Games - Ra

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	Games - Ra

RA is a board game for three to five players designed by Reiner Knizia based on ancient Egyptian culture. Originally published in Germany, it was brought to the United States as an English language translation by Rio Grande Games. This modern classic was reprinted by Uberplay in the fourth quarter of 2005. RA is essentially an auction game, where the players are all competing for the same resources. The price of the tiles is determined by the players bidding for them - values can shift rapidly. Players are faced with a constant balance between "what should be done eventually" and "what can actually be done now" - which is a hallmark of many Knizia games, and of German-style board games in general.

Introduction

RA is played in three rounds, called Epochs. Players use their sun tokens to bid against each other on auctions for tiles. At the end of an epoch, points will be scored for the number and types of tiles a player managed to win.

The fun of the game lies in the challenge of getting the tiles you want, while preventing your opponents from getting all the tiles they want. This challenge is compounded by the severe resource and time constraints each player faces.

The rules and gameplay are simple enough to be understood and enjoyed by first-time players. The strategy and player-interaction is compelling enough to encourage many cries of, "RA! RA! RA! Let's play that again!"

RA takes approximately 45 minutes to an hour to play.

History

RA was published in 1999 by Alea in Germany. In an interview with FunAgain Games, designer Reiner Knizia explains how he created the game : "RA actually has a good story behind it; it was the first game I did after my retirement. Two or three weeks after my retirement I said, 'Okay, now let's get started.' That's the time, when I do a big game, that the world around me stops. I concentrate on this game and nothing else. And since I had more time, this concentration became even more extreme. For four to six weeks I did nothing but work on this game. "

Almost immediately the game was picked up for distribution and English translation by Rio Grande Games. Rio Grande owner Jay Tummelson explains how he chose RA for distribution so early in its life in an interview with FunAgain. "Games I like are likely to be liked by others. With Ra, I saw it at Essen last year and decided I would like to do it in English. I approached Alea and offered to do it. We negotiated and I did it. I try to get involved earlier in the process…. I am working with some companies on games they are considering for next year, but have not decided on final theme or look."

999 Games published a Dutch edition of RA in the Netherlands in 2000. Besides these three officially published language translations, fans of the game have translated the rules into Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, and French. All of these translations, along with reviews, photos, and discussions about the game can be found on BoardGameGeek.com, a board game database and fan community.

RA quickly sold out, and was out of print for several years. In October 2005 Uberplay reprinted the English version. The Uberplay edition has minor differences from earlier editions: slightly larger tiles, a slightly larger board, a cloth sack to pull the tiles from, a smaller box (thanks to the board being quad-fold), scoring summary printed on the board, and marks on tiles to indicate which are kept at the end of a round. In 2005 Knizia, working with Michael Menzel, also designed a new game called Razzia, which is the basic game of RA with a mafia theme.

Components

A game board

180 cardboard tiles:
* 30 Ra tiles
* 8 God tiles
* 25 Pharaoh tiles
* 25 Nile tiles
* 12 Flooded Nile tiles
* 25 Civilization tiles
** (5 each of five types of Civilization)
* 40 Monument tiles
** (5 each of eight types of Monument)
* 5 Gold tiles
* 10 disaster tiles
** (2 funerals, 2 droughts, 2 earthquakes, and 4 unrests)

48 Tablets (for scorekeeping):
* 10 1-point tablets
* 8 2-point tablets
* 20 5-point tablets
* 10 10-point tablets

16 Suns (numbered 1 - 16)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ra (board game) ]

Games - Ra

Introduction

History

Components

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