Brass: Lancashire

Brass: Lancashire — first published as Brass — is an economic strategy game that tells the story of competing cotton entrepreneurs in Lancashire during the industrial revolution. You must develop, build and establish your industries and network so that you can capitalize on demand for iron, coal and cotton. The game is played over two halves: the canal phase and the rail phase. To win the game, score the most victory points (VPs), which are counted at the end of each phase. VPs are gained from your canals, rails, and established (flipped) industry tiles. Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following:

1. Build an industry tile
2. Build a rail or canal
3. Develop an industry
4. Sell cotton
5. Take a loan

At the end of your turn, you replace the two cards you played with two more from the deck. Turn order is determined by how much money a player spent on the previous turn, the lowest spender going first. This turn order mechanism opens some strategic options for players going later in the turn order, allowing for the possibility of back-to-back turns.

After all the cards have been played the first time (with the deck size being adjusted for the number of players), the canal phase ends and a scoring round commences. After scoring, all canals and all of the lowest level industries are removed from the game, after which new cards are dealt and the rail phase begins. During this phase, players may now occupy more than one location in a city and double-connection builds (though expensive) are possible. At the end of the rail phase, another scoring round takes place, then a winner is crowned.