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Jerusalem, spring 33 AD: A crowd gathers at the city gates to welcome Jesus of Nazareth as he prepares to celebrate the Passover seder with his apostles and followers. With a revolutionary message, he has garnered supporters everywhere but also looks of suspicion among religious authorities. The Last Supper will soon be celebrated, and the fate of one of the most influential characters in human history will be sealed.
In Ierusalem: Anno Domini, we represent one of the communities of followers of Jesus of Nazareth who, coming to Jerusalem from nearby towns and villages, want to approach the place of the Last Supper and position ourselves as close as possible to the seats of Jesus and his apostles. The closer we are, the more points we earn at game's end. We also score for offering tokens and parable tiles we've accumulated.
Different locations are shown on the board: the market, the desert, the mountain, the lake, and the temple. After sending our followers to one of these locations, we obtain stones, bread, and fish, as well as denarii or cards that allow us to do more than one action. Among these actions, players can choose between listening to a parable, going to the table, changing seats, or doing a favor, among other things. All this happens while the patience of the Sanhedrin runs out. When this happens, as symbolized by a tile moving in a marker, the endgame is triggered.
However, the main element of the game is the cards. Each card has a symbol corresponding to one of five key locations in the game. As we play them, we form combinations that allow us to bring the apostles to the table of the Last Supper. The optimal placement of our followers around Jesus and the apostles will also be done through the management of letters, as well as various resources at our disposal.
Behind a very immersive theme, Ierusalem: Anno Domini will not disappoint lovers of good challenges. Players have a wide range of possibilities at their fingertips and multiple ways to earn points. Preparing the best strategies to get the most out of your followers will be one of the keys to victory. Devout gamers don't need to look further: Here is your game!
—description from publisher
- Unique and respectful biblical theme
- Strategic resource management and follower placement
- Player interaction through displacing meeples
- High-quality components and artwork (typical of DE Games)
- Interesting card play and combo potential
- Multiple ways to score points
- Optional stickers can enhance the game's look
- Numerous follower actions and icons can be overwhelming initially
- Player turns can be lengthy, especially with higher player counts
- Initial learning curve for understanding all actions and icons
- Requires significant sticker application if desired
- Theme might not appeal to all players, although it's presented respectfully
- Biblical history, focusing on Jesus and his followers during Passover and the Last Supper.
- Jerusalem
- Euro game with historical/biblical theme
- Monty Python's Life of Brian
- Hamilton
- The Ten Commandments
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Majority — Having the most followers in a location can be strategic for resource generation or movement.
- Card Play — All game actions are driven by playing cards from a player's hand.
- Dice Rolling — Dice are used in conjunction with other factors to determine conversion success in Banish the Snakes, but not explicitly mentioned as a core mechanic for Jerusalem.
- End game scoring — Points are awarded based on the proximity of followers to Jesus and Apostles, Parable tokens, and Sanhedrin track position.
- Modular Board — The game takes place on a central board representing the table and surrounding locations.
- Resource Management — Players collect and spend resources (fish, bread, stone, dinari) to perform actions.
- Set Collection — Players collect cards to meet Apostle requirements and Parable tokens for victory points.
- Variable Player Order — A Sanhedrin token moves up a track, potentially triggering the end of the game, and the first player marker also shifts.
- Worker Placement — Players place meeples (followers) onto locations to gather resources or perform actions.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- for me for sure Katan was the board game that was my Gateway game to hobby style games
- He's probably the Godfather of your style games right so he kind of kicked off the entire one of kicked off the Euro German game genre that we know so well today
- Union of the snake I'm Tony
- Simon Lebon is just a really good singer
- This was the one where we did the Pepsi Peeps taste test
- Don't skip to the next segment y'all this is not that typical type of GMT game
- The whole premise of this is on your turn you're going to be collecting tiles from the center of the board and and you're going to be stacking them in a bookshelf
- The Sanhedrin token Yeah you mentioned that which for me was how I sped up the game
- I want to talk about how well he did in teaching this game so the you open the box each proned preconstructed deck is is wrapped and sealed
- I continue to Journey back into Guild Wars 2 hard and I just downloaded Guild Wars 1 and listen to I just sat here and let the music wash over me
References (from this video)
- Attending the Last Supper
- Jerusalem
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- ethnos is a great game by one of my favorite designers Paolo Mori so I was really happy to hear that it's got a new life with a new publisher a Space Cowboys are bringing us our chaos
- time travel massive battles and just lots and lots of exciting announcements
- I love beautifully published and produced abstract games this is something I'm really looking forward to
- having the words the black country strewn across a board of the most highly rated game in the world honestly feels pretty nice
References (from this video)
- strong production values
- distinct theme and skin
- solid gameplay
- potentially slow/heavy for new players
- Parable-like tile collection and Last Supper theming
- Jerusalem during biblical times with religious themes
- Hand management with thematic social setting
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Hand Management — Manage a hand of cards to perform actions
- Set Collection — Collect sets of tiles (parable tiles)
- Tile Collection — Collect sets of tiles (parable tiles)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- hidden movement games are something that I I'm kind of interested in but I've not really found the one for me
- I love bidding games
- the more people in this queues the more money you have to spend
- this is one of my most anticipated games from last year
- this is basically a game within a game
- it's lightning quick too it only takes around 15 minutes to play
- you can get a three-player game of this done in about an hour
- it's a passion project with some good historical context