Ratzia Review: Egyptian Rats Crew

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Dice Tower. My name is Chris Ye. >> I am Joey Evans. And >> today we're taking a look at this. This is Ratzia. >> Gratzia. >> Ratzia. Very fun to say. >> Fun to say, right? >> Yeah. >> We've been saying it for an hour before we started this. >> I know. Yeah. We really should have been doing more worthwhile things, but no, >> we're children.

>> We're taking a look at this. This now, if you're not familiar, this is a reprint of a rhineria game. Mhm. >> aka a rhineria game at this point. >> Yes. >> Uh so this is a version of RAW, the auctioning game basically done with cards and with rats. >> There's Right. >> I would say there's 100% more rats in this game than the original.

>> I agree. Yes. >> All right. So, I'm going to show you an overview of of how to play. If you're not familiar with the original game, RAW, that's fine. You'll see it. Uh if you are familiar, then you'll see some minor little differences here. And then we'll go ahead and give you our thoughts right after.

Here is Rodzia and it's neon glory set up here on the table for four players though you can go up to five and down to two. Uh players will each have three bidding cards played in front of them face up at the start of each round. The game is played over three rounds where players are trying to win auctions and then score those up.

There are uh scorings that happen at the end of each of the three rounds as well as scoring that'll happen at the end of the game. Whoever has the most points is the winner. Now, in a turn of Ratzia, you will simply either add a card to the available pool of of cards up for auction, or you will invoke an auction, you'll start it by taking the golden cheese graater.

So, on my turn, I added a card out. This player over here is going to add a card out. And you'll see that they have different types. This person adds one out, and this player over here says, "You know what? I'm going to start an auction." And to do so, they will take the cheese grater, place it in front of them, and this is going to be a once a round auction.

So, starting with the player to their left, I can make a bid or I can pass. And I say, you know what? I'll throw in a a two. I'm willing to pay two for this. This player over here says, "No, pass." This person says, "I'm willing to spend four." Meaning that my bid of two is no longer the highest of the table.

And this person gets the last option and they'll say, "You know what? I'm going to bid five." When a player wins an auction, they'll take all of these cards and place it in front of them for scoring at the end of the round and the end of the game. the card that they won the auction with will go into the center of the table to be one and the card that they just won that already was there will go face down in front of them.

So that now they'll have this card, this bidding value for the next round of the game. Play will continue. Now the cheese grater goes back. This person is the one who started the auction. So it's back to me and so I'll add a card and so on. It'll go around the table. On this player's turn, they flip over card and it is a police raid card, which means at this moment, this person is basically will have started an auction because the police decree it so.

So, starting with the player to the left, they might say it's not worth it. Pass, pass, pass. And in this case, the person who drew the police card may pass because they didn't choose to start it. However, if the player here grabs the auction tile, every other player passes, this person is forced to at least bid one bid a card into the auction because they chose to grab it for their turn.

The other type of card that's important to note is that there is a courthouse which will destroy what uh at least one of these money locations, one of these moneyaundering locations when you win it as part of the auction pool. players will continue playing until either they have won so many auctions that they are out of the round and they've collected all these cards.

Once they've done that, they will no longer take turns. They won't flip cards or anything. They won't contribute to the round. And the round will end when all players have flipped over all of their auction cards uh and have no more turns or when seven police cards have been revealed out. And that will trigger the end of a round.

No matter which way the round ends, you'll proceed to scoring the same way. Players are going to go through these categories, albeit in a wrong order. The player rate has them backwards. These two items here from what the rule book says you must do. So, let's go through them in the correct order. First, thieves are going to score two points each.

So, this player up top gets four. This player on the bottom gets two points. Next, you'll gain one point per driver that you have. And then if you have a driver, each of your getaway cars is going to score one point each. This player not getting any because they don't have a driver for the car. Next, you will go down here to the gangsters.

Whoever has the most gangsters will score five points. Whoever has the fewest will lose two points. Further, if you have a pair of gangsters, the two different types shown here illustrated, you'll gain five points. And then lastly, you go to the artifacts. If you have no of these, none of these artifact cards, you will lose five points.

However, if you have one or two of them, then you will gain zero points. Three different ones and you'll gain five points. Four different, five different, 10, 15 points, respectively. Once that scoring is done, that is all the end of round scoring. Any cards that do not have the palm trees on them are returned to the box uh out of the game, including the driver.

You'll notice though the cars stay out there. And then you'll proceed to playing the second and then the third round. At the end of the game, you'll go through all of the scoring categories again, but you will then also score two important things, which are locations, which the more different locations you have, the more scoring you'll get.

And if you have three, four, or five of a kind of locations, you'll score 5, 10, 15 points, respectively. Players will then look at their final bidding card values of cards that they've won. Whoever has the most total value is going to get five points. Whoever has the lowest total value is going to lose five points.

And at the end of all that, you see who has the most points and they are the winner. So, let's go ahead and start with a question that I think people have asked kind of since this game was first printed. I think like 20 years ago when they first did like the first version of Razia. Uh, why does this game exist?

I I Yes. Well, whole thing is when you had me play this, you undersold it. You said this is like raw and you're explaining it and I'm like this is RAW. >> It's basically raw the card game. >> It is. It is. I think I mean obviously portability is a big factor. >> Mhm. Yeah. You know. >> Yeah. And I think that also just a little bit it's a little less ostentatious looking if you pull out that big pharaoh edition of RAW if you have it.

Like one you don't want to travel with it. to some people might be intimidated and go woo I don't I'm not ready for one of your new fangled like big board games and and this is um you know like this smaller form factor I think has just a more approachable kind of look to it hey let's play a card game >> that's a good point there's a little more depth to it >> yeah it's like raw is the flex >> this is just >> inards you know analogy fell apart we don't need to really go back to it much but Yeah, >> this is Yeah.

So, this is I mean also I think some people think cards are going to be easier to use than tiles. >> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with if you play the big old raw, you have a big old bag of tiles. You're constantly shaking them up. You always have that feeling of like I'm just I'm just kind of pulling the same things, right?

Which obviously it's random, but sometimes it feels bad. Something about shuffling a deck of cards. You're like, I know that deck is shuffled. >> I agree. That's something that's weird about this. Yeah, it's a different It's so funny. The mechanics are so similar. There are small ratio differences, I think.

Yes. >> You know, like I think the drivers, which the Nile and all those cards, I think there's more drivers in here. Is that what they call them that help you be able to score those cards? >> The getaway cards. Yes. >> The ratio seems to be a bit more forgiving on this than actual RAW. >> Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. >> So, but those are very small differences. >> There's that. There's uh I think a new innovation in this particular printing. This is from 25th century who has the rights to the recent version of RAW. Uh there's the the gangsters or the equivalent of the pharaohs, but there's also two different pictures of gangsters that if you get the pair of them together, uh at least one pair of the two different ones, you get five points.

And that feels kind of nice because this is a game in which you lose points. Oh, you don't you don't have this type of card, you lose five points. You have the fewest of these, lose two points. little things happen here and there. So, like a bonus little juicing of a few extra points you can get. And it's one more uh little thing as you look at the lineup of cards and go, I do kind of want that.

That would give me not only the most of the of the gangsters, but also it would give me the second type. That's like five guaranteed points for the rest of the game. That's good. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's true. I think there's a little they're changing that. The biggest thing is going to be the artwork.

I mean, that's going to be the most polarizing thing. Some people don't like really the size. I guess if you judge this before the newest one came out, it may be different, but the new one is just so gorgeous. But it is probably too much for some people. >> Are you talking about basic game raw or you calling this one really gorgeous?

>> I'm talking about the the other RAW. The full board game. Yes. >> Yes. >> This it's a look this like 80s aesthetic with rats. >> It's a lot going on there, man. >> Yeah. It's goofy. It's silly. It's a quicker and it's a smaller form factor and it's a smaller uh table presence game. >> It is >> uh but I think that it has its own like few little strengths, but for the most part uh oh there's one other new change in this.

If you have a previous version of of Radzia >> that's not in here are the the basically the disaster cards, right? The disaster tiles where you can lose some of your businesses. And I think that's a nice little >> even saying that like Rats Ratia use them to lose some of your businesses. It would be most unfortunate.

>> He's getting into the theme. >> Yeah. Uh but so it's funny that they like basically Razia at first was RAW without the disasters and cards and now they threw in a few more of those little things and so I I appreciate at least there's a few little changes, developments, >> but at the end of the day, RAW is one of my favorite games.

>> Mhm. >> And this is just kind of a more slight version of it. So, it's it's kind of a weird one to recommend or not. >> I agree. It's really going to be coming out of personal preference sort of, but I also prefer one so much that I don't feel like it does come out of personal preference. I feel like you should prefer the one I prefer, but I I know.

>> Right. So, it it puts us in a funny situation. We review this game. This game is great. This game is rock solid. It's it's rock solid. I'm sorry I had to do that. Uh, and so but it when there's two very very similar games on the market, both from the same publisher, the same designer and everything, >> I I kind of feel like, well, I'm hardly recommending I, you know, I think that that RAW is an excellent game and with its recent production, it is one of the best, >> you know, nicest versions of that's ever existed.

And this is a pretty decent version of this game. >> Uh, so scoring wise, yeah, how do how do you come down on this? >> I'm coming down. I was fluctuating. I'm coming down actually at a seven and because I can recommend this because I'm glad it exists because again raw is beautiful but there are certain times where you just don't want to pack up RAW and take it.

This gives you the feel and the same feel of RAW. And I I I I think it's cute. I think it's very The first one RAW itself is epic. It just feels like wow. This is we're playing RAW. This is more of a cute game. Although it's the same mechanics. >> Yeah. I'm at a 7.5. I recommend it. Mhm. >> To for context, we both rate, you know, the basic board game raw way, way higher.

Um, and so it's kind of one of those things if you own that one, you might consider picking this up for portability because it's pretty much the same game. I love everything that this game does, the the push your luck, adding cards out there, the auctions, you starting an auction, the once around bidding for everything.

Once you've used a card, it goes up for grabs to the next person. All that stuff is great. All that stuff is also just in the board game. So, it's not like this adds anything so wild that you're like, "Oh, yeah. I'm going to bounce back and forth between the two games." >> No. No. >> This is kind of just RAW, the Travel Edition for me.

So, a 7.5. >> Not by any means saying it's a worse game. No. >> But it also just kind of >> it it fits a smaller range of purpose than I would for the original game. >> Yeah. 7.5. That's good. It's a good score for a few rats. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Some of you like rats and that's okay. We don't judge.

>> We Yeah, we don't judge. I just I I just don't want to be around him. >> No, me either. >> Okay. Well, there you go. Ratzia given a a seal of approval from us here at the Dice Tower. Thanks for coming out to this review. My name is Chris Ye. >> I'm Joy Evans. >> And yeah, have enjoy your rats and >> your businesses.

>> Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from the Dice Tower. Hey, you want to learn more about us, communicate with us? We have a Facebook group. We have a Discord channel. Lots of different ways to get involved with the Dice Tower. You can find that in our linkree link below. So, just click that.

It will take you and you can communicate with us on Facebook. Join our Facebook groups. There's lots of cool things that you can find and become part of the Dice Tower. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Bassel. Ratzia. Ratzia. >> Oh yeah. >> I was trying to say >> Ratzia drink from this [ __ ] cup.

>> That's my coffee. My coffee. You don't drink coffee. You on coffee' be pretty cool. >> Me on coffee. >> You on coffee. >> This is your brain. This is your brain on coffee. >> Any questions? >> I'm not going to blink until you start. Okay. Hey Oh, they're starting to itch. Oh, those scratching real quick.

My tea bits.