Brass: Birmingham vs Terraforming Mars: Which Should You Buy?

In Brass: Birmingham, you're building industries across the English Midlands during the industrial revolution, first along the canals and then the railways. The whole game runs on supply and demand. When coal gets scarce, the price swings, and the players paying attention make their own luck out of the timing. What makes it sing is how tight it is: you only get a few dozen actions across the entire game, so every single one has to earn its place. And because the game splits into two eras, canal then rail, it reinvents itself halfway through, right when you think you've got it figured out.

Terraforming Mars feels completely different at the table. You're a corporation making Mars livable, raising the temperature, flooding in oceans, and seeding oxygen until the planet hits habitable. You do it by playing cards, over 200 of them, and each one bolts another part onto your economy. Where Brass is about squeezing a shared market, this is about feeding a machine you built from scratch. The theme and the mechanics actually line up too, so every action feels like it's genuinely changing Mars. That engine is the hook, and it holds.

Here's the surprise: the number one game on BoardGameGeek is the easier teach. Brass runs medium-heavy but teaches in about twenty minutes despite how deep it goes, and while a slow, indecisive group can make it grind early on, the dithering eases off once the board fills in and the choices narrow. It's still not a starter game, so don't hand it to folks fresh off their first gateway title. But a group that's ready to graduate will be up and running fast.

Terraforming Mars is the heavier lift, and it wears it. A big hand of cards invites analysis paralysis, downtime can drag, and an early lead tends to snowball, so the leader can run away with it. It rewards patience and punishes anyone hoping for something light and quick. If your group happily spends two hours on a slow build with a big payoff, none of that is a dealbreaker. If they fidget, Brass is the kinder pick.

For sheer variety, Terraforming Mars wins this one. With over 200 project cards and 12 corporations, the variety is genuinely huge, and players report that no two games feel the same even twenty plays deep. It also stretches from solo up to five, though three or four is the real sweet spot. Two-player games drag, and five-player games end before your engine really sings. The one honest gripe is the box itself: component quality is rough for the price, and those little plastic cubes slide everywhere the second someone bumps the table. Grab a playmat or some baggies and you'll forgive it.

Brass replays differently. Instead of new cards, it's the two-era structure and those market swings that keep it fresh, because the timing puzzle changes with every group you sit down with. It plays 2-4, it eats a whole evening, and the thing people say over and over is that everyone gets up impressed, win or lose. It's the game I'd reach for when the whole table wants to feel clever together, rather than each person quietly perfecting their own corner.