My first Reiner Knizia review and it’s a negative one. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. You know what else I don’t like? Ra. The appeal of this game is beyond me. You spend three quarters of your turns drawing a tile from a bag to no immediate effect. Pretty much the entire game is down-time. Its theme is pointless, its cadence is awkward, and its decision space is tiny. Honestly, this is probably my least favorite design of Knizia’s that I’ve played, and I’ve played a lot. I really do not understand why this is considered one of Knizia’s classics. His earlier titles Modern Art and High Society are significantly better auction games and laid the groundwork for many systems we see in games today. Knizia is practically a master of the auction genre. So what’s the deal with Ra? Why does it completely ignore everything that made both of those games work? Gone are the tempestuous economies, careful value assessments, and creative twists on pacing and scoring. Ra has no economy or valuation dynamics that I can see, and its scoring system is rote set collection of the blandest kind. What happened?
First, let’s touch on Ra‘s overall structure. Before the game begins, players are each dealt a hand of “Sun” tiles, numbered between 2 and 16, and a starting score of 10 VPs. Another Sun tile with a value of 1 is placed in the center of the game board. Players then take turns drawing random tiles from a big ol’ bag. Usually this tile will simply get added to a growing pool of tiles on the game board. However, if a “Ra” tile is drawn then an auction occurs for all the tiles that have been accumulated up to that point. If a player does not wish to draw a tile they have 2 other options: 1) start an auction by choice, or 2) discard previously acquired “God” tiles to take any non-God tiles from the auction pool they desire. While this may appear to be a genuine decision point, it really isn’t. In my experience, you rarely have God tiles to spend and whether forcing an auction is in your favor or not is almost always immediately apparent. So in practice, your turns play themselves a great majority of the time.
That means the sole area of interest in Ra are the auctions themselves. Which would be totally fine if they were interesting. Unfortunately, much like the rest of the game, they play out in simplistic, almost elementary terms. Beginning with the player to the left of the auction starter, players decide if they want to bid on the current pool of available tiles. If they do, they offer up one of their numbered Sun tiles as the value of their bid. Of course, if a later player wants to bid as well it must be with a Sun tile of a higher value than the one currently offered. Bidding lasts for a single round, ending with the auction starter, and the highest bid wins. The auction winner exchanges their winning Sun tile with the one on the game board (so the first auction winner will always receive the value-1 Sun tile) and takes the pool of tiles they just won and lays it out in front of them.
After a certain number of Ra tiles are drawn or once all players have ran out of Suns, players score their current set of tiles. Some tile types are scored based on uniqueness, others are scored based on quantity compared to other players, some score only once and are discarded, others are held until the end of the game, etc. etc. The details don’t matter all that much, because even if Ra‘s scoring system was clever and unique (which it isn’t), the way you acquire tiles (i.e. the game) is completely devoid of excitement. Upon scoring, players get their Sun tiles back and the game continues, and after the 3rd round of scoring the game ends.
The “strategy” in Ra, as far as I can tell, is really just a series of flimsy judgment calls based on thin information. “Is it worth spending my 12 Sun to net 7 points to stop Tim from winning the auction with a 7 Sun to score 8 points?” And then it doesn’t even end up really mattering because tile draws are completely random, so subsequent auction pools may or may not end up adding value to previously collected tiles. So do you specialize or spread out? Does it even matter? The tiles you end up actually accruing are so far removed from any planning you may have done that it feels pointless to even try. I think Knizia’s intent here was some weird group “push your luck” sort of deal where players are kinda stabbing around in the dark and hoping for the best, but it’s hard to say because the game’s risk/reward propositions are nearly always derived from arbitrary game states. “Oh boy, a bunch of tiles that match my previously acquired tiles and guarantee me a ton of points have been randomly drawn! Good thing I saved this high-valued Sun tile even though there was no way for me to anticipate this!” and such. I suppose the gradually draining bag of tiles creates a bit of a probability puzzle to sink your teeth into, but it’s nowhere near enough to generate any excitement or tension.
Another area Ra disappoints in is player agency, especially when compared to Modern Art. Where Modern Art‘s pacing, valuations, auction types and rewards are all player-influenced, Ra reduces and randomizes its systems in all the wrong ways. The ultimate product of this is something not altogether removed from the likes of Bingo. To clarify what I mean, imagine if drawn Bingo numbers went into a pool that was eventually auctioned off to a single player who was the only one who got to mark those numbers off on their sheet. The result of this would be something very clearly resembling Ra (and would also greatly improve the quality of life in nursing homes all across America, but I digress). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but to wrap a system so heavily steeped in randomization with the trappings of a strategy game simply doesn’t work very well. Good games built around randomization find ways to make the randomization itself exciting. Look at Can’t Stop or Diamant for successful examples of this. In comparison, the tile draws in Ra are slow, tedious, and uninteresting.
Ra was released toward the tail-end of Knizia’s golden period in the 90s, which remains one of the most impressive design periods of any board game author in the history of the form. In fact, he put out at two masterpieces the same year he released Ra! And even amongst this litany of excellent releases, Ra is often hailed as one of his best. I just don’t see it. I’ve played it three times — the second and third with the express intent of finding something to like about it because I was determined I was missing something — and it left me cold every time. I feel no desire to challenge my opinion on it again. Sorry, Knizia, but the next time I’m feeling all good and Reiner-y I’ll be reaching for one of the dozen or so other titles of yours I keep on my shelves and likely always will.
Ra gets a rating of TWO out of FIVE, indicating it is NOT RECOMMENDED.