Whaaa?? VERY excited about this. Brass Birmingham has been at the top of my list of games to get for a very long time, but I was waiting for solo rules. Thanks for making this video, Shane!
You're welcome! Brass Birmingham is my #2 game of all time. It's just so good. I would recommend playing a 2 handed game to really learn the game mechanics before trying the automa it will probably help a lot but either way, I hope you can get it and enjoy!
@@jinsoloboardgames Terra Mystica/Gaia Project. It was Terra Mystica for years before I finally tried Gaia Project in 2020 and liked it so much I was saying it was my favorite, or they both are since at their core they are so similar, but after getting more plays of Gaia Project finally recently, which is so fantastic in many ways, I think Terra Mystica really might still hold that #1 spot in my heart. But I've played so few games in the last couple years, I have many unplayed games, I feel I don't really know anymore lol. How about yourself? What's your #1 or, maybe your 3 favorites if you don't have a #1.
@@ShaneandStuff Oh nice! I have Gaia project in my shelf that need to try. It looks very complicated which is very my style :) I’m expecting much from the solo play! Do you know that a new automa solo play expansion is coming out for Terra Mystica? I think it is coming out this year. I would say Brass Birmingham might be my current favourite multiplayer game. For solo, my favourites are Mage Knight and Too Many Bones!
@@jinsoloboardgames Yes I almost preordered the TM solo expansion from Capstone recently but decided to wait. I ordered Ark Nova from them and received it in less than a week. It's the new hotness but retail release has been delayed so I ordered direct from them and I'll be trying a solo game of that after I get this solo game of Bonfire off my table :D I've never played Mage Knight but I have Star Trek Frontiers and totally love it. I've also not played Too Many Bones and the only reason I haven't bought it yet is because A. It's a big investment to start due to the quality of components and B. I have a bunch of soloable campaign style games already that need love and don't want to add to my unplayed pile :D
Hey there, Shane! I really appreciate you making this video! I watched it months ago when I was first considering buying Brass: Birmingham for solo play and I finally gave it an attempt today... after watching this video again, of course! (Final score was 157-164, although I did make mistakes that I tried my best to correct as I went along!) I'll be posting a solo playthrough video in August and although I do still have some lingering questions, I think overall I'm fairly comfortable with the rules! Thanks again!
That's awesome I'm so glad you found the video informative and you enjoy Brass. It's my #2 game of all time I just love the elegant mechanisms. If you have any questions let me know here I'd be glad to answer or ask on the BGG page for the automa. I'd love to see your playthrough vid when you're done so let me know when it's up!
I just checked out your channel. I'm VERY impressed! Top notch quality production, you are enthused and easy to listen to, nice background music which I usually also do I just didn't in this one since this was a pretty quick and dirty one on just how to use the mAutoma. And I LOVE that you are donating to good causes. That's very inspiring and I have totally subscribed!
Great explainer, thanks. Bought brass a while back this year but had no one to play with for some time for obvious reasons! Been looking forward to playing solo and now much easier thanks to your run through. Also, the city name is pronounced ‘Wus-ter’ as in ‘Wus-ter-shear sauce’ :-)
Thanks for the teach! I’ll have to refer to this again if I purchase this game. I played brass for the very first time last week and I cannot stop thinking about it. It is such an amazing game! I love solo games so I’m hesitant to buy this as this doesn’t have an official solo mode. Did you enjoy the solo modes? Would you buy this if you were primarily playing solo? Multiplayer is so much fun but I don’t really have people to play frequently
Wait a minute, I just noticed something when watching it again: at 11:11 you say the iron cost was 3 so he did the iron works-build action, then you show the iron market (after removing the iron cubes to show the state at that time). But the iron price was only 2 per iron. Did I miss something?
The iron price (to consume) is 3 in the example. If you were to send iron to the market at that time you would only get 2. But the actual price is 3, at least, that's what I assume is meant in the rules by "price". If you look at the develop action, it also talks about the "price" of iron and in this case it is definitely the consume cost, not the send to cost. So if he meant 2 different things by price ie, buying (consuming), or selling (sending), then it should be more explicit in the rules. Are you @Vortilion on BGG? If so, what are the specific questions you have on selling as second action? Also, we can just ask on that thread to confirm that "price" requirement of build action means consume price and not send to price.
how do you know how to match up the front and back sides of the cards? They print out on separate sheets, so I have no idea which front goes with which back...
On their website, each pdf is the front and backs of the cards. My printer can print double sided so I just set each pdf to print double sided flipping on the short edge. If your printer doesn't do this you just have to print each pdf one at a time so you don't mix up the front and back. It's easy to see on "Part 3" file on their site. Part 3 only has 7 cards and you can see one is more of a reference and one side has the brass loco and the other side has some reference rules. So you can see if you print each one, then just put them back to back, each card will line up with it's pair. Does that help?
They have matching numbers on them in the lower left corner as it is stated in the pdf. You are not supposed to use duplex print as they would be matched incorrectly.
I've played Solo Brass Birmingham VS different AI. I highly recommend "Mautoma AI" as it's easy to manage with digital card & provide close to human opponent experience. This is only AI which follow all actual connection rules to consume resource. For most convenient experience can play with "George AI" but it' not intelligent and don't follow connection rules. I do not recommend "Victoria AI" as it's neither easiest to play, nor intelligent.
Thank you very much for the feedback. I definitely liked Mautoma a lot better than George. George is super easy to learn but once you learn Mautoma it's pretty smooth and exactly as you said. More like a real opponent and uses all of the connection requirements. George sometimes was way too repetitive. I hadn't tried the Victora AI I did want to see how it works but not a priority and I have so much other stuff and videos planned right now :)
I tried printing the cards and can figure out if they are suppose to be flipped the long or short side of the paper. Since I haven't played the base game either it's kinda hard to figure out if it's obvious. :P Can anyone tell me? Or does it even matter? It lines up either way. Edit: Found the small numbers haha, nevermind ;)
That's a hard question. This solo mode is really good and feels much like a real player. The game itself is a joy to play it is my #2 game. If you typically like solo Euro games you will likely enjoy it. Since I'm experienced with the game I won on easy difficulty but there are ways to adjust the difficulty having the automa start with more industries already gone. It is simply, IMO, the most elegant design. The way the hand management card play works with the other mechanisms it just sings.
Haha yeah thanks. You're the 2nd person to point that out. I'm terrible at pronouncing a lot of the UK cities being from US. I hope the tutorial helped you make sense of the Automa. Once it clicks it's pretty easy to manage and plays a LOT like a human player which is what makes it so awesome IMO.
Whaaa?? VERY excited about this. Brass Birmingham has been at the top of my list of games to get for a very long time, but I was waiting for solo rules. Thanks for making this video, Shane!
You're welcome! Brass Birmingham is my #2 game of all time. It's just so good. I would recommend playing a 2 handed game to really learn the game mechanics before trying the automa it will probably help a lot but either way, I hope you can get it and enjoy!
@@ShaneandStuff What is your #1? 🧐
@@jinsoloboardgames Terra Mystica/Gaia Project. It was Terra Mystica for years before I finally tried Gaia Project in 2020 and liked it so much I was saying it was my favorite, or they both are since at their core they are so similar, but after getting more plays of Gaia Project finally recently, which is so fantastic in many ways, I think Terra Mystica really might still hold that #1 spot in my heart. But I've played so few games in the last couple years, I have many unplayed games, I feel I don't really know anymore lol.
How about yourself? What's your #1 or, maybe your 3 favorites if you don't have a #1.
@@ShaneandStuff Oh nice! I have Gaia project in my shelf that need to try. It looks very complicated which is very my style :) I’m expecting much from the solo play! Do you know that a new automa solo play expansion is coming out for Terra Mystica? I think it is coming out this year.
I would say Brass Birmingham might be my current favourite multiplayer game. For solo, my favourites are Mage Knight and Too Many Bones!
@@jinsoloboardgames Yes I almost preordered the TM solo expansion from Capstone recently but decided to wait. I ordered Ark Nova from them and received it in less than a week. It's the new hotness but retail release has been delayed so I ordered direct from them and I'll be trying a solo game of that after I get this solo game of Bonfire off my table :D
I've never played Mage Knight but I have Star Trek Frontiers and totally love it. I've also not played Too Many Bones and the only reason I haven't bought it yet is because A. It's a big investment to start due to the quality of components and B. I have a bunch of soloable campaign style games already that need love and don't want to add to my unplayed pile :D
Hey there, Shane! I really appreciate you making this video! I watched it months ago when I was first considering buying Brass: Birmingham for solo play and I finally gave it an attempt today... after watching this video again, of course! (Final score was 157-164, although I did make mistakes that I tried my best to correct as I went along!) I'll be posting a solo playthrough video in August and although I do still have some lingering questions, I think overall I'm fairly comfortable with the rules! Thanks again!
That's awesome I'm so glad you found the video informative and you enjoy Brass. It's my #2 game of all time I just love the elegant mechanisms. If you have any questions let me know here I'd be glad to answer or ask on the BGG page for the automa. I'd love to see your playthrough vid when you're done so let me know when it's up!
I just checked out your channel. I'm VERY impressed! Top notch quality production, you are enthused and easy to listen to, nice background music which I usually also do I just didn't in this one since this was a pretty quick and dirty one on just how to use the mAutoma. And I LOVE that you are donating to good causes. That's very inspiring and I have totally subscribed!
@@ShaneandStuff Thank you so much, Shane! I really appreciate your kind words! (I subscribed to your channel too, of course!) ☺️
Great explainer, thanks. Bought brass a while back this year but had no one to play with for some time for obvious reasons! Been looking forward to playing solo and now much easier thanks to your run through.
Also, the city name is pronounced ‘Wus-ter’ as in ‘Wus-ter-shear sauce’ :-)
Glad you found it useful and thank you for the pronunciation explanation! Makes perfect sense.
Actually it’s ‘Woos -ster’
Thanks for the clarification on these cards. Looking forward to playing with this AI.
You're welcome! This automa is really great. Hope you enjoy!
Thanks for the teach! I’ll have to refer to this again if I purchase this game. I played brass for the very first time last week and I cannot stop thinking about it. It is such an amazing game! I love solo games so I’m hesitant to buy this as this doesn’t have an official solo mode. Did you enjoy the solo modes? Would you buy this if you were primarily playing solo? Multiplayer is so much fun but I don’t really have people to play frequently
Wait a minute, I just noticed something when watching it again: at 11:11 you say the iron cost was 3 so he did the iron works-build action, then you show the iron market (after removing the iron cubes to show the state at that time). But the iron price was only 2 per iron. Did I miss something?
The iron price (to consume) is 3 in the example. If you were to send iron to the market at that time you would only get 2. But the actual price is 3, at least, that's what I assume is meant in the rules by "price".
If you look at the develop action, it also talks about the "price" of iron and in this case it is definitely the consume cost, not the send to cost. So if he meant 2 different things by price ie, buying (consuming), or selling (sending), then it should be more explicit in the rules. Are you @Vortilion on BGG? If so, what are the specific questions you have on selling as second action?
Also, we can just ask on that thread to confirm that "price" requirement of build action means consume price and not send to price.
I posed the question to Mauro on BGG to clarify what "price" means in the build requirement. :)
@@ShaneandStuff oh, Right, sorry, youre absolutely right, my bad!
how do you know how to match up the front and back sides of the cards? They print out on separate sheets, so I have no idea which front goes with which back...
On their website, each pdf is the front and backs of the cards. My printer can print double sided so I just set each pdf to print double sided flipping on the short edge. If your printer doesn't do this you just have to print each pdf one at a time so you don't mix up the front and back. It's easy to see on "Part 3" file on their site. Part 3 only has 7 cards and you can see one is more of a reference and one side has the brass loco and the other side has some reference rules. So you can see if you print each one, then just put them back to back, each card will line up with it's pair. Does that help?
They have an app on their website that makes the deck as well if you don’t mind using an app.
They have matching numbers on them in the lower left corner as it is stated in the pdf. You are not supposed to use duplex print as they would be matched incorrectly.
I've played Solo Brass Birmingham VS different AI.
I highly recommend "Mautoma AI" as it's easy to manage with digital card & provide close to human opponent experience. This is only AI which follow all actual connection rules to consume resource.
For most convenient experience can play with "George AI" but it' not intelligent and don't follow connection rules.
I do not recommend "Victoria AI" as it's neither easiest to play, nor intelligent.
Thank you very much for the feedback. I definitely liked Mautoma a lot better than George. George is super easy to learn but once you learn Mautoma it's pretty smooth and exactly as you said. More like a real opponent and uses all of the connection requirements. George sometimes was way too repetitive. I hadn't tried the Victora AI I did want to see how it works but not a priority and I have so much other stuff and videos planned right now :)
@@ShaneandStuff Agree
What about Eliza, which doesn’t need any cards at all? So far I only played using that automa and loved it.
I tried printing the cards and can figure out if they are suppose to be flipped the long or short side of the paper. Since I haven't played the base game either it's kinda hard to figure out if it's obvious. :P Can anyone tell me? Or does it even matter? It lines up either way.
Edit: Found the small numbers haha, nevermind ;)
Glad you figured it out :) I don't remember from back then. Hope you enjoy! I need to get this to the table again. Haven't since I made this video!
Hi, would you recommend this game only for solo ? Is it challenging ?
That's a hard question. This solo mode is really good and feels much like a real player. The game itself is a joy to play it is my #2 game. If you typically like solo Euro games you will likely enjoy it.
Since I'm experienced with the game I won on easy difficulty but there are ways to adjust the difficulty having the automa start with more industries already gone.
It is simply, IMO, the most elegant design. The way the hand management card play works with the other mechanisms it just sings.
It’s pronounced „Wooster“, not „Worchester“. ;) Thanks for the tutorial, I find the symbology used on the cards extremely confusing…
Haha yeah thanks. You're the 2nd person to point that out. I'm terrible at pronouncing a lot of the UK cities being from US. I hope the tutorial helped you make sense of the Automa. Once it clicks it's pretty easy to manage and plays a LOT like a human player which is what makes it so awesome IMO.