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Edited: Jul 17, 2023

No one will ever read it

I just finished my first game of Commissioned, a coop in which you play the Apostles, and try to spread Christianity.

This first scenario took me (or rather "us" - you need to play two characters unless you include the expansion) from 33 AD to the mid-90s. Though I managed to write all books of the New Testament I could not spread the faith fast enough. The Roman Empire did not adopt Christianity.

The very first event card I drew from the deck, prevented me from leaving Jerusalem. And I had no way of countering it. This is a deckbuilding game and I needed upgraded cards for that. Basically I never recovered from this slow start.

It's alright though, and I'm curious for the expansion (it was included in this second hand copy).

14 comments

Comments (14)

Jul 18, 2023

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I played some more. This game is hard to win! I saw a playthrough by One Stop Coop Shop and he said for solo he always played with the harder Trial cards, but I can't even win with the normal ones. It looks to me like some scenarios are harder, and some combinations of Apostles will also take some getting used to. But I may just suck at this. 😁

Zerbique

Jul 17, 2023

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By the way, how did you get it? It doesn't seem easily available.

Jul 17, 2023

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Replying to

A Dutch guy sold his copy. So, local second hand market. I had been on the lookout for ages. Sometimes it popped up, just not always for the price I wanted to pay. This one included the expansion, and all cards were sleeved, so that was an easy decision.

Tina

Jul 17, 2023

Z, I am interested in watching this 50 hours documentary, shall I bring the drinks or the sweets?

Zerbique

Jul 17, 2023

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Replying to

Actually, it's on YouTube. But it's in French.

There are three seasons (Corpus Christi, Les origines du christianisme, L'apocalypse) and I think the second one deals with the events that the board game illustrates.

Tina

Jul 18, 2023

Replying to

Ha, I can watch it with german subtitles 😀

Zerbique

Jul 18, 2023

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Replying to

I would not put much trust in these automatically generated subtitles, unfortunately. You can do so for French and... it seldom makes sense. It even detects Star Wars names occasionally or transcribes 'l'ironie de la crucifiction' (the irony of crucifixion) by: 'léonie de l'apprécient fiction' (literally: Leonie of enjoy fiction).

Given the scholars here discuss subtle interpretations of chosen biblical verses, I fear the approximate, web-trained translation of Google, based on faulty speech recognition, might just be a festival of absurdities.

Tina

Jul 17, 2023

I have never heard about this game but it sounds interesting!

Zerbique

Jul 17, 2023

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Looks cool!

The Early Christianity is a truly fascinating topic. I have a 50 hours documentary DVD series on it, but my wife never wants to watch it 😥

Is the game "soft" enough for a non-Christian, or would you say it is rather proselytizing in its intent?

Jul 17, 2023

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Replying to

Every card and scenario has a reference to Scripture on it. If you ignore this as flavour (not hard to do, it's in a small italic font), you can mechanically play it as a kind of reverse Pandemic, spreading disease cubes all around the Mediterranean. That said, I like it for what it is. I'm not averse to the New Testament.

Zerbique

Jul 17, 2023

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Replying to

Me neither, I read it and enjoyed it!

References to Scripture is fine (also, it's our main source on these events anyway...), but sometimes games are a bit... I don't know... enthusiastic. Sticking to the Scripture sounds safer and more sober (the Scripture never falls into the marketing-like advertisement of the Christian faith).

It's not the first time I'm eyeing this game, actually. And the few interactions I had with the designer on the forums left me a good impression (except that one time where he absolutely wanted Catan to be on top of the BGG ranking, but I guess everyone has a hill they are wishing to die upon).

Gloomknight

Jul 17, 2023

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Cool. This game looks really nice. Would you consider the (rules) challenging to learn?

Jul 17, 2023

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Replying to

Absolutely not. It could be played as a family coop. Some icons to learn, but most are explained on the back of the rulebook. I had to check for two things on BGG, because the text on two Faith cards (the better cards you add to your deck) was a bit ambiguous to me, but it turned out they were logical after all. l don't know yet if the other scenarios add much ruleswise, this was my first session.