Ra

I borrowed Alan's copy of Ra last night for a game with a couple of friends. Ra, designed by Reiner Knizia, is one of my all-time favorite games.

The game is Egyptian-themed, although the game itself has very little to do with Egypt. The game has an auction mechanic, and could accomodate just about any theme. The rules are simple. On each turn, a player may take one of three actions: draw a tile from the bag (bag not included, we use a Crown Royal bag) to add to the collection of tiles to be auctioned; exchange a "god tile" that one has for one of the tiles on the track; or call an auction by "invoking Ra" (done with a small wooden Ra statue). Thus each turn a player faces a choice: add to the collection to be auctioned, or force the auction before the collection becomes to valuable. Obviously, a player who anticipates winning the auction will sweeten the pot, and a player who anticipates losing the auction will call an auction rather than let the pot get too valuable.

Auctions are of the "once around" variety, and the player who calls an auction is required to bid if no one else does. Thus if you call an auction too soon, you could be forced to pay for a group of tiles that is not worth much.

The most unusual feature of the game, which sets it apart from other auction games, is that the auctions are conducted not with money that can be spent in arbitrary amounts, but with "sun tokens." The sun tokens are numbered 1 through 16, and each player starts an epoch (Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom) with the same number of tokens. You may only bid with one token, and higher tokens beat lower tokens. Furthermore, the winning bid is placed in the center of the board, and is auctioned off with the next group of tiles.

Scoring is based on the tiles one wins at auction, and is done at the end of each epoch. The tiles themselves are of various sorts, and score in different manners. Some tiles, like the gold tiles, are worth a fixed number of points. Others, like the pharoah tiles, are scored based on who has the most and least number of them. The civilization tiles earn points by having three or more distinct tiles, and the monument tiles earn points by having sets of three or more that are alike. The god tiles score a fixed amount, like the gold tiles, but can be exchanged for any one tile on the auction track, without having to bid. There are also "disaster tiles" that lower the value of the pot.

Each epoch comes to a conclusion when either all players have spent all of their sun tokens, or when the Ra track fills up. Whenever a Ra tile is drawn, it is added to the Ra track, and an auction is forced. No one is required to bid in a forced auction, but when the last spot on the Ra track is filled, the epoch is over and there is no auction. So towards the end of the epoch, when all but one of the spaces in the Ra track is full, a player (often there is only one left at this point) faces a very tough decision: draw a tile in hopes of sweetening the pot, and risk drawing the final Ra tile; or call an auction to take what's available. This is the most exciting part of the game, whether it is you or your opponent doing the drawing.

The game only lasts about 30-45 minutes, so it's a good game for situations when you don't have a lot of time. The board and tiles are beautifully designed, although I wish that Rio Grande had included an Egyptian-themed bag to draw from. The biggest downside to the game is that it is currently out-of-print. Hopefully Rio Grande will reissue it soon.

Rating: 10 out of 10.