Ierusalem: Anno Domini is a soon to be released game from Devir. The theme? Getting your people closer to the Disciples and Jesus at the Last Supper. Now, one might think non-Christians would either: 1. treat it as fiction and enjoy the game anyway or 2. ignore it. RIGHT?

Nope.

In a now locked thread on BGG, a diplomat and “chaplain” complained about serious errors. Oh, the original post has now been deleted. It’s still quoted in whole in the first remaining post. In fact, most of the comments have now been deleted.

It used to be that the mods would simply move the post to an RSP forum, and let the discussion continue. I’m guessing someone (OP) went crying to the mods when another user, one of long standing, pointed out errors in the original post, such as Peter proclaiming Jesus the Messiah in both Matthew 16 and John 1. Other flaws included conflating the Dead Sea Scrolls with NT contemporary literature.

Another guess is that said OP, who bragged about speaking 11 languages and being appointed a diplomat by Arlen Specter, did not expect to be on the losing side of the argument, nor did they expect pushback on the current form of BGG with all its focus on inclusion and diversity. And at least one of the mods has made it their mission to purge badthink. Well, done right, he still had to follow the TOS which the Chistians did not violate. Deleting sure looks like trying to claim victory or victimhood. Every. Single. Time.

At any rate, I’ve been interested in this game and will be digging into it after release. Yeah, that means I’ll try to post about it. Devir has done a couple other games that are… Christian adjacent. Red Cathedral is about building St. Basil’s Cathedral, and Lacrimosa is about the completion of Mozart’s Requiem.

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Venue: As far as space for this convention, it was great. The space was spread out over two floors, with elevator access. There were two large rooms for open game play, with some reserved tables in the downstairs room. In the downstairs atrium there were a number of giant versions of games set up, which saw less play than I expected. RPG play was in a smaller side room(this is a predominantly boardgame con). The con had a game library and a swap meet setup in rooms appropriate for the inventory.

Downside: con food was only available at very specific times per meal, the menu was very small, and I thought walking tacos were a big mistake.

Events: There were a pretty good number of events, with few unique/rare experiences. There were no tournaments this year that qualified for a GenCon trip as in the past. I played in a few events, including a homebuilt version of Modern Art with commissioned artwork and a similar version of Acquire. I ran two myself, a session of Flick em Up! with 8 players, and a full 5 player game of Indonesia, myself included in both of those. I did see a play of Twilight Imperium 4th ed, and one of Point City, among others.

Flick em Up! is a dexterity game of Old West outlaws vs lawmen. We made our way through the first 4 scenarios out of 10 in the base game. Scenarios were won by both teams, and we saw some cool duels take place within scenarios.

Indonesia is a giant economic game of manufacturing and shipping in the islands of Indonesia. Factories ship their goods(must if they can), mergers happen, and companies grow. We ended with two close pairs, one clearly at the top, one just a touch under it, and the fifth player a bit behind them.

Play to Win: One aspect of this con and other smaller cons that is very popular is the play to win selection. Last year, they had a large number of single games from many publishers. This year(geeklist here) spread out wins of games more evenly, so now each player could only win one game. I saw both of these as very positive. I got the chance to play Beer & Bread, Bot Factory, Can’t Stop, Pergamon, and Deblockle.

I know some folks will tell you cons are dead and not to go for various reasons. I can tell you this one is for the most part, very friendly, and focused on games. Yes, you may encounter some political statements here and there. I didn’t encounter much in the way of foul language, though there were some statements here and there that implied political position, and I did not hear any remarks disparaging faith. I can recommend this con, and suggest if you have a smaller game con local to you, check it out.

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