most points at the end of that round. Although Viticulture is not particularly novel or innovative, it is widely respected as one of the best worker placement games around, succeeding in being both smooth to play and relatively easy to learn, though it takes real skill to be good at it. This time, everyone sold land to fund worker training; although we haven’t done this when we played previously, it would seem to be an accepted tactic in most games now.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the start of the game, players get choice of a couple of “Mama” and “Papa” cards (taking one of each)—these give people starting resources, workers, money, Visitor cards or a starting building. Pink took a Trellis from his Mama card which meant he could just plant grapes that needed a Trellis and not worry about building any cultivation infrastructure. The others prioritised money. Playing two worker cards at the same time (using the on-board bonus) was a popular. Though it required care not to overrate the feature and wind up playing some slightly naff workers, when perhaps it might have been better to wait until the next round.

– Image by boardGOATS

The grey, extra-worker meeple was also popular, with players seemingly happy to be last in the turn order if that meant they got an extra “turn”. Although everyone had played the game before (though Teal only online), there were some rules that needed “ironing out” as years of playing with the Tuscany expansion meant that Pink had forgotten many of the differences between that and the base game (Tuscany will get an outing as the “Feature Game” in a few weeks). The game was brought to an unexpected (and obviously skillful) conclusion by Teal, who finished the game just before Ivory and Pink had the chance to deploy their big scores.

– Image by boardGOATS

On the next table, Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest got a second outing, largely as Black and Lime had missed out last time, but also as Purple and Blue had enjoyed it. This is also a fairly simple game to play, with a lot of depth. Players start with the same hand of Character cards chosen from a larger deck. This provides a lot of variability, while also ensuring that nobody has an advantage caused by random card draw. The cards are numbered from one to forty, each with different actions—some daytime, some dusk, and some nighttime. The idea is that everyone simultaneously chooses a card to play, then the cards are activated in ascending order during the day, descending order at dusk and simultaneously at night.

– Image by boardGOATS

Some of the cards can have a huge impact on other players’ games. For example, the Brute causes the highest value card in play to be discarded, which means the player that played that card doesn’t get actions on that round. In addition to night time actions, any players whose characters survive the day, also get to take some loot, if there is enough available of course. Some of the loot is extremely valuable, some of it can be used to assassinate other Characters and and some can be more of a curse than an advantage. As a result, rounds can go well or badly.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is played over three voyages, lasting four, five and six days respectively. At the end of each voyage, players bank their takings and are paid a small amount based on their reputation at the start of the next round, which then acts as their kitty. This time, Blue had an appalling first round. This meant she was some twenty to thirty doubloons behind the others from the start, but also meant that when when others threatened, she was able to point to her lack of funds and how she was “not the threat”. In contrast, Lime took an early lead and therefore attracted a lot of hostility, missing a lot of turns as a result.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the start of the final voyage, Blue was still some way behind, but hadn’t given up, Purple was fighting to get to the front, Lime was getting a bit fed up of being picked on and Black knew he was likely to be next in line. It was all to play for, especially as the final voyage is the longest so players have time to plan and work card combinations. Blue managed an amazing final round and nearly made it in what was a very tight finish—she ended just two doubloons behind Lime and Black who tied with eighty-six. Lime could have won outright if he had played his Captain in the final round, but as it was, Black’s Aristocrat left him third on the Reputation track, one place ahead of Lime, giving him victory on the tie-breaker.

– Image by boardGOATS

Remarkably, Viticulture had finished first, so after discussing and admiring Roll for the Galaxy and comparing it with Race for the Galaxy (which Teal was more familiar with), the trio squeezed in a quick game of Love Letter. This is a super-quick micro card game played with just sixteen cards that celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. When it was first released it was very innovative, but since has inspired a lot of similar games, it is still great in its own right, as a simple, quick filler though. The idea is players are trying to finish with the highest ranking card, so on their turn, they take a card from the deck adding it to their hand, then play one of their two cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each card has a rank, but also an action that takes effect when played. For example, these allow players to look at others’ cards, force others to discard their card, or make them compare cards with the lowest being eliminated. The last player standing wins the round, the first to three is the winner of the game. This time, Pink and Ivory got their revenge on Teal for ending Viticulture too soon. Between them, they shared the five rounds, with Pink just taking the balance and with it, victory as Libertalia and the evening as a whole, came to an end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: There’s no such thing as honour amongst thieving gamers.

1st December 2021

It was a relatively quiet night with no Burgundy, Lilac or Teal. However, that was slightly offset by the arrival of Lime who had missed the last few and Beige, who is much cuter in real life than on Teams. The first game of the evening, as Blue and Pink finished their supper, was No Thanks!. A very simple game where players take a card or pay a chip to pass the problem on, it is easy to play when attention is elsewhere.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the end of the game, players sum the face value of the cards they collect and the player with the lowest score wins. The clever part is that if players have a run of cards, they only score the lowest, and the fact that some cards are missing encourages players to gamble. This time, Blue “top scored” with a massive sixty-six having tried and failed to make a run out of high scoring cards. Green won with a careful game that gave him thirty points and Pink was took second place, four points behind.

– Image by boardGOATS

As people arrived, the group split into two with the one group playing the “Feature Game“, Draftosaurus. This is a very light drafting game, a bit like Sushi Go!, but with dinosaurs (because everyone, especially Beige, likes dinosaurs). We have played this quite a bit, but mostly online over the last year or so, but the tactile wooden dino-meeples add a lot to the experience. The basic idea is that players start with a handful of wooden dinosaurs, pick one to keep and then pass the rest on.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players then choose which pen to place the dinosaur in obeying the restrictions the pens have for example, each dinosaur placed in the Meadow of Differences must be different. Players also take it in turns to roll the Placement Die and have to additionally follow the conditions imposed it (e.g placing the dinosaur in an empty pen or a pen that does not contain a Tyrannosaurus rex). The game is played over two rounds and at the end of the game, when all the dino-meeples have been placed, players add up their scores.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each pen scores according to its specialism, with players scoring an extra point for each Tyrannosaurus rex they have have. Draftosaurus is a very quick and light game, but is also very enjoyable, and this time the scoring was very tight too with just five pints separating first and last places. Blue just managed to edge it though finishing one point ahead of Pine with Purple and Lime tied in third.

– Image by boardGOATS

With five players the options were a little limited, but Pink effectively made the decision as he was keen to play Fabled Fruit, a game we last played two and a half years ago. This is a game he’s very fond of because he likes the cute animal artwork and bright primary colours. It is a light card game, with the unusual feature that the game evolves and changes each time it is played. This “Legacy” style was made popular by Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock with Pandemic Legacy, a game that divided gamers as it required them to destroy components and write over the board, an anathema to people who are accustomed to looking after their games, sometimes to an extreme degree.

– Adapted from image by BGG contributor Muse23PT

Once Pandemic Legacy has been played out, the end product is a personalised copy of Pandemic which embodies the memories of the campaign. This further irritates some gamers because they feel they are left with a comparatively unplayable copy of the game or at least one that is less well be unbalanced and may have design flaws. Fabled Fruit is different from the Legacy games as the changes are not destructive, so the game can be reset and played again from the beginning, in this case by simply sorting the cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is quite simple—it starts with six decks of four cards in the central play area and on their turn players move their worker from one pile to another and either carry out the action associated with the cards, or buy a card. Each card has a cost in fruit and, when bought represents a fruit smoothy. When a player buys their third card (in the five player game) they trigger the end of the game and the player with the most smoothies at the end of the round wins.

– Image by boardGOATS

The starting decks include simple actions like “take two fruit cards from the deck” and “give one banana to any other player and get two fruits in exchange”. As the game evolves though, the actions become more interesting with the introduction of a fruit card market and more complex interactions. This time Blue got out of the blocks quickest and was the first to three with Pine and Purple tied for second. It was a very enjoyable game and people were just starting to get interested in how the actions were changing and what animal would be introduced next, so the group decided to play it a second time and see what happened.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the second round there was lots of talk about how the some fruit looked like hemorrhoids and from there the conversation deteriorated into a discussion of bum grapes and hairy nuts. This time, Lime was the victor with Pine taking second place. As it was packed away and Pink sorted the cards to reset it, the group lamented the “problem” with “Legacy-type” games. Sadly, they really shine with a small group like a family or household that play together frequently. The problem with a group like boardGOATS is that people play in different groups each time, so it isn’t really possible to work through a campaign properly.

– Image by boardGOATS

With that, Lime took his leave and there was just time for the remaining foursome (plus Beige) to play a quick game of Coloretto. This distills the essence of the, arguably, better known board game, Zooloretto, into a simple yet clever little card game. We’ve all played it a lot, so it needed little introduction: on their turn, players either turn a card and add it to a truck, or take one of the trucks. The aim is to collect sets, but only the three score positively, the others all score negative points with the player with the most winning. This time, Blue picked up a couple of full sets and won by a bit of a landslide with Pink in second.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the next table, Black, Green and Ivory were playing Brass: Birmingham, the Sequel to Brass (Lancashire). It is an economic strategy game that tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, 1770-1870. Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two action points to perform any of the actions: Build, Network, Develop, Sell, Loan and Scout. The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870).

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is quite complex so Ivory’s explanation took a little while. Black had previously read the rules, but Green came in with no prior knowledge, so it was typical that the Start Player application chose Green to go first. He started the first, Canal part of the game building in the North West, while Ivory went for the Midlands and Black the Mid-South. Black and Ivory were soon linking their routes and connected up to the board edge trading towns. Ivory’s experience of the game meant he was first to use it and collect the Beer barrel.

– Image by boardGOATS

Green’s routes remained separate from the other two for a while, and although that gave him relatively uninterrupted growth in the region, he found himself limited to only one trade. Thus he pushed south to join up with the other two. At the halfway point, Ivory was narrowly in the lead over a surprised Green, with Black a few points behind. The board was then cleared and reset. Everyone had managed to build at least a couple of stage two buildings.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the second, Rail part of the game went on it became clear that everyone had switched places. Green was building up in the South East, and Ivory was working in the North and Black even further South. It took much longer to join up the routes so it wasn’t until the very end that players started to build and use resources that others had planned for. By the end of the game and after the final scoring, Ivory had romped away to a comfortable win, with Black leapfrogging Green into a comfortable second place.

– Image by boardGOATS

It had been enjoyable, though it was a bit of a rush at the end as time was pressing. Brass is an unusual game in the way that players can each use the others resources, which is an interesting twist. With many different options to planning, this makes for quite a thinky game which leaves players feeling they can do so much better the next time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Beige is a lot smaller in real life.