Ok, there seems to be a lot of rooks here that likes to play an unbalanced game.
Right now, Ra has the weakest civ bonuses in the game.
Mokon - you say that ES are such expert playtesters - then how come Set is the way he is right now? They obviously went a couple of steps too far in making him better in a previous patch. Is it really so unlikely they also went too far in nerfing Ra? Maybe they thought that it was better to be a bit harsh, than to not do enough, and end up with people still complaining about the Ra FH?
10% priest empowering is very little. On paper, this looks like an econ upgrade in terms of power and cost - which is really a fallacy. An econ upgrade will affect all vills on that resource throughout the game, without any additional micro, and it will also reduce walking time by 33% or 25%. The next hidden cost is the loss of scouting - Ra has the worst scouting in the game by far when he can't really use his pharaoh to scout in good conscience; the difference between an empowering priest and an empowering pharaoh is pretty significant. Next, the optimal time at which to empower is early - the earlier, the better. Earlier in the game, a little extra resources means a much more than later on. Since ES also reduced the farming rate, scouting is now more important for Ra - he's as hunting-dependent as any civ.
So, how much is the value of the priest empowerment? It can theorethically have a negative value if you miss some hunting spots because of poor scouting. Early scouting is important for map control anyway. If Ra chooses to scout, however, he's essentially delaying his civ bonus - which means it gets less and less valuable. If you don't understand the importance of map control, you probably aren't a very good player. Ra has the worst map control of any civ in the game - period. Ok, back to the value question - what is it worth? 1 per 10 resources dropped off. Seems simple enough. It's a 3-in-1 bonus - resource sites last longer, you get more resources, and you save a miniscule amount of walking time in switching between resources. All that for 100 gold - and 2 pop. The latter is very significant - once you get to mid-heroic or so, priest empowerment doesn't pay off popwise anymore (it never actually does, it's just that the cost is a necessary evil earlier on) - in fact, you may be forced to dump it earlier on in order to free up pop space so you won't get outmassed (again, if you don't understand exactly how important mass is in this game, you're probably not a very good player). So there's a phase between about 2 minutes and 15 minutes where empowerment pays off - beyond that, adding more vills is simply better. Of course, as vills get more econ upgrades, they can walk a bit further and still show a general increase in gathering power; in general, though, once you get past 5-6 vills, empowerment becomes less and less profitable. It probably pays off more to build extra gathering sites around a resource instead - which is something any Egyptian can do.
So, between 2 and 15 minutes, Ra can empower with priests and gain a profit - however, you need to consider that he also has no scouting for that - and, there's a time to recover the cost of a priest. How long that is is variable - in general, though, it tends to be a bit too long - you need to gather 1000 gold or its equivalent before you break even. How long does it take to gather that? I'd say you'll break even around 8-10 minutes if you made a priest and scouted with your first one; otherwise, of course, the only cost is the loss of scouting and map control (which can hurt even more). In the phase that it takes to break even, Ra will tend to suffer a lot - especially against civs with better god powers, or civs that get their bonuses up front - like, just about any other civ except Zeus or Hades. The fact that Ra is behind in that phase of the game means that come the next phase, he's playing catch-up with a very small bonus.
It may sound like I'm exaggerating here - I am, to an extent - Ra still is a civ, and he still makes units. It's just that he's effectively without a significant civ bonus. He gets cheaper monuments. He gets empowerment. He gets slightly better migdol units. Cheaper monuments is nice - but you won't be able to afford more than the first two at most before classical anyway. Generally, you save about 12 food and 12 gold. Then you get a boost of about 50 gold from empowerment at most until you hit classical. By comparison, Isis' civ bonus amounts to a savings on every obelisk built, a savings on every tech, and a savings on the againg advance itself - as well as the ability to delay housing a bit (which enables you to gather a little more resources a little earlier, which will let you upgrade a little faster), and then an up front classical god power and the ability to deflect god powers. Make no mistake, Isis isn't very good either, but she's better than Ra - the cheaper techs probably amounts to more than what the priest empowerment does in most games - and when she also gets better god powers, she can basically do anything Ra can do better - with a couple of possible exceptions.
I won't even begin to compare with Set, because Set is just screwed up right now - thanks to the same patch that nerfed Ra, or one patch later (don't quite remember, and it doesn't quite matter).
Once you get right down to the math of it, Ra is too weak - and that's the reason he's played so little among the good players in AoM. By 'good players' I mean 1900+ or so; I'm the only player I know who routinely actually plays Ra at that level right now.
What I'd expect from ES is simply that they either increase the empowerment rate again, or nerf every other civ in the game to be at Ra's level. Otherwise, they may as well remove the civ from the game. I also hope they don't listen too much to the 1600s-1700s that post on this forum a lot and think they 'know stuff' like Mokon - I know that sounds awfully arrogant, but I think it takes a certain level of competency to 'get' the game balance properly. I have some respect for the current testers at ES (especially Moongoat), but I think there are people that would do a better job out there - that can't or won't take the job for various reasons. I also remember that when Gx_Iron (who left ES a while ago, but was one of the more important testers before) learned of the Ra nerf, he said - "they reduced it to 10%? What a lamo civ bonus."
The thing is, ES effectively broke both of Ra's knees, when just breaking one should've been enough - just like they gave Set both a bat and a knife, when a knife would be enough (i.e. double whammies). ES should've *either* nerfed the migdol bonus or the empowerment, not both.
Just to show a comparison - Odin would be a lame civ indeed with a 10% hunting bonus (which would still be more useful most games than 10% empowerment) and 10% hill fort bonus.
I think ES stated before releasing AoM that they'd increased a lot of the values in the game from a low point in the alphas, in order to make the game more fun again - I remember that several bonuses in the alphas were lower or higher. In any case, right now, Ra just isn't fun - he doesn't have any fun bonuses. Full priest empowerment is fun - and he gets bad god powers to more than compensate, as well as the civ bonuses other civs get.