Ra is already perfect and doesn’t need any rule changes :-)
I guess it will be the 2-player variant, like in Razzia.

"Reiner Knizia’s tribute to the best sun god ever”

Is this as opposed to Amun-Re, the crappiest sun god ever?  ;-)

I can’t really think of an appropriate small rules change to the game, but I’d ask Jay for one small design change.  I like that Uberplay distinguished between the tiles to be kept and the ones to be discarded, but I think they should have reversed which tiles they marked.  Maybe the new edition can do that.

Oh, of course, MaBi!  Including an official two-player version is a slam dunk!  Particularly since it plays so well with two and since there are multiple initial Sun distributions which have been proposed.  If this isn’t what Reiner has in mind, it still should be included in the new edition.  Pleeeeeeeease, Jay???

"A: Check out my website later this week.”

Woohoo!

"What’s the one design element that’s bothered you about the game?”

It should include player mats.

I second Scott’s comment.  That would make the rules explanation w/ newbies much easier.

I agree, we always play with player mats.
There are some great ones on the geek, but it would be nice if they were included.

I have been lurking on this site for a while and trying to find a good reason do donate.  Content like this and the other excellent writing has put me over the top.  I love these regular, albeit brief, Ask Jay segments and all of the other content on the site.  I am anxious to see the next announcements from RGG.

"Reiner Knizia’s tribute to the best sun god ever”

The best sun god EVAH is, without a doubt, the one from India: Surya :P

But, apart from that, I think player boards would be nice.

I’m sorry. I bought Ra months ago because of all the praise the game has received. We have played it many times. I must be honest, this is not a good game. It’s basically just an Egyptian-themed multi-player slot machine. It is occasionally fun to play the game, but it doesn’t have any strategic depth that I can measure.

Awtch, Scott! I wasn’t impressed at first either, but there are so many subtle tactics one can use in when to bid and how much to bid. And I’m sure many will agree. eg, when you have all low sun tiles (my favorite position!) you can call RA! early, when only a small amount of tiles have come out. The other players will have to overbid or give them to you for next to nothing. Then, when you’re out of sun tiles, they can get what they want, they’ll wait till a lot of useful stuff is out there, but they also risk the Ra track being full and not getting anything. And… I’ll stop here :)

Scott Rubin wrote: “We have played it many times. I must be honest, this is not a good game. It’s basically just an Egyptian-themed multi-player slot machine. It is occasionally fun to play the game, but it doesn’t have any strategic depth that I can measure.”

Scott, I’ve heard this comment a few times from players (like Surya) who eventually come around to realize that Ra is awesome. The guy who hosted the first game group I joined initially rated Ra a 5, then a 7, 8 and finally 10, with it now being his favorite game. Maybe Ra just isn’t your taste, but there’s more to the game than is evident in the first few games, as is commonly the case with Knizia designs.

Well, we’ve only played the game 20 or so times. In my experience I can say that if all players understand how the game works, then who wins and who loses depends entirely on which tiles come up in which order. Players do have important decisions available to them, but the correct decision is always obvious. Low sun players call Ra. High sun players have to wait and hope for fewer Ra tiles. It is always obvious if and how you should use god tiles, if you are lucky enough to get some. Is there something more to the game that we are missing? I might have to re-read the rules when I get home later.

”...but the correct decision is always obvious.”

Blasphemy!

"but the correct decision is always obvious. “

Play with some of the guys in my group a few times and after losing every time you will quickly see that there is more to the game.

I’m in the party that would find mats to be an unnecessary expense.  I had little trouble learning my first game without them.  I do agree that icons which indicate whether a tile is held or discarded are helpful.

The game is perfect as it is.  It doesn’t need mats or rules changes IMO. 

Please don’t make the new edition that much better than Uberplay’s (which looks better than the previous RGG edition.... (saying this in this post?!...talk about blasphemy!)).  If you add Stargates to the game, I may just have to get it.

:P

The problem I’ve seen with the player mats available on BGG is that they are very colorful and make it hard to tell what tiles a person has. I could see a player reference card being handy (it’s nice having the scoring printed on the board, but even in two places it’s hard for people at some positions to see).

(I never quite understood the “tiles you should keep are marked with a red X” logic of the 2nd edition.)

While there is significant luck involved, I highly disagree with there not being any strategy.  In fact, I’ll use this opportunity to shamelessly plug our podcast with a direct link to the Ra episode, where we talk about Ra for about 45 minutes or so.

http://www.themetagamers.com/index.php?post_id=214588

I also would like to see player mats.  I never play without them, and it would be nice to see them included.

From the way Jay answered, I doubt it’s the 2-player rules that are being talked about, though those may be added as well.