No secret; Ra is broken . Every move you make in playing Pantheon as it is revolves around Ra. You want to reveal the Egyptian token. Then you want to put Ra next to you. Even when you don't reveal Ra, you STILL want to do the same, to make your opponent play around Ra. Then it's a battle of who can get the last move on Age 1 - having the first move on Age 2 to invoke Ra OR deny your opponent Ra OR build Divine Theatre to get Ra determines like 80% of your winrate.
... but then, sometimes the stars line up and you see no Egyptian tokens. Not only that - no player has access to the Divine Theater. When that happens, I genuinely feel that the game is at its most fun and engaging . It's essentially the base game, with a cherry on top. It still may not be as balanced as the base game, but it's pretty close - with the upside of playing with the cool god cards and infinitely more decision trees in Age 1 and 2 (the base game can sometimes feel "flowchart"-y, if that makes sense.)
Agora is fun but I find detracts from the spirit of the base game a little too much by introducing a 4th win condition. Thematically and visually I also don't find it to fit in with the rest of the cards.
It's truly a shame that Ra is as powerful as he is right now. If we as a community in BGA can somehow patch our version of the game somehow to rebalance Ra in Pantheon it would greatly improve this amazing game. My proposed change is simple but obvious - make it so Ra can only steal BUILT wonders (how do you even steal something that's not built?). A player could use Ra to steal opposing Piraeus or Lighthouse for the resources, or Sphinx for the VP, which for example would be a powerful 12 point swing. Ra would still be a well above average Pantheon god, just not the bonkers game centraliser he is now.
Right now I and I suspect an overwhelming majority of players just play the base game. If there was an option to just play Pantheon without the possibility of seeing Ra, OR with a rebalanced Ra, it would 100% be my preferred way to play.
... but then, sometimes the stars line up and you see no Egyptian tokens. Not only that - no player has access to the Divine Theater. When that happens, I genuinely feel that the game is at its most fun and engaging . It's essentially the base game, with a cherry on top. It still may not be as balanced as the base game, but it's pretty close - with the upside of playing with the cool god cards and infinitely more decision trees in Age 1 and 2 (the base game can sometimes feel "flowchart"-y, if that makes sense.)
Agora is fun but I find detracts from the spirit of the base game a little too much by introducing a 4th win condition. Thematically and visually I also don't find it to fit in with the rest of the cards.
It's truly a shame that Ra is as powerful as he is right now. If we as a community in BGA can somehow patch our version of the game somehow to rebalance Ra in Pantheon it would greatly improve this amazing game. My proposed change is simple but obvious - make it so Ra can only steal BUILT wonders (how do you even steal something that's not built?). A player could use Ra to steal opposing Piraeus or Lighthouse for the resources, or Sphinx for the VP, which for example would be a powerful 12 point swing. Ra would still be a well above average Pantheon god, just not the bonkers game centraliser he is now.
Right now I and I suspect an overwhelming majority of players just play the base game. If there was an option to just play Pantheon without the possibility of seeing Ra, OR with a rebalanced Ra, it would 100% be my preferred way to play.