Card Deck Reference

The full Brass: Lancashire deck contains 66 cards: 41 location cards (one or more per buildable city) and 25 industry cards (cotton mill, coal mine, iron works, port, shipyard). Players draw 8 cards each at the start of the game; the rest of the deck is the draw pile, with extras removed up-front depending on player count.

Card Types

• Location card — names a single city; can be played to build any industry there, or build a link from/to that city.
• Industry card — names a single industry type; can be played to build that industry anywhere in your network, or used as a wild for any location/link.

Per-Player-Count Deck

Different player counts use different deck sizes. The removed column is how many cards are removed from the top of the deck at the start of each era (so the era ends after fewer rounds).

Players	Deck base	Hand size	Cards dealt	Canal removed	Rail removed
2P	40 (custom — see below)	8	16	2	0
3P	66 (full)	8	24	9	6
4P	66 (full)	8	32	6	2

"Canal removed" / "Rail removed" mirrors the physical-game setup: those cards never enter play in that era. The remaining deck (after removals + dealing) becomes the draw pile that triggers the era end when exhausted.

Standard 4-Player & 3-Player Deck (66 cards)

Location Cards (41)

Location	Copies
Liverpool	4
Manchester	4
Lancaster	3
Preston	3
Barrow-in-Furness	2
Birkenhead	2
Blackburn	2
Bolton	2
Burnley	2
Colne	2
Macclesfield	2
Oldham	2
Rochdale	2
Stockport	2
Warrington & Runcorn	2
Wigan	2
Bury	1
Ellesmere Port	1
Fleetwood	1

Industry Cards (25)

Industry	Copies
Cotton Mill	8
Port	6
Coal Mine	5
Iron Works	3
Shipyard	3

2-Player Deck (40 cards)

The 2-player game uses a smaller board (Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port, Stockport, Macclesfield, Oldham, Rochdale are removed) and a custom-trimmed deck. Specifically:

• All location cards for the 6 removed cities are removed (Birkenhead ×2, Ellesmere Port ×1, Stockport ×2, Macclesfield ×2, Oldham ×2, Rochdale ×2 = 11 cards).
• One copy each is removed from Manchester, Wigan, Liverpool, Lancaster, Preston (= 5 cards).
• 10 industry cards are removed: 3 Cotton, 3 Port, 2 Shipyard, 1 Coal, 1 Iron.

2P Location Cards (25)

Location	Copies
Liverpool	3
Manchester	3
Lancaster	2
Preston	2
Barrow-in-Furness	2
Blackburn	2
Bolton	2
Burnley	2
Colne	2
Warrington & Runcorn	2
Wigan	1
Bury	1
Fleetwood	1

2P Industry Cards (15)

Industry	Copies
Cotton Mill	5
Port	3
Coal Mine	4
Iron Works	2
Shipyard	1

How the Deck Drives Era Length

An era ends when the draw pile is empty and every player's hand is empty. Removing cards at the start of each era shortens the era for that player count:

• 4P canal era: 66 − 6 (removed) − 32 (dealt) = 28-card draw pile; with 8 cards drawn per round per player (32 total), the era is 8 rounds long after the initial deal.
• 3P canal era: 66 − 9 − 24 = 33-card draw pile; 24 drawn/round → 10 rounds.
• 2P canal era: 40 − 2 − 16 = 22-card draw pile; 16 drawn/round → 10 rounds (uses smaller board + reduced markets).
• 4P rail era: 66 − 2 = 64-card deck; 32 dealt → 32 in draw pile → 8 rounds.
• 3P rail era: 66 − 6 = 60-card deck; 24 dealt → 36 in draw pile → 10 rounds.
• 2P rail era: 40 − 0 = 40 cards; 16 dealt → 24 in draw pile → 10 rounds.

The exact card lists live in lib/card-data.js. The buildDeck / buildTwoPlayerDeck / cardsToRemove constants there are the source of truth — if anything in this page disagrees, the code wins.