What are the immediate benefits of choosing Ra, and how do I play to his strengths late-game?

Question

I've just picked up Age of Mythology after a long time of not playing it, and the last time I played it I tended to just play against the computer and launch earthquakes everywhere :P.

However I've got a couple of friends who are also going to pick it up, and we're going to have a LAN day in a couple of weeks time.

I've played around a bit and I feel like I'm competent enough to hold my own as a generic Egyptian, but I'd like to specialise and learn a few tricks, what unit combos work together, which sub-gods to choose, that sort of thing.

Now I've played my friends in other RTSs before, most notably Starcraft 1 and Dawn of War, and they tend to turtle and go for power-units late game (we're all pretty noob casual)

So, What is a good build path for Ra?

Answer 1

You should be able to find some in-depth strategies and build-orders online, but I'll give a short overview of what I remember:

Ra is terrible at fighting in the classical age, but really picks up in heroic and mythic. A common strategy is called a "fast heroic", where you aim to get into the heroic age ASAP and get a midgol stronghold up. Rain is commonly used to provide a large food boost in order to have enough to advance.

Ra is good at booming. Almost always you should be improving your economy and building cheap buildings to gain map control.

and how do I play to his strengths late-game?

Out-boom your opponent. Having 3+ town centers and a ton of empowered caravans is extremely important. Ra tends to be cheap in the late game - spam catapults, rocs, elephants, ballista towers, walls, and so on. If you boom too much then go for a wonder.

Much more in-depth guides:

http://www.rts-sanctuary.com/RTS-Sanctuary/showtopic=41938

http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,26431,0,all

http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,28266,0,all