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It felt a bit awkward to be given physical industry tokens at the beginning of the game that can never be placed on the board. Unlike in Birmingham, some development is mandatory – the first 2 shipyards cannot be built but MUST be developed. Just as in Birmingham, to accelerate building progress toward higher valued structures, industry structures can be developed instead of built (cost : 1 iron per structure developed max 2 developments per single action). During the rest of the game, only industry structures above level 1 may be built and rail connections are laid down instead of canal links. After the canal era is over, all those canal connections are removed from the board (and scored) as well as any structures marked as level 1 industries. During the first half of the game (the canal era) players may also construct canal connections extending from industry structures they’ve built, expanding their network and accumulating additional victory points. There are iron works, coal mines, cotton mills, ports, and shipyards to build, with various potential victory points and income increases attached to each (structures only earn victory points when their output is entirely consumed or sold). Players are wealthy industrialists, attempting to build valuable industries in various cities across the county of Lancashire and generate income as a result. It’s laid over the underlying mechanisms of the game so thoroughly that it manages to at least somewhat obfuscate the mathematical puzzle that is at the heart of Lancashire. Everything should hold up quite well to long term use, although frequent players might want to sleeve the cards to prevent bending or tearing.Īs with Brass Birmingham, the theme here is very well implemented. The components include the aforementioned location and industry cards the main game board 4 player boards 4 sets of cardboard tokens representing industries, canal/rail connections, and player markers distant market movement tiles small wooden tokens to track player income and score and clay chips to use as currency (deluxe edition only). The artists have shown great attention to detail such as the raised gold lettering on the box, the coordinating soft color palette across all of the components, and the exquisite illustrations on the location and industry cards. The artwork for Brass Lancashire is beautiful, radiating a classic style evocative of the theme (industrial era production). Sure, there’s a resemblance, but the kissing feels different. Playing Lancashire after playing Birmingham is a bit like dating someone and then dating their sibling.
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Is there even a chance I could enjoy it as much as Birmingham? Lancashire was the original game designed by Martin Wallace, and while it’s been updated for the most recent release, I was concerned it might prove to be an older, tired version that couldn’t compete with Birmingham. It was an all time top 10 best games ever kind of love and so when Roxley Game Laboratory offered to send me Brass Lancashire to play and share my thoughts, I was a bit hesitant.
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A few months ago, I fell in love with Brass Birmingham (you can read that review HERE).