Lost Cities is a game wherein two players try to gain points by
embarking on expeditions to different sites of the world; the Himalayas,
the Brazilian rain-forest, the shifting sands of the desert, an ancient
volcano and Neptune's realm.
Each player aims to start and continue expeditions which can result in points, the player with the most points wins. You do this by using five coloured suits of cards, each colour has numbered cards 2-10 and three handshake cards called investments.
Each player aims to start and continue expeditions which can result in points, the player with the most points wins. You do this by using five coloured suits of cards, each colour has numbered cards 2-10 and three handshake cards called investments.
Set up
Place the game board between both players, this represents where players will place any cards, or expeditions. Then shuffle the deck of sixty cards, deal out eight to each player and place the remaining at one end of the game board, this is the draw pile. Leave a space at the other end of the board for the discard pile.
Gameplay
Players must do one of two actions on each of their turns; play a card or discard a card.
When you player plays a card, they put that card under the corresponding colour on their side of the board. Any expedition can start on any number but once you have played a numbered card, you can't play another numbered card next turn below that number. For example: you play a blue 4, next turn you can play any blue number above 4 but not 2 or 3. The numbers must increase but do not need to increase consecutively.
The other card you can play is an Investment card. Investment cards can only be played to start a colour and not after you've already played a number to start that column. Investment cards aren't necessary for a column but do affect the scoring at the end of the game so it's a trade off between getting more numbers of a certain colour quicker, or getting the pay off later.
The second action you could do is discarding a card. Players play with separate discard piles but they are visible to all players. You can choose to discard a card in your turn instead of playing anything, possibly if you don't have any relevant cards or are after Investments.
At the end of each players turn, that player draws a card, either from the top of the draw pile or from any discard pile, this is why they are visible to all players. You cannot choose to draw any cards you may have discarded this turn however, effectively nullifying the discard and draw mechanics. This can be very effective because your opponent may have come across an Investment card or certain coloured number that you were after and drawing a card from any discard pile can let you utilise a lot more cards.
The game ends when a player draws the last card from the draw deck, immediately.
Place the game board between both players, this represents where players will place any cards, or expeditions. Then shuffle the deck of sixty cards, deal out eight to each player and place the remaining at one end of the game board, this is the draw pile. Leave a space at the other end of the board for the discard pile.
Gameplay
Players must do one of two actions on each of their turns; play a card or discard a card.
When you player plays a card, they put that card under the corresponding colour on their side of the board. Any expedition can start on any number but once you have played a numbered card, you can't play another numbered card next turn below that number. For example: you play a blue 4, next turn you can play any blue number above 4 but not 2 or 3. The numbers must increase but do not need to increase consecutively.
The other card you can play is an Investment card. Investment cards can only be played to start a colour and not after you've already played a number to start that column. Investment cards aren't necessary for a column but do affect the scoring at the end of the game so it's a trade off between getting more numbers of a certain colour quicker, or getting the pay off later.
The second action you could do is discarding a card. Players play with separate discard piles but they are visible to all players. You can choose to discard a card in your turn instead of playing anything, possibly if you don't have any relevant cards or are after Investments.
At the end of each players turn, that player draws a card, either from the top of the draw pile or from any discard pile, this is why they are visible to all players. You cannot choose to draw any cards you may have discarded this turn however, effectively nullifying the discard and draw mechanics. This can be very effective because your opponent may have come across an Investment card or certain coloured number that you were after and drawing a card from any discard pile can let you utilise a lot more cards.
The game ends when a player draws the last card from the draw deck, immediately.
Scoring
Each expedition embarked on costs 20 points. When scoring the game each player scores an expedition with at least one card on it, totals up the value of all number cards on all of your expeditions and then minuses 20 from that total. Do this for all expeditions embarked on. If you have played no cards on a colour then you won't subtract 20 points for that expedition. If you have any investment cards starting a column the total of that column is multiplied by the amount of Investment cards in that column plus one, so if you have one Investment card in a column, you multiply the column total by two, if there are two Investment cards then it's multiplied by three and so on. If a player has a column that contains at least eight cards that player receives a total of twenty points.
Investment cards do give you a good reward but there may be sometimes when you aren't able to progress that much in a column and at that point it's not able to be as effective so be careful and think ahead a little.
Thoughts
Lost Cities is such an intuitive game, it's super easy to learn and is a great game for players that aren't massively into board/card game. It's a mix of solitaire meets rummy in my opinion as it contains aspects of both, in the sense of building columns of sets and colours and choosing the right cards to invest in when drawing blind from the top of the deck or picking and choosing from the graveyard. It doesn't take too long so it makes for a good quick game but still retains challenge and substantiality and for that reason I think it's a perfect addition to any board game shelf or cupboard, it is only two players but a good game of heads up is always fun.
If you wanna check out Lost Cities for yourself head down to your local games and hobbies store and they'll be happy to demo it for you but until then, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.
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