Bidding Rats – Ratzia Review

One of my favourite auction games has to be Reiner Knizia’s classic game, Ra.

I love the pieces, I love the auction mechanism where you are either starting an auction on what’s out there or you are adding to it, but the choice may be taken out of your hands if you draw a Ra tile (or fill up the auction with 7 items).

It’s just a lot of fun.

What I had forgotten, however, was that after Ra came out originally in 1999, Knizia had created a card game version of it in 2004.

Thus was Ratzia born.

Kind of.

Designed by Knizia with artwork by Ivan Iserte, Michael Menzel and Sarah “Freedz” Conlon (at least in this new version), the game was originally published in 2004 but the edition I have was published by 25th Century Games and came out in 2024, with a slight name change from the original Razzia, I believe, along with a different theme and a couple of additions.

Ra has an Egyptian theme, while the original Razzia has a gangster theme.

Ratzia keeps the gangster theme but makes them…rats (with the police being mice, I think, though maybe they’re rats too).

Have you had enough anthropomorphic animal games?

If so, then maybe this isn’t for you.

If you don’t mind that, let’s take a look under the hood.

(Don’t forget that you can click on the pictures to expand them)

I do think that Rats United! will have a problem with rats being the bad guys in this one, but they’ll get over it.

A game of Ratzia goes over three rounds, with scoring after each round and then endgame scoring.

Ratzia has a wonderful auction mechanism that doesn’t involve money, which is why it’s one of my favourite styles.

Instead, you have three (or four in a 2-3-player game) bidding cards of different values from 2-16 (depending on player count).

It’s a very simple game to teach and learn, with the actions on your turn being one of two: flip an auction card or start an auction on what’s out there.

(If you’ve won a Thieves card in a previous auction, you have a third option, but we’ll get to that).

The auction row will consist of cards like Gangsters, Trinkets of various kinds, Getaway Cars, or Drivers that you need for them.

There can also be Businesses, which are for endgame scoring.

What’s really interesting about Ratzia (and its parent game as well) is that in addition to the auction cards, you are also bidding on the previous victorious bid card.

The “1” always starts in the auction at the beginning of the game.

When you bid, you can bid once by sliding one of your bidding cards forward.

If you win the bid, you replace the bidding card in the auction with your own.

So that first bid will always give you the 1 card.

The fact that you’re bidding on not just stuff, but also future bidding power, is a real strength in this game and can be part of your decision on whether or not to bid.

Is the lot of cards simply ok, but you’d be replacing your 5 card with a 15?

Then it might still be worth it.

The bidding card that you win goes face down, out of the current round. It will be available next round.

You can also call an auction instead of turning over a card.

This means that if everybody else passes on the auction, you have to bid on it.

Automatic auctions happen when there are 7 cards in the auction row or when you turn over a Police card.

The only difference between these auctions and ones that you call is that everybody can pass in an automatic one.

The game develops a bit of a push your luck element as the round goes on, though.

If a seventh Police card comes out, the round immediately ends.

Most of the time, at least one player (if not many of them) has bidding cards left, but they’re left high and dry.

Ratzia has endgame scoring Businesses, much like Ra’s Monuments, and it’s good to get a bunch of different ones (or 3-5 of a couple of them) so that you can score a bunch of points.

However, while unlike Ra, there are no disasters that will destroy a bunch of your stuff, apparently Ratzia (but not the original Razzia) does have one disaster that will kill a Business you own (or just won).

The Courthouse can be devastating if you are going for these endgame points.

Or maybe it will let you get rid of that 2nd Casino because you’re not going to be getting a 3rd one anyway.

Before we get to the endgame, though, let’s talk about the end of the round.

Getaway Cars will get you one point each, but only if you have a Driver.

Yes, you can have one Driver driving a shit-ton of cars.

The best drivers can!

Gangsters aren’t a new addition to this latest edition of Ratzia, but they did add one thing.

You still get points if you have the most (or are tied for the most) Gangsters, and lose points if you have the fewest (or are tied).

But now you can also get 5 points each round for having a pair of Gangsters, with one having a blue tie and one a red tie.

Trinkets, you lose points if you don’t have any, but otherwise having one or two different ones doesn’t do anything for you (and having multiples of the same gets you nothing).

Having at least three different ones does get you points, though, with four or five getting you even more.

How a Diamond or Painting is the same value as a Pizza Slice, though, I have no idea.

Couldn’t they have come up with something more artsy?

Thieves are really awesome, though, as long as you don’t forget to use them like I always do.

They get you 2 points at the end of the round, but you can also spend your action to discard the Thieves and take any card out of the auction row.

See your 7th Business in there but also 3 Courthouses?

Just steal that Business right out of the auction and don’t worry about them.

A lot of the end of round scoring cards go away once you’ve scored them, meaning you have to reacquire them for the next round.

The only things that stay are the Getaway Cars (though you have to get a new Driver, because I guess this one retired or got filled full of cheesy holes), Gangsters, and Businesses.

At the end of the game, your Businesses will score one point each if you have 1-5 different ones.

However, if you have 6 or 7, then you will get 10 or 15 points.

Also, you get 5-15 points depending on whether you have 3-5 of the same Business.

So diversity pays off, but if you can’t get diversity, concentrating does too!

Finally, everybody adds up their final bidding card values and whoever has the most gets 5 points while whoever has the least loses 5 points.

Ratzia is a quick game which is ideal for lunches, or that starting or ending game of a game day to either get your motor running or wind down for the night.

It’s easy to teach, even non-gamers can pick it up pretty quickly (especially after seeing one round in action), and the artwork is phenomenal.

The cards are pretty thin, so a lot of shuffling may make them start tearing a bit, but that’s a small consideration.

However, if you sleeve, the box will not fit your cards without removing the insert (which is flimsy cardboard anyway, so no big loss).

While both games are random, shuffling cards just seems more random than pulling tiles out of a bag.

It’s very possible in Ratzia that the rounds will end fairly quickly, which can be a bit dissatisfying.

In our last game, it seemed like almost 1/4 of the deck was remaining when Round 3’s 7th Police came out, ending the game.

I think it’s harder to shuffle cards and get them truly randomized than it is to dig around in a bag and pull out tiles.

Virtually every mechanism in Ratzia is straight out of Ra (except the Gangster pairs and the fact that there is only one disaster), meaning that fans of the original game may not care for this one.

That one is so good!

Do they really need a card game version of it?

Of course they do, even if they don’t know it.

It’s a bit more portable than Ra is, though the box is more “easy to throw in your bag” than it is “easy to carry around.”

Do you need both in your collection?

Personally, I would say no, but for me Ratzia is easier to get to the table than Ra is, so I’m glad that my friend has that one and I have Ratzia.

I’ll never say no to a game of this one.

(This review was written after 3 plays)