Ra

This week we look at a modern classic as far as board games go, and delve into antiquity as far as theme goes. A shout out to the OG's old school German style games guild at BoardGameGeek.com. Ra is next. Ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra. Welcome to Replayable, where we go into depth on our favorite tabletop games that keep us coming back again and again. I'm the start player Todd, and today I am joined by David and Paul. For our sixth episode, we dig into the Reiner Kinesia Classic Raw.

It was originally published in 1999, with the most recent version being released this year by 25th Century Games and with art by Ian O'Toole. Are you two ready to begin this excavation? Osiris would approve. I'm ready to go. One of my favorite games on deck. Let's get into it. Alright, Raw is a push your luck auction and set collection game with an ancient Egyptian theme. Each turn, you take one action from the following options. Draw a tile that may be added to the lot already on offer.

Begin an auction, or use a previously acquired god tile to claim a single tile from the offer. Auctions are conducted in a single round and players bid with sons. These are tokens that are numbered 1 through 16. The person who wins the auction places her son token on the board and it is the first item included in the next lot. When a raw tile is drawn, an auction is triggered. It also advances the timer for the current epoch. A game lasts three epochs with players scoring points after each one.

We'll talk more about those in a bit. Why does this game work so well? Dave, you mentioned it was one of your favorite games of all time. What do you like so much about it? Well, absolutely. It's one of those games, every time we pull it off the shelf, everybody knows how to play. Everybody knows how to play well. And we're usually going to crank this out in under an hour. So we don't have a lot of games that fill that kind of depth to time ratio that everybody's going to be at a high level.

And it's just, it's always hard fought. I mean, sometimes somebody has a bad, you know, run of luck in the game, but for the most part, it's going to be a satisfying experience that we could crank out at the end of the night between games, whatever. It's always on the shelf, ready to go. And it's, it's, we got a small handful of games that fit that bill. And this is one of them. Paul, what do you like about Raw? I don't agree with Dave, but I'll get into that later.

For me, it's the pacing and brevity. Each player gets to make a decision every few seconds and play duration is kept under an hour. That's just amazing. And I think it's able to do that because of how it constrains what players can bid. So instead of asking the most painful auction question, how much do I bid? They get to ask, when do I bid? That's a great point. And I agree when it comes to auction games, one of the hardest things is learning how to evaluate the items that are up for offer.

And this is more a question of when do I want to get in because maybe I'm trying to start an auction at a lower cost because I don't want it to get too beneficial for somebody who's going to be able to outbid me or maybe I want to let it ride because I have a high sun token and I'm going to be able to take all of these great tiles if people let them build up in the offer.

So I agree that the big question here is when do I decide to try to win it myself versus when do I try to get someone else to bid and lower the number of remaining auctions they have because that's another thing that we haven't yet talked about. And that is at the beginning of each epoch, each player only has three sun tokens, which means they can participate or win three auctions during that epoch. So when you get in and when the other players stay in is another consideration, right?

Even though Ra is over 20 years old, it is still played and loved by people because people who hate auction games for that very reason can enjoy Ra. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I love that Paul mentioned constrained bidding, which is one of the categories listed under it under BGG, which I haven't seen that specific category before. I just say, yeah, it's an auction game. Well, BGG is now getting subcategories and subcategories to the subcategories and constrained bidding.

That's more inviting to newer players rather than I've got 100 bucks, you got 100 bucks and here's this thing that who knows what the value is, what do you want to bid for a new player? That's a huge barrier of entry. Like, I don't know, 10 bucks, 90 bucks. But in this game with that constrained bidding, which can feel a little frustrating at times, it gives you a framework to work within. So your decision space is not huge. It's pretty limited.

Do you want to do this one thing or this other one thing? And it's very simple. And that's the magic of Kinesia, right? It comes to your turn, you have two or three choices, but it's super meaty, even though it's just down to those two or three choices. That's why I think it works great as a game and great as an auction game. Yeah, and Kinesia has several auction games and perhaps most notably there is the auction trilogy of which Ra is a part and so are Medici and Modern Art.

Where does Ra fit within the pantheon of auction games for you? Dave, what do you think? Well, you want to talk about the Kinesia auction games or auction games in general? Let's stick to Kinesia games for now and once we get through them, we can add any others if you'd like.

All right, and if you don't mind, let's get our dictionaries out first because when I was going through and looking up auction games, the thing about the auction trilogy, Ra, Medici and Modern Art, that's all there is to the game. That's literally all you do is you auction. But when you get into some of the other auction games like Amon Ray or something like that, you auction and then you also make some decisions, do some actions, things like that. Right.

So you have a hard time finding games other than these plus maybe for sale, if my memory is right, where it's pure auction. That's all you're doing. And that differentiates it, I think, from other games like Keyflower, which I think is a fantastic auction game, but it's an auction game and a worker placement game. What about No Thanks? I thought about that. I'm glad you brought that up. What do you think? I think it is a pure auction game. It's just an auction in the negative. Right.

And it definitely shows up on the list of auction games. And when I was preparing for this pod, I was surprised because I don't think of it that way. Originally, it's more do I want to take that tile? Does it fit into my set or no thanks. And I'm willing to pay a token to avoid having to bid that round. But you're right. It is an auction game. It certainly flips it on the head. It's almost an un-auction that I'm going to pay to not take it. Right.

Yeah. It's an area game, which I believe that the auction game is Battle Line. Wow. I'm not sure I can agree with that one, but I can see what you're saying because I'm going to be putting forward my most valuable hand to try to capture particular stones. Yeah. It's like an area control auction. You know, I mean, if you go that far, you can even call El Grande an auction game. But you're basically putting down things for where you want to win them. And it's a back and forth.

One person can decide that they want to make the price of position one super costly. Right. Whereas positions three through six are cheap. Isn't that something you've talked about, Dave, the universal auction theory? Like every game is an auction if you look hard enough. It's the grand auction unification theory. Is that right? Something like that.

Yeah. And yes, you could apply it across all sorts of mechanics and say in some way, this is an auction, but area control specifically, that one is very close. It's hard to not say that that's an auction is that when I put this many meeples or cubes or whatever into this area, I'm bidding that amount.

And so I can see what Paul is saying on that align that if each column is a lot and then you're just placing your bids on the lot, if you look at it that way, I mean, it comes down to pretty much a pure auction game. OK, we may have to agree to disagree on that one. I mean, I can I can see it. I can see it. But I don't necessarily know what you know what I'm paying for in advance. Right.

I've got to be able to poker hand a three card poker hand with battle line or shot and Totten is the version that I have in the original one. So I'm hoping I'm going to draw into getting the card I need to complete that bid if I'm going to use auction terminology and win that stone. Ra is a seemingly simple game. Right.

You only have those three actions that you can take, but there is some surprising depth to it that gets revealed as you start trying to evaluate these and determine when you get involved. What do you think about the depth of this game? How would you describe your approach to it? Well, we talk about the agony of decision. It's one of the things that we look forward to in games where every decision you make is going to be meaningful. It's rich. And I say agonizing and I mean it in a good way.

Right. Amon Ray has that in spades. That one to me is the most agony of decision. But Ra is very close. And it's and it's again, it's because it's very simple. Do one of these usually two things, either draw a tile or call Ra. That's it. That's the decision right now. Very simple. And there are a few times when you're on autopilot, I've got the highest sun tile in front of me. So I'm going to continue to draw from the bag. I always want to make a bigger lot that we're going to bid on.

Or if I have the lowest one, I'm calling Ra no matter what. But everywhere in between, it's a tough decision where you have to evaluate the board. Where are the other players? What are they holding? I mean, that's like I said earlier, the magic of kinesia. It's the simplest thing and it's the most difficult thing. And that's what makes it so satisfying to get into. Well, since we're talking about depth, I feel like I need to plug my favorite auction game, Age of Steam.

To me, that game epitomizes agony of decisions, especially because it is effectively a dollar auction where everything you bid, you're paying even if you don't win the auction. But for the depth of Ra, the way I think of it is there's so little control over what you can bid. You have to focus on what you can control, which is what's on offer. I don't think there's a lot of depth to Ra.

To me, it just boils down to if my sun tiles have low numbers, I need to call Ra every time it's my turn and try and force the people with the highest sun tiles to be the last player standing and try to push their luck and maybe not even get to use them. But it's really not that simple, right? I mean, sure, you have a low tile and so you're going to call Ra, but if you call it too early, everyone's going to pass.

And now because you voluntarily started the auction, you're forced to eat that offer and it may just be a sun tile. Now, normally when you call Ra with just a sun tile out there, you're doing it because it's a 10 plus, right? It's the 13, it's the 15. And sometimes that alone is worth paying a sun token to acquire.

But there is the possibility if you always say low sun values should call Ra, that you end up having to eat the lot and it didn't have the intended consequence of having someone else use one of their sun tokens. Sure, but if you have like a one, two or three, I don't think there's much of a decision. I guess to Dave's point, if you have a middling number, then there's no right answer. Yeah, the ends are pretty straightforward.

It's when you're sitting on a six, seven, eight, nine, that's when you have to sit back for a second and heave a big sigh because I'm holding the eight, Todd's got the nine. Is he going to outbid me? Can I force him to use his nine? And that manipulation is where the game's really played. I agree, 100%. Look, I'm terrible at this game. At least there are occasions when I will win and I still don't understand exactly what happened. So help me out here.

How do you guys evaluate the lots that are on offer? Because you're doing it quickly in our games. Honestly, I think it's all group think. In my opinion, our group values civilization tiles extremely highly and doesn't really value other things as high as I might. So I try to just fall in line with what the rest of the group is thinking. I try to be a mind reader more than actually evaluate what tiles are on deck.

I think the biggest factor I look at is how many raw tiles have already been drawn. All right, that's true. So I don't necessarily remember actively how many draw tiles we saw in the last era or the era before. I'm not counting cards like when I played Blackjack. I have a vague idea that we might have a raw run right here, but I'm not really following the stats that closely. Well, that one's actually fairly easy to track, right? Because every raw tile is advancing the timer track.

And so when the track fills, you just scoop them all up, toss them in the box, right? They're done. They don't get put back into the bag. Well, but sometimes an era ends before it fills, so we didn't use them all. That's true. And also how many non raw tiles came out? I mean, I guess I could count the tiles on the table. But honestly, you gave us a breakdown to get ready for this show and you gave us a breakdown of the 180 tiles or whatever it is.

And I hadn't really put that much thought into it with as many times as I played this game is I have a general idea of how many of each sieve there are or how many pharaohs there are in the game. But I'm like I said, I'm not counting my blackjack cards to know if I'm plus or minus to raise my blackjack bet. Right. And Paul, you said that we highly value civilizations. I think we definitely highly value the first because not having one is what minus five points? Yeah, it's only a five point tile.

I feel like there's often times when I play with you guys where the monuments and pharaohs or river tiles add up to more than five points. But as soon as the civilization tile comes out, here come the big sun numbers. That's such a good point, Paul. That's so true. If they had adjusted the scoring on this, like maybe if you don't get any civilization tiles, you get zero. But if you get one, you get five points.

You know, instead of saying negative five, if they just shifted everything up five points to zero, I would probably value it differently, even though it's exactly the same. You know what I mean? I think you're right. Yeah. But since there's a negative there, I'm like, no, I can never go negative. I refuse. But it's like, man, it's just I'm not going to get that five points. No big deal. My mind is totally different. Totally different perspective on the exact same thing.

Ganesha is manipulating my mind. I think you're dead on correct there. Yeah. Then how much of this game is reading the players versus reading the board? Well, I think that's a great question because it's hard to differentiate the players from the board in some case, because the sun tiles that the player is holding and how the player is going to play those sun tiles. I mean, I can look at and say what I think you should do, but I don't know exactly what you're going to do.

I mean, you tell me what I should do. So when I want you to go my way, yeah, I try to tell you what's best for you. But yeah, like Paul said, I mean, when you observe the meta forming, people got a bunch of river tiles and everybody's looking for the flood. And just to try to get a general idea of what the valuation, how that changes. And that's what we were hinting at is the dynamic valuation of the lots as they come out.

And that's what's so fantastic about the game or any good auction game is that these five tiles might be worth absolutely everything to me, but nothing to you. But we still have to figure out how we're going to play that. You don't want me to get away with it for cheap, but you don't want to accidentally win it. And that interplay is what really just makes this game kind of explodes my brain while we're playing.

I feel like that's not a big part of raw because you have so little control over what you can bid. You know, you're really just trying to control what's on offer. I play the players far more than I play the actual scoring in this game. I think that's true. And I wonder if it's different from the three player game versus the four and five player game, because in the three player game, you have four sun tiles. So you're going to win, you get to win four lots if you want.

Whereas the four and five player game, you get three shots and you're out. What about the two player game, Dave? I wouldn't know. I mean, I could look it up, I guess, but this isn't a game that I'm excited to play two player and I don't know if I ever have. While we're talking about auction games, are there other games that are non-Kinetsia titles that we've already talked about for sale? We've talked about Age of Steam.

So what other auction games are you putting in the pantheon of auction games? I've considered the Estates, formerly Newey Heimat and Princess of Florence. I listed those as well. Princess of Florence, it's really, I mean, just like Age of Steam. I mean, the game's really all about the auction, but there are other actions that you have to do to kind of make good on what you got out of the auction. So it's not pure auction, but those definitely are games that they are auction games.

That's the main thing we're going to be doing. And let's not forget Taj Mahal. Right. I call those games auction adjacent. Because the auction is still a large portion of the game. And this is opposed to something where a lot of games will have an auction mechanism. Maybe you're bidding for turn order. Five Tribes does something like this. But it's not the overriding mechanism in the game where it's not all of the game like Ra, like Medici.

I call some of those games where it's still a big part of it, like Amon Ray, auction adjacent. And yeah, I would say Princess of Florence definitely falls into that category as well. Amon Ray, I have a tough time not calling that an auction. To me, they're auction dominant, but I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Do you include High Society and the Pantheon of Tenecia auction games? You know, we just played that the other night and it had been a while since I played that one. It's fantastic.

But I kind of stick to the trilogy as being the core. There is a Tetralogy if you include Trauma Fabric, or it's also called Hollywood Blockbuster. And the more recent version is Nightmare Productions. And then some people will say, no, that's actually a Pentology. And they throw High Society in there as well. So five Kenetia games, all auctions. But I tend to think the top three are Ra, Medici, and Modern Art. I agree with that, and do you put them in that order? Personally?

Personally, I would put Modern Art in second behind Ra, and Medici would be in third. I would put Modern Art first. But if we're talking Kenetia only, then I agree. Well, those are all Kenetia games. So all three of us put Modern Art in a different position, because I'm going to rank them Ra, Medici, and Modern Art as maybe a distant third. Wow. I don't know if I would defend that to my grave, but I love Modern Art, and I hope we talk about it here someday.

But there's always something I feel a little dissatisfied by, and I think it's the control that I only got one chance to auction something this time. Or I don't know, we'll get into it when we get into Modern Art. And it feels like it's 80% of the game every time. It's like, wait, we have more to go. I think that just means Modern Art is too deep. It could be. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to sell everything. I just need more plays. Right. So if we're sticking to Ra, the scores are hidden but trackable.

Do you even try to keep up with what other people have accumulated? I do not. I don't think there's any point to it, because you can't do much about it. All I'm trying to do is maximize my score, or in any given case, maybe minimize something that you're able to get away with. But it doesn't matter what score I'm sitting at and what score you're sitting at. All I can try to do is maximize. It might matter for pharaohs and flood tiles. And those things you're definitely tracking.

You could convince yourself, oh, they're losing. I don't care if they get this slot. Yes. But yeah, I don't keep track of it. I do what Dave says and just try to maximize my own score. Right. But certain things, like you said with pharaohs, now that one, who's my competition in pharaohs or am I not going to bother with pharaohs at all? Getting into a brinksmanship with somebody with that, then yeah, then I'm on top of it the entire game. Where are the pharaohs and who has them?

But you guys are really quick with the calculations. So I remember when we're playing, you guys are looking around and you're saying, oh, this lot's already worth 10 points to Greg because he's going to end up getting whatever it is, three of the same monument.

But then he's also going to get more than seven different monuments if he captures this lot or this is going to be so much more to him in river tiles or it's the flood that's going to make his already long river activate and score again for that epoch. Yeah, I have to do that to define what tile he's willing to put up for the offer because that's how I play raw is I try to guess what tile other people are willing to put up and decide if I want to outbid them or not. Right.

So then are you satisfied with the play by the end of the game? I mean, do you understand how the result happened? Are you feeling like it was time well spent or do you have a quizzical look on your face and wow, David won that last game. How did that happen? Well, it hasn't happened in a while, but I get your point. I do the opposite, actually. There is there's a few games go where David's like, oh, yeah, my final score is 24. And I'm like, how did that happen?

Yeah. Well, the last game we played, I think I had zero in the first epoch and then maybe a negative score in the second one and then ended up losing by three points because I was just playing the end game, I guess. All monuments. Yeah. Right. Which that's a that's another thing with the evaluation. I think it's so interesting is each tile. Is that tile going to score now? Just now? Is it going to score all game or is it going to score just at the end of the game?

That dynamic tableau is what I think so interesting. And I probably said that four times and we're still in the beginning of the podcast here, but how that changes so much like this. This is so great for me right now. But then at the end of this epoch, I got to throw it away or this will be so great for me later.

It's a good point, Dave. Yeah, really, as far as satisfied, I go into raw understanding there's a lot of luck and the waves of chance are going to determine the victor more often than not. So I'm happy as long as the duration of play was under an hour. I'm satisfied. OK. I'm usually satisfied too. I mean, there's definitely that feeling of like, if only if I if only I wouldn't have bid this or if only I would have taken that from you. There's a lot of that one.

If I lose by a couple of points, I'm looking at here's where it went wrong. Because I feel like I have a pretty firm grasp of where my points came from or where they went when I didn't get them. Like we talked about in the beginning, always super satisfied that we've got a lot of game in in the 45 to 60 minutes or depending on the player count. Right. One of the key memories I have of this game is everybody else has used up their sun disks and they're out of it. And I'm the last player. Right.

And you got the 13 tile. Yep. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh, that's terrible. No. But now I get to push my luck. Right. How many more tiles do I think I can get to the offer? And you know, by the time everyone else is out, that raw track is almost full. So the epoch could end with the bad tile draw. But I'm sitting there trying to balance the risk reward of being greedy and putting more tiles out there, hoping I add them to my offer and just have a heyday.

That is like one of my favorite moments that occurs in this game. But when you think about it, it happened so infrequently. I think it should happen every epoch if people are calling raw at the proper frequency. I mean, unless unless we just go on a run of raw tiles and it ends super early. Right. Maybe it should be happening every time, but it shouldn't be me because I think, you know, if you outstayed your welcome, I think, and you're the last one in desperation.

I don't like being in that position. It's great when it goes my way. And one of the things when you said, you know, maybe a raw tile comes out. Sure. Or even worse, and we haven't even talked about it yet with the valuation of the tiles. What about a disaster tile comes? Right. I mean, you've been in that situation where you're like, I've got the 13. I'm just going to go all until the end of days. And then you pull out an earthquake and like there go two of my monuments. What was I doing?

Sure. And I've seen Greg agonize over this many times. He fills up the entire offer and he doesn't like it. And he has to decide, do I want to take these several tiles that I don't really care for? Or do I want to wipe them away and start from one start over? Yeah. And risk the wrath of raw that much more by trying to fill up another offer. Yeah. You can definitely get greedy in that situation and that can bite you. It absolutely can. All right. With that, let's move on to the prompts.

Weight or complexity on BGG scale of one to five, which also aligns with the scale on board game arena. What would you rate this game as far as complexity goes? Dave? I'm going to put it at a two. I think the rules overhead is somewhere between a one and a two, because like I said, it's a very simple decision. Do you want to call raw or draw a tile? And then when it comes to you for the bid, which of those two or three tiles you have left do you want to bid?

So it's a very small decision space when it comes to that. So there is, I think, a little bit of overhead with understanding. You've got eight different or seven different types of tiles. And I think a player board or player aid can help a new player with that. But for the most part, that rules overhead like a one to two. But then the next layer of how you're going to play what you have, that's a little more complex maybe up to a two or three.

So I'm going to round that off in between the two and a two. I wanted to rate this a one, but I couldn't in good conscience just because of the sheer number of people I've seen have a difficult time grasping the scoring and asking questions throughout the game. So to me, it's a two. Right. Well, I also had it as a two. In fact, my thoughts mirror Dave's very closely. Like I wanted to say a one because there aren't that many actions you can take. You're right. There are only two.

I mean, theoretically, there are three. There's a chance when you have an acquired God tile that you can swap it out. But that doesn't happen as often. Most of the time you're just looking at, do I draw a tile or do I call an auction? And for that, it would be a one. But it's the understanding of what this lot means to the other players and how you should leverage your son disks and when to play them that bumps it up to a two.

And it is still sometimes the results of the games are still opaque to me. Even after so many plays, I'm just I'm wondering why my wins aren't gathering as many tiles as it seems like Dave's capturing or that Paul is capturing. And I'm looking at it going, how do I how do I do better at say monuments? I'm just not doing well there. But it turns out I also happen to have nine river tiles in a flood is just making me bank every epoch. So it's definitely a game that rewards repeated plays.

And for that, I would say that the complexity bumps up to a two. I wonder if we could put the adage on that, you know, the 18 X X adage like when in doubt by a train, just push the trains. If you don't know what to do, push the trains. Maybe in this case, when in doubt, call raw.

Because I think the biggest rookie mistake that I see and that I make myself is drawing a tile, making that lot better for somebody else on the table and an auction that I am not going to win and just putting a more out there for that other person to win. So when in doubt, just call raw. That might be accurate.

I mean, it's one of the most satisfying things in gaming where I force you to spend your 13 on three stupid tiles when you wanted to get eight tiles and everything and like be carried off on, you know, on a plankton on the litter, you know, carried off on a litter, you know, over to the pyramids. Yeah. And instead you have to blow your 13 or 15 on three measly tiles because you absolutely need that. It's just one of the most satisfying thing in every game on my shelf.

Not one thing that I can make happen in this game. All right, then strategy. How much do we think there's an opportunity for strategy in this game? Paul? Not much. Once you understand the scoring, you will take opportunities to get high scores. But really, it's it's almost purely tactical and basically take what you can get when you can get it. Right. So would you say on a one to five scale, that's a... I rated a two. Yeah, I'm also putting that at a two.

And you know, this game, it holds a special place in my heart that it's a game that early on in my gaming days, when I learned that you can do very well with very low sun tiles, sometimes even better than you can with the high sun tiles on the strategies we were just talking about, that really opened my mind on just games in general. And I was pretty young, I mean, because this came out in 99. I probably played it for five years after that for the first time.

And it's to me back then, I would still think of games as like, this is the hand I got, I'm just going to play what I got. I didn't get the high sun tiles. So I guess I won't do very well. But it really opened my eyes that like, even though there aren't a lot of rules here, there's a lot of wiggle room on getting creative and ingenuitive with what you are dealt. And even though as we've talked about, it's not that deep, but it was something early on in my game that opened my eyes.

Just get rad with what you got and you can do well. Right. Yeah, I also had it as a two. I mean, once you know how to evaluate the tiles that are in the lot, and that's not a small thing to do, because as you mentioned, some of those tiles are going to pay out now, some of them are going to pay out several times, some of them will pay out only at the end. So I need to understand where we are, which epoch and what do those tiles mean.

And once I figure it out for myself, then I need to figure out for everyone else. And then I need to take into account the power of my son disks relative to everyone else's. So there's enough there to to look at and consider. And it can be done pretty quickly, but it's not as easy as other games. So I would say that it's a two on strategy. Now luck. How much you think that luck plays a factor? Same scale one to five. And I'm going to lead us out on this one because I think it's a glorious four.

Even though the influence of luck tapers down as the game goes on because raw tiles are being discarded, they don't get added to the bag. There is still that threat of a disaster looming around every corner and tile draw. And there is nothing else like pushing your luck after all the other players have bowed out of the current epoch. I mean, it's a four and it's spectacular. What do you guys think? I agree with that. I have it as a four as well. And that's not a bad thing.

But definitely I remember early on when I had a lot of plays of this game and I felt like I was kind of the hot one that it's my game to lose and I was not winning. And not that I'm saying it's just because of luck. That's why I'm not winning, bragging on my own skill. But I definitely am starting to see that sometimes I do win and it's because the tile I wanted came out and wiping my brow. I was pretty lucky. That wasn't necessarily because I outplayed everybody.

I just got the tile I needed at the right time. And I'm all right with that in this short game. We need to pick a game where we're going to have some big disagreement on one of these. Well let's see what comes up with the next prompt. So theme. How much do we think the theme has been integrated versus pasted on here? Paul, why don't you start? I actually think it is a very well integrated theme for a kinesia game. So I rated it two. Well it's no tigers and Euphrates. I'll say that.

I also have it as a two. It's almost the poster child for pasted on theme. And I was even contemplating a one. But then again, you need a flood tile to make your farms pay. Earthquakes bring down your monuments. All right. I'll give them the little benefit. There's some theme going on in there. And honestly, there was a mafia version of this called Razia. I never wanted to play it. And maybe it's just because I preferred the theme rather than it's integrated so well.

But in calling raw, invoking raw, I like the theme. It could be just about anything else. I agree with that. But I'm going to give it a generous two. Yeah, you guys are being generous. So let's go ahead and argue a little bit. So the scale doesn't go down to zero. So none is not possible. But I gave it a one. Look, this is a common criticism of kinesia tiles. I think that's why Paul said he thinks it's very well integrated and gave it a two.

And while I have come to love this game and its eccentricities, there's no reason why it has to be an ancient Egyptian theme. And Dave, you're exactly right. There is a mafia themed version called Razia. It's all card based. It's actually a fantastic game. The mechanics literally lift right out of one game and port over to the next. And it's equally as fun.

And the idea that you are doing the same kinds of things as far as, well, you're not building Pharaoh's now, but you know, they're mobsters and so on. It works either way. So theme here does feel pasted on. And you know what? Just because a theme is pasted on doesn't mean it's a bad game. Right. It still gives you direction for artwork and raw works very well with the artwork and the components that it has. Favorite player count. So what's your favorite player count to play a game of raw?

I think we might have some disagreement here because I'm thinking my favorite player count is three. And the reason being is what we were talking about earlier, when you're at four or five player, you only get three sun tiles and you get three shots and you're out with four that gives, I mean, with four sun tiles at three players, that gives you a little more control.

You have one or two that you can waste almost, or, you know, try, I maybe try to force you to take an auction and you don't, and I've got to eat it. That's fine. I still got three more. So I think that gives you a little more control and it's a little, a little less luck dependent, I think maybe not much, but right now my favorite player count is three. All right. I have it as best at four.

So normally I like more people in an auction game, but I feel with this one at five, it gets harder to experience the fun of watching or playing the push your luck game after everyone else has dropped out. That just has to do with, because more people are drawing tiles from the bag, right? So the likelihood that you start filling up that raw track, even though it gets pushed back by one, you know, for the players.

So you're going to have plus three spaces for a five player game versus a two player. I feel like four is where the game shines because you're right. You get four shots at three, but I'm fine with three shots at four players. At that point, I've done what I can. I'm ready to be done with the epoch and move on. What would you have? I prefer five. Wow. In my opinion, five player is the least luck determined game, or at least let me clarify that. It's the least tile draw luck determined game.

It is luck controlled by multiplayer chaos. So it is a five player game where everybody's controlling the offer is a player determined luck based win versus in a three player game where each player has a very large control of what's on the offer. I've seen huge swings in the scores and five player game with everybody on point controlling what the offer has. The scoring range is actually much tighter. I also think it's really good with four players for similar reasons. All right.

That's surprising. I know you're not totally averse to chaos, but to see you embrace the chaos that much in this game, that is surprising. Well because it's player controlled chaos. Yeah, yeah, right. I like it. I mean, I don't dislike it at five and four is very close to three, just three edges out the others a little bit. But if there's five of us, I'm playing. I'm in. Right. So what's your least favorite player account for this game? Well the box says it plays two, but I don't believe it.

I mean, that just sounds like a horrible version of can't stop to me. Absolutely. I agree. I don't want to play it too. And I guess that I don't think I ever have. I'm right there with you. It becomes too calculatable at that point because you only have to look at one other person's options might as well go play something else rather than play raw to in my mind. What's the actual playing time? So understanding that boxes lie and the box says 30 to 60 minutes. Do you agree with that?

That's funny. The the new edition says 30 to 60 minutes. My old uber play edition says 45 to 60 minutes. So I don't know what that maybe they think these bigger chunkier pieces speeded up by 15 minutes. My experience is about 15 minutes per player. All right. I think it's actually a little less than 15 minutes per player. But yeah, I agree. Since we use the stats app, I mean, we have some hard data and I've seen some of our five player games pushing an hour and a half.

I haven't seen one go that long, but well, hour 24. OK. When I looked at BG stats for my games, if it was less than five players and this was interesting because it was for both three and four players, they both clocked in at like 50 minutes and then our five player games are clocking in at about an hour. So that is interesting. It's all fairly close, at least the games in which I have been a part. I guess what I take away from this is I play faster than some other folks.

Maybe that's the problem. All right. So which edition is the best? And there have been many. So like, for example, I have a copy of the Rio Grande games version that was originally Game 1 in the Alia large box series. And I love it. But that could just be my sentiment coming through. I mean, I had to print out individual scoring sheets, reference sheets for players. And I noticed that, at least with my family, their enjoyment of the game improved once they had that as a reference.

But I'm interested to hear what you guys think about other versions you may own or have played. Well, this is such a tough question. Maybe we'll let Paul go first. Super difficult. Yeah, I mulled over it for a long time. And, you know, I haven't played the 20th century games version. What? Not much, but I have to say that I ultimately prefer the new one. That's where I landed. I don't know if you got any more reasons you ought to get into. But I was my first response. Please go ahead.

My first response was because I have the uber play version, which I'm pretty sure the components are exactly the same as your Alia version, Todd. Just our boxes are different. Right. When I look at pictures of the Alia version, it looks exactly like my uber play version. And then I have the 25th century games, the big Kickstarter one with the obnoxious box size. And it's really the jacked up truck version of this. I mean, it's obnoxiously large.

I don't like metal coins and it uses metal scoring bits. But that's just a personal preference of mine. I think most people do like metal coins. And at first there were some issues with the iconography, with the artwork, as beautiful as it is. The sieve tiles, it's a little hard to differentiate between the different sieve tiles. But we were able to sort that out.

And I think in the end, that player board is not necessary when you've played a ton of the game, but it was really nice to have that player board that shows you here's the section where your monuments go. Here's where your pharaohs go. Here's what gets wiped at the end of the epoch. It was just, it was a nice clean implementation that I really enjoyed. So I came down on, that's my favorite edition. I mean, I paid a lot of money on it and that's the one I got.

So I guess I'm tempted to stay on that side because I'm invested, but that's where I am right now. So that's the one I want to bring out. Right. Those player boards are great. I think they're the best part in that version. The most recognizable comparison, what do you guys have for a comparable game to Raw? Paul?

You know, I think there's an easy answer, but I left that for you guys and I picked furnace because it has a very similar bidding mechanism where you are constrained with a limited number of bid markers and you get to choose where to place them and they each have a different strength. And that is very much like the sun tiles. Yeah. Good call. Dave, what did you have? Well, not, not an auction game, but similar in its simplicity.

I'm going with Azul and I know it is very different, but in the idea of it's, it's not just about what I take. It's also what I leave behind for you to take, but also this very, it's very simple, but there's layers of complexity. I mean, raw I think is deeper than Azul, but there's layers of complexity underneath that very simple, very easy rule set. Interesting. All right. So Paul, can I take a guess at the easy answer that you, you avoided? Please. So would that be Amon Ray? Yes. Right.

I don't even think they're close. They both have auctions, but they're so different. It's not two years go by, somebody doesn't write another article on DGG about raw versus Amon Ray. Right. It's only the Egyptian theme. It's only Egyptian theme. It's only an auction. It's only Kenesia. It's only sure. Go ahead. It doesn't, but Amon Ray doesn't have to constrain the bidding. And I think that's like we talked about in the beginning. Amon Ray and Hulksitters are very constrained.

You have these cards that tell you these are the only amounts you're allowed to bid. Yeah. But Dave's point is it's not once around bidding. No, I'm thinking of I have, I'm limited only by how much money I have. It's not like I can only bid 10 bucks this turn unless that's all I have. But yeah, I see what you're saying. The cards that you bid on, you must bid six. And if you want to outbid me, you must bid to 10. Right.

But it's not constrained in the case that like if I've got 40 bucks, I can bid whatever I want, wherever I want. Right. No, it's constrained bidding by definition, but it doesn't. I see it. So it's with the way you were thinking. Right. Yeah. So the other one that I'll throw out there was Goa because it also has a once around auction that determines which actions you're going to be able to take.

And it's sort of set collecting in that you are building up your powers in each of the categories by the tiles that you are collecting as part of that auction. Unfortunately, that one's been long out of print and it's due for a reprint at some point. And with Goa, are you paying other people with your bids? I don't recall if that's a closed economy. I don't think so. If you buy your own item, you pay it to the bank. If someone else buys the item you sell, they pay you.

So it's like modern art that way. Yeah. It's a closed economy, but you... There's a seller and then there's buyers. Yes. So, yeah, I agree that it's more like raw because of that. Like when you win an offer in raw, you're getting the previous Sun disc for your next turn or epoch. And in Goa, when you win a tile, you're giving somebody else more power to bid on their next turn. Right. Okay. Less recognizable comparison. Try not to pick an obvious game for this one.

I'm laughing because it was so hard to find even a comparison. The prompts are unique, right? Well, I've been using these prompts to kind of isolate an element of the game like I did with the Zool. It's a very isolated part of the game. I would never really say, like, oh, you like a Zool? Try raw. Other than if you like good games, you might like raw. But there's nothing about the two that I would say if you like this, you're going to like that.

But there is something about that closed part of the Sun tiles that reminds me of a few other games like Niagara. And it's one of the things I like about Niagara is that you have a set hand of cards. We all have the same set hand of cards in that one. But if I'm trying to see where you're going to be, if you're going to get the gems off the side of the river, I'm trying to know what cards you have. Can you go two? Can you go three? Can you adjust the wind? Things like that.

So that one having our, what do we call it? Not the closed economy, but in some ways constrained bidding, because that is sort of a bidding in a way. And Piranha Pedro was the same way where we have the same sets. And I'm trying to predict what is important to you, what you're going to do based on the set of cards or tiles that you have. Right. So Paul, were you able to find a second game here?

Yeah. So I actually did exactly what they've said and focused on a specific element of raw, which is the timing element of when to call raw and when to draw a tile and basically trying to predict what other players are going to do. And so I selected one of my favorite games that I just want to plug here in the show, Divinare. Oh, okay. Good call. So in Divinare, you're forced to make a decision every turn and playing well is all about good timing, when to bid and what to bid on.

And if you wait too long to make a bid that you want, because you're trying to play mind games with other people, you'll be forced to take negative points. And I think that's very similar to how to play raw well. All right. That's a good one. So Paul, the one I had you actually mentioned already, and that was the Estates. Nice. So it also has once around bidding. It's a closed economy auction.

So you're paying the other players and you are looking to improve your buildings in the city relative to the other players holdings. Plus it also has fun wood components to it. That also goes away, right? They both feel the same tactically. So I had the Estates down for a less recognizable comparison. Yeah. Great choices from both of you. I would love to play more of the Estates. I think we got in our group two or three games at the same time.

And so we played the Estates and then it got pushed aside for whatever new other game came out. And I feel like I haven't spent enough time with it because I really enjoyed it. I like playing the Estates, but I never feel happy when the game is over. So I'm not one to recommend it. That's interesting. Okay. If raw is being played at game night, then what's the best double feature game that goes along with it? What else do you want to play?

I just went with what we've done before, which is Modern Art and Medici. If you're going to play Kinesia Auction, play all three. I mean, it's hard to beat the trilogy night, right? Yeah. A night of the trilogy is fantastic. We've done that a couple of times and it's always fun. But we do tend to play raw more than we play the other two games. And so I think it works well as an Amuse-Bouche or end of the night chaser.

So if we've got another main event on deck, maybe as we're warming up to bring it out first or we finished, it's only 1030. Let's prank something else out real quick. Everybody knows, everybody remembers the rules. The setup is a heartbeat. We're off and running. So it works as a great, not a filler, but a great second in a double feature. Okay. So that's a cop out because you didn't actually have to name anything. You just got to say, oh no, it pairs up with everything.

So I'm overall agreeing with the Kinesia Auction trilogy. I mean, that'll be my number one answer. Okay. That's fair enough. So I knew you guys were going to say the trilogy, so I forced myself to find something else. And what I would suggest just sticking with the Egyptian theme is Favor of the Pharaoh, which is the Egyptian wreath theme of To Court the King, which is a game I actually really enjoy by Thomas Lemon. Okay. I've never heard the wreath theme.

Yeah. You know, the idea there is you are building up your tableau through rolling dice and you're attracting different nobles to your side. And then they allow you to either roll more dice or manipulate the results so you can go ever higher. And then ultimately someone is going to capture the favor of the Pharaoh and trigger the end of the game. But it's nice, it's quick, it's light.

So if Ra were the main course and you needed something even lighter to finish off, Favor of the Pharaoh might be a good contender for that. I mean, we could just do Egyptian Knight, play Egesia at the end of that. I love To Court the King, so I'm sure I would really enjoy Favor of the Pharaoh. Yep. Do you have To Court the King or do you have Favor of the Pharaoh? Which one do you have? Are you asking me? Of course. Yeah, well, you're the only one. Yeah. Paul and I don't own either.

Well, the answer is I have them both. Oh, yeah, I should have remembered who I'm talking to. Well, you should bring it sometime because I've only played To Court the King online. I've never played either in person. And it was a cool genre of games that got hot for a little while. I don't really like Kingsburg that much. It's a little long for what it is, but that's kind of in that family. I have airships. And it's half the time.

Yeah. Yeah, I have airships, which is okay, but I don't think it's similar. But To Court the King, I think, is the pinnacle of that genre. And I would love to get that on the table. All right. If you like fill in the blank, then you're going to like Raw. And I'll just jump in here and say, if you like, push your luck games. So for me, it's the most exciting part of the game. It's the one I'm looking forward to. I hope I get the opportunity.

So Dave, I know you said you don't want to be in that position where you're desperate. But there are some times where, you know, if I can manipulate people to get out early and I'm going to have that opportunity, why do I really want to be able to do it? So if you like that rush, that gambling feeling that you're pushing your luck and trying to get as much as you can out of the offer, you might like Raw. Paul, what do you have? Kinesia. Yeah, yeah, fair.

But, you know, I thought about this and honestly, I did not like the game of Raw until I decided to just play it fast and not worry about calling Raw early and often instead of drawing the tile. And then I learned to enjoy it. I wanted to get weird with this one, too. So one of the things that I like about Raw is you're building your tableau by kind of slicing off pieces of the pie to build your own pie.

So I went with if you like the feeling or the concept of that old video game kicks and it's kind of dating me, I guess, because not a lot of people maybe know that. But you know, you have the screen and there's like some menacing thing moving around inside the screen and you're carving off edges of the screen while that thing's away from you and you're trying to carve off as much as you can.

And Raw kind of feels that way is how much of this can I like get this little scoop for me over here and get another little scoop for me as I'm building this tableau bit by bit at a time. And sometimes I just got two tiles, but it was just right. Or sometimes I got all eight tiles and it's all great. So if you like that idea of kind of hodgepodging and piecemealing together your tableau by tooth and nail or however you can come by it, that feeling that in games, then this is that kind of game.

So how do you spell that? I think it's just QIX. It's kind of Tempest graphics. So did Raw replace a previous game for you? Well, for me, it's modern art because modern art in some ways, it's like a pinnacle of auction games because of the different kinds of auction. There's so many fantastic things going on in modern art. But in the end, I always feel like the game ended way too soon because people across the table that I can't control are playing cards.

And sometimes I don't even get to play one card out of my hand. I don't get to make one decision out of it. And that part of modern art, I find dissatisfying. And so once I played Raw after that, I think, well, this is the auction game I want to play every time. And I don't hate modern art at all. I love modern art. But if we put all three of them out and we're only going to play one, my vote's on Raw. Interesting. Paul, what did you have? I thought maybe it replaces High Society.

But the more I thought about it, they're different enough that I'd still play High Society, but I would prefer Raw. Right. And my answer is no, it didn't replace anything. I didn't even get introduced to this game until I acquired my copy in 2005 as I was beginning my journey into Euro games. And so I guess I was lucky. I encountered a game that I ended up really enjoying and it still survives to this day. But it didn't replace anything before then, except for not playing games.

It replaced not playing games. Yeah. Has it been replaced since then? I would say it hasn't been replaced, especially because we have this new version. Now, there was a time where we were starting to play a little more Medici than we were playing Raw and then maybe going back and forth, maybe playing them equally. But now that we've got this new, you know, fancy addition right now, nothing's replacing Raw right now. It's kind of had a resurgence lately.

Right. Yeah, I think at least for some groups, Furnace might replace Raw since they are so similar. But Furnace is a heavier game and it takes more time. So for us, Raw is still what we pull out at the end of the night, like Dave said. Yeah. Right. So I mentioned that this game has been re-implemented by Razia and Dave, you brought it up as well. And Razia is Mafia themed. It also does away with all the negative effects.

So there are no funerals, droughts, earthquakes or unrest or whatever their equivalents would be within a Mafia themed game. But we've actually taken Razia with us on vacations because since it is all cards, it travels really well. So within that context of if I was going to take an auction game on vacation with the family, it's been Razia and we've done that successfully. I actually have something to add to this that I just remembered. Shout out to our old player, Drew.

There was something about Raw he didn't quite like and I don't remember what it was, but he really liked Priests of Raw. And I've only played Priests of Raw once and I don't remember what problem it's solving in Raw. But I'm sure there are quite a few other people out there that prefer Priests of Raw over Raw. Okay. Want to give that a try sometime? If that's on your shelf as well. I mean, we did play it.

I played it over at Paul's house once and I don't really remember the details of it and why it was considered better by some. We can absolutely give it a shot. All right. Soundtrack. Dave, this question is for you or by you or inspired by you, however you want to put it. So what music would you want to listen to while playing Raw? And you can go ahead and take the lead. Well we got to go to the desert, of course.

So this one I'm pulling out Peter Gabriel's Passion, which is the soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ and it has lots of like lonely lost in the desert, which I sometimes feel when it's my turn to decide if I'm going to bid that 15 now or hold on to it later. A lot of despair, things like that. So Peter Gabriel's Passion, that's my choice while we're playing Raw. All right. Paul, did you have anything? I prefer Dave's choice. I was just going to play the bangles on repeat.

We can do that too. Wow. So I realize it's not the right era, but for me, I would be playing the Ben Hur soundtrack. Nice. OK. I mean, we're not talking Roman chariot racing, but it's got a great big powerful ancient empire, you know, crunchy brass going. So I'd want that one playing in the background. And I was actually listening to it as I was preparing for this podcast and it just works. Awesome. OK. Rating on Board Game Geeks scale of one to 10, no decimals. How would you rate raw?

I rated a six. Wow. That sounds a little low. OK. Well, why is it a six? I mean, so I go by the tooltips on BGG. Sixes will play if in the mood. And that perfectly describes how I feel about raw. If I'm in the mood to play something fast where I don't have to think very much and I give myself up to the winds of luck, then raw is a great game to play with you guys. OK, makes sense. Well, I am rating it a little bit higher than a six. To me, I have this rated as a nine.

Now I think if it came out today and we... I can defend it because if it came out today and we played it, I would probably give it a seven or an eight. But I first played this game about 20 years ago and I played it a ton of times since then. I'll play tomorrow night when we get together if you guys want. That replayability, the fact that I'm not tired of it at all.

I mean, I don't want to play it every week, but the fact that I do want to keep replaying it, that gives it a couple of bumps in my book. I mean, there's a lot of games I played back in 2004, 2005 right around there that I do not play anymore. So I'm keeping it at a nine. Wow, that's surprising because I also gave it a nine. But I'm also one of the more generous reviewers out of our group. So I tend to like almost everything. And I think this is a great game. It's always welcome at the table.

And so I might take you up on your offer if you want to play it tomorrow night. Let's go. Our last question, is it replayable? And more importantly, how often would you want to revisit it? So Dave? It's absolutely replayable, like I was just talking about. And this replayable question, obviously it's the title of the podcast here. And it's become one of, I think, one of the more interesting questions that we come to is that why is a game replayable?

And in this game, I don't think I'm learning anything else about Raw that I haven't known for the past 10 years. I mean, maybe learning about the other players that I'm playing against, like to what Paul was saying. So I don't think there's deeper layers to the onion that we keep playing so that we can understand this complex framework anymore. It's a wash, rinse, repeat game for me is that I want to see how I can do this time. And it's that dynamic board, the dynamic valuation.

It's how the game state changes and how the other players are going to play tonight. And since that's different every time, and that's the kind of thing, games with variable setup and things like that, that I think a lot of games try to put that in now. And I think it's because of these old games like Raw is that I played the exact same game and it was totally different than the last time I played. And the fact that this gives you a unique experience, I'm ready to keep coming back to it.

It's not an every week game, but it's definitely three, four times a year at least. Right. Paul, what did you have? I believe it is replayable. And for me, it is a great way to end the night if I don't want to go home yet, but I do have to go home in the next 60 minutes and I'm tired and I don't want to think too hard. OK. Yeah, I also had it down as a replayable game.

And as we do these episodes and we keep talking about how often we want to go back and revisit these games, I realized that we could start filling up our dance carts pretty quickly and it'd be hard to squeeze more games into the amount of time that we have. So I wouldn't want to play this game every week, but I could definitely play it monthly, once a month, and I'd be happy to see it come out again at the next opportunity. All right. And with that, the sun has set on this episode.

Thank you both for being available today. I really enjoyed learning about how you two do so well at this game. I'm looking forward to using some of your own strategies against you. Didn't you win the last one? Yes, I did. So you're just sandbagging now. Also appropriate. Our next episode will be even more secretive than normal. Until then, raw. Raw. Raw. Raw. Raw. Raw. Thank you for listening to Replayable. Support for our podcast comes from listeners like you. Thank you for your support.

You can find us online at replayable.fm, on Twitter as replayablefm, and on Instagram as replayablefm. We're all new to this and we're only going to get better with your help and your feedback. You can get in touch with us via email at todd at replayable.fm.