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Players 3-5 Times Played: 2 (1 x three player, 1 x five player) Initial Impression It is difficult to believe it has taken me so long to play this game when it has already attracted such a loyal following. And now I see why. It might not be the greatest strategy game on earth, or the most novel, it certainly has nothing to do with the theme of Ancient Egypt beyond the artwork, it might even rely less on thought than on luck – but Ra is short, simple and, best of all, fun.
Open the box and what do you find. Well. A lot of cardboard to start with. There are over 200 tiles to punch out. Some are scoring tablets which the players use to keep track of their victory points, most are the tiles which will become the focus of the players as they bid to create collections. The game board is a small thing, containing the outline of two tracks: one will contain the tiles up for auction and the other will house the Ra tiles which also periodically turn up and will determine the end of each round. It is also embellished with a load of psuedo-hieroglyphs to remind us all of where we are supposed to be. Completing the contents are some nice wooden bits. One large blue Ra figure which is used to keep track of whose turn it is, and a set of 16 sun counters, each with a printed value of 1-16, used as money to bid during the auctions. The aim of the game is to collect the tiles which come in six different categories, each with its own scoring mechanism – Gods, Pharoahs, Civilisation, Nile, Gold and Monuments. There are also a few disaster tiles that can deplete a player’s holdings. Without going through all of the mechanisms, these point scoring opportunities vary from a flat rate at the end of each round (Gods and Gold) to a variable amount depending on specific holdings at the end of the game (Monuments). Some tiles are retained after scoring from round to round, while others are discarded. Having the least number of tiles in certain categories at the end of a round can incur penalties. Also, a player’s final holding in suns can result in bonus or penalty points. At the beginning of the game all of the tiles are shuffled around and placed face down on the table surrounding the board. Each player receives a set of three bidding suns (or four in the case of the three player game) of varying values. These sets are balanced in such a way that the player with the highest value disk will also have to lowest value, with similar range balances for the other sets. The lowest disk of all, valued at one, is placed in the middle of the board and will also be taken by the player winning the first auction. The game is played in three rounds (or epochs, according to the theme). Each round ends when either all of the players have used up their three bidding suns, or the Ra track has itself been filled. During a player’s turn he may either: turn up a tile and place it on the auction track (or the Ra track if it is a Ra tile), play a God tile from his hand to take one tile from the auction track, or shout Ra in a boisterous fashion to initiate an auction for all of the tiles on the auction track and the sun in the middle of the board. In an auction each player has one chance to bid one of his suns for the collection of tiles. The winner collects the tiles, fulfils any disaster conditions, and replaces the sun he has gained with the sun he has just bid, which will then become available in the next auction. There are a few other minor rules but that is pretty much it. The fun of the game comes from the tight decisions to be made. If you are bidding for only a few tiles how much should you bid? When do you use your biggest value sun, now, or do you risk a disaster tile appearing? Should you hang on until everyone has used up their suns in the hope that you can get some cheap deals before the Ra track fills up? This final situation can be highly amusing when a player has saved his final sun for ages, only to draw three consecutive Ra tiles to finish the round. It is a bit like playing Russian roulette. After only a couple of outings I am not sure if there are any particularly strong or even sound strategies, beyond making sure you keep track of the scoring potential of each set of tiles and trying to ensure you are not left at the end of the round without having at least got something out of it. There are certainly tactics involved as players try to bid up auctions to force others to use a high-value sun for a small collection of tiles; and also keeping an eye on which suns to win in an auction in preparation for the next round. Simple as it may be, the game definitely has the play again factor, and is probably ideal for newcomers, drunkards or the end of the night (or a combination of all three).I do, however, have some problems with Ra, most having nothing to do with the design, but the components. In a game where the most complicated bit is the scoring, I cannot understand why the manufacturers did not include a set of reference tiles for the players showing how each category scores. Surely in a game with 220 cardboard bits, an extra five would not have made a huge impact on production costs? While it is true that the playing board has such a guide printed on either side, the type is so small it requires a great deal of peering to decipher. In my case I have photocopied the board’s cheat sheet to provide such handouts – this should not have been necessary. By the same token, I am a bit concerned at the device of scattering all the tiles face down on the table. I would have thought that providing a large cloth bag for players to draw tiles from would be a preferable technique, and would save a lot of messing about with turning tiles face down and shuffling them about. This is a less galling complaint than the previous one and I might be in a minority. But I would definitely stand by the need for reference cards. Still, don’t let this put you off. Ra is a good game. My one experience of the five player game is that it tends to drag a bit beyond its sell-by date, and I suspect the four-player hand is optimal. Ra is simple enough for a bit of light relief without being trivial. There is plenty of interaction in the auctions and scope for a bit of shouting. I have found that ‘Ra’ sounds best in a West Country accent. Provisional Rating 7.5
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Ra is a bidding/collecting game with some
typically Knizian design elements which present a variety of options in
each turn, inserts a race against time and provides a selection of scoring
mechanisms in several categories both during and at the end of the game.