A printable Brass Birmingham log lives or dies on the one record nobody keeps: what each era actually scored, and why, because Brass Birmingham does not end with a single final count but with two era scorings added together, and each era scoring has exactly two lines, scored in order, links first and flipped industries second. Nobody at the table argues about the game they played; they argue about whether a link paid one point or three, whether an unflipped tile paid anything at all, and whether the Canal Era points were counted once or twice. The only evidence is the log: a line for each era, with the link icons and the flipped-tile values written beside it, or a single victory-point total that was written at the end and can be defended by nobody.
Links pay one victory point per adjacent location showing the link-scoring icon, not one point per link, and that is the first trap. A canal link touching three icon locations scores three, and a rail link touching one scores one, so two players with the same number of links can be points apart. Score every link flat at one and the player whose links touched the most icons loses points they earned, quietly, with no line on the sheet showing where they went. A log that writes each link with its icon count beside it makes the link line checkable; a bare links total does not, because the total alone cannot tell you whether a three-icon link was paid at three or mistakenly at one.
Flipped industries score the victory points printed in the bottom left corner of the flipped tile, and unflipped industries score nothing, and that is the second trap. A cotton mill, manufacturer, or pottery flips by selling its goods, and a coal mine, iron works, or brewery flips when its last resource is consumed, but until that flip happens the tile is a sunk cost, not a score. Count an unflipped tile at its printed value and phantom points appear for a business that never became commercially successful; leave a flipped tile off the line and real points vanish. A log that lists flipped tiles by value, and keeps unflipped tiles on a separate zero line, keeps the two apart; a log that writes a single industry count hides which tiles flipped, and the flip is the whole score.
The Canal Era score is not a rehearsal, and that is the third trap. The two era scores are added together, so a player who banked points in the Canal Era keeps them, and a player who trailed after the Canal Era can still win in the Rail Era, but only if both eras are on the sheet. Score only the Rail Era and the Canal Era leader's early points disappear; score the Canal Era's flipped tiles again during the Rail Era and the same tiles pay twice, which is the one error that can manufacture a tie out of a clear win. A log with one block per era, each block closed before the next era begins, stops both errors; a single end-of-game block invites them, because nothing on the sheet says which era a point came from.
Take a game that ends with A and B both at 33 from flipped industries across both eras: A flipped fifteen in the Canal Era and eighteen in the Rail Era, B flipped sixteen in the Canal Era and seventeen in the Rail Era. The link lines decide it. A's links pay seven in the Canal Era and eight in the Rail Era, for era totals of twenty-two and twenty-six, and a final total of forty-eight. B's links pay nine in the Canal Era and five in the Rail Era, for era totals of twenty-five and twenty-two, and a final total of forty-seven. A wins by one. Score every link flat at one per link, three canal links and four rail links for A against five and three for B, and A falls to forty while B falls to forty-one, a false B win by one. Count unflipped tiles at their printed values, six points of unflipped tile for A and nine for B, and A rises to fifty-four while B rises to fifty-six, a false B win by two. Score A's and B's Canal Era flipped tiles a second time in the Rail Era and both rise to sixty-three, a false tie. Three different single-line errors, three different wrong results, and only the line-by-line log shows which one happened.
A Brass Birmingham scoring log that a buyer prints, fills in, and trusts is not a sheet of blank lines but a checklist of the scoring list in order, twice: Canal Era links at one per adjacent icon, then Canal Era flipped industries at their printed values, then the same two lines for the Rail Era, with unflipped tiles on their own zero line, and then the tiebreak line, most income, then most money, then shared victory, written before any winner is declared. That is the download worth selling: not the arithmetic, which any player can do, but the structure that stops the arithmetic from drifting, one line at a time, until the winner changes.
Disclaimer: This log is a player aid for Brass: Birmingham and is not affiliated with Roxley Games or Martin Wallace. End-of-era scoring uses the official scoring list; check the rulebook for your edition before play.
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