Ra Review – A Revised Classic Worth Shouting About

Despite the dust on my Medici review not yet settling, it’s time to review another of Reiner Knizia’s classic auction games, Ra. Surprisingly, this is Lady Gaga’s favourite board game. Or at least that’s my interpretation of the lyrics of Bad Romance.

Over three rounds, you play a line of ancient Egyptian kings. In each round, you play as the next descendant in that line. During your time on the throne, you’ll use sun discs, numbered from 1 to 16, to bid on different achievements for your civilization.

From the creation of monuments to the planting of fields. Each achievement type has a different way of scoring, and collecting the right types of achievements plays a big role in the game.

Starting each turn, you either pull one of these achievements from a bag of tiles and add it to the auction row. Or start an auction for what’s already on display. But this needs to be done dramatically, by grabbing the larger-than-life Ra token and yelling ‘I invoke Ra!’ – as though he was an ancient Egyptian Pokemon.

During the auction, each player gets one opportunity to bid with one of their sun discs or pass. The player starting the auction goes last, giving them the advantage of seeing what everyone else bid.

Putting down the highest sun disc wins you the auction and all tiles in the auction row. However, the sun disc you used is placed into the next auction. While you receive the sun disc from the previous auction.

Now, there are 30 Ra tokens in the achievement tile bag. When one of these is drawn, Ra is invoked and the round timer counts down. After a certain number of these tiles, the round ends, and you score the tiles you bought. Afterwards, the sun discs reset, and a new round begins.

Sun discs, uh, what are they good for?

On the surface, Ra seems rather uncomplicated. You bid on tiles, win tiles, score tiles, and then after three rounds, you win the game (hopefully). Yet, there’s so much bubbling under the surface that I won’t capture it all in this review.

But we’ll start with the economy of sun discs.

There’s a similarity here to Reiner Knizia’s other, other auction game I reviewed: High Society. Where the denominations you bid with aren’t linear, or infinite. You might, for instance, start a round with the following sun discs; a one, a five, and a ten. So when someone bids on an auction with a six, the consideration isn’t: should beat this with a seven. It’s is it worth your ten?

When making this decision, you must think about the sun disc on auction as well because if you win, then that disc will be yours going into the next round. Therefore, picking up low-valued sun discs can screw you in the rounds to come. Ending up with you cursing your past self more than after a night of heavy drinking.

Additionally, since sun discs are valued the way they are, and you can play only one, then the player with the highest-valued disc is guaranteed to win any auction they want.

As such, they’re incentivised to want as many tiles added to the auction row as they can get prior to the next auction. Meanwhile, if players with lower-valued discs want anything, they need to invoke Ra before too many good tiles appear and they’re snatched away.

This unique economy adds so much fun and frustration to the auctions. Where to bid or not to bid isn’t an easy question to solve. And will have you pulling your hair out from start to finish.

Uncovering the special sauce

While the auctioning mechanic and sun disc economy are nothing short of phenomenal. There’s an additional layer of spice in between each auction. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was turmeric, nutmeg, or cinnamon but then I realised it was simply the push-your-luck aspect.

See, although you start with three or four sun discs and use them throughout the round. Once a round ends, everyone refills back up to their disc limit. So, if you end the round without using your discs, you’ve missed the opportunity to gain more tiles, and the points that come with them.

Ideally, you want to use all of your discs before the end of the round. However, you don’t know when that’s going to happen. Remember that when a Ra tile is pulled from the bag, the round moves one step towards being over.

This creates a push and pull between playing it safe and using all of your sun discs early. Or waiting until others have used their discs, giving you a better chance at a big payday. In doing so, you risk not getting anything at all.

There’s a cascading effect here as well. Where if all players spend their discs before the round ends from Ra tiles, then there are more Ra tiles in the bag for later rounds – making them even riskier.

Like the sun disc economy, this push-your-luck mechanism puts you in a position where it’s up to you to make tough – but oh so much fun – judgment calls. Depending on your draws, it can be incredibly exciting as well. With you sweating and hoping that the last Ra tile isn’t drawn before your next auction.

Back with a vengeance!

Originally released in 1999, Ra is not a new game. However, it has continued to get praise from reviewers and board gamers for over two decades. Even still, for the last decade or so, it’s been out of print and hard to get a copy.

25th Century Games recently brought this wonderful game back with a vengeance! The art direction by Ian O’Toole is once again breathtaking. Gone are the muted tones of the original, replaced with the bright vibrant colours of this new addition.

That said, The Deluxe Edition (or Pharaoh Edition) pictured in this review is a little over the top with its comically sized chunky wooden tiles. Also, the huge Ra token is one of the few board game components that gives the Raccoon Tycoon’s first player token a run for its money.

Its opulence makes it a centrepiece for your collection, if not a bit harder to store and play due to the size of the box and everything within.

Nevertheless, this new release of Ra is the definitive edition of the classic game of sun discs and god invocation. It’s brilliant to see its return, after hearing about it almost non-stop since I started board gaming. Especially now that its exterior matches the design it holds.