Brass: Lancashire

Normally take two actions per turn, discarding one card for each action, including passing. The Canal Era’s first round allows only one action. Refill to eight cards at turn end until the draw deck runs out. Actions are Build, Network, Develop, Sell and Loan. Each round, order players from least money spent to most, preserving relative order for ties, then collect income; there is no income collection after the game’s final round.

For Build, a Location card permits construction there without requiring your network; an Industry card requires the matching industry in your network, with a special free choice of location if you have no industries or links on the board. Alternatively spend both actions and any two cards as one Location card. Use your lowest-level tile of that industry, pay money and coal/iron, and obey space icons. In the Canal Era each player may have only one industry per location; the Rail Era removes this restriction.

Your network includes locations containing your industry or adjacent to your link. Resource connectivity can use any player’s links. Take free coal from the closest connected coal mine; only if no connected mine can supply it may you buy from the market, requiring connection to a market trade icon. Iron is free from any player’s iron works, without connectivity or nearest-source restrictions; buy from its market only when no iron works can supply it.

A newly built coal mine connected to a market trade icon, and any newly built iron works regardless of connectivity, must immediately sell as many cubes as possible into empty market spaces, filling the most expensive first and collecting money. Remaining cubes cannot be sold to the market on later turns. Mines and works flip when emptied; mills and participating ports flip through cotton sales; shipyards flip immediately when built. Flipping increases income by the printed number of track spaces, not income levels.

One Sell action may sell several of your unflipped cotton mills, choosing for each a connected unflipped port belonging to any player, or attempting the Distant Cotton Market through a market trade icon. Port sales flip both port and mill. Distant sales first reveal a demand tile and reduce demand; reaching X leaves that mill unflipped and immediately ends the entire Sell action, with no switch to a port. Using a port to reach the distant market does not itself flip it. Sales require no beer.

Network links must adjoin your network. In the Canal Era, build one canal for £3 per action. In the Rail Era, build one rail for £5 or two for £15; each separately consumes one coal and must satisfy connectivity. Develop removes one or two lowest-level industry tiles from your mat, costing one iron per tile. Level 0 shipyards cannot be built and must be developed away; level 1 shipyards are Canal Era only and level 2 are Rail Era only.

For Loan, discard any card, take £10/£20/£30, and reduce income by one/two/three levels, placing the marker on the highest space of its new level. You cannot go below income level −10, and loans are never repaid. Loans are forbidden in the last four Rail Era rounds. Revealing the deck tile signals one remaining round for loans before it is flipped to indicate the ban.

An era ends when the draw deck and all hands are exhausted. Score each link for link-scoring icons at both ends and remove it; score printed VP on flipped industries remaining on the board, with none for unflipped industries. After the Canal Era, remove all level 1 industries from the board, reset the distant market and prepare the new deck. Level 2+ industries remain and can score twice if flipped. After the Rail Era add one VP per £10. Highest VP wins; break ties by income, then cash, sharing victory if still tied.