Thames & Kosmos 691821 Lost Cities: The Card Game | Who Will Discover the Ancient Civilizations? | Strategic Game, 2 Players | Ages 10+, 7.9'

Product Information

Players play cards to move their playing pieces along stone paths. There are cards with 5 different colors/symbols, each corresponding to one path; in addition, each card shows a number (0-10, twice each). In each color, each player can play his cards either ascending or descending. Like Lost Cities, it’s better to concentrate on a few paths, since the last spaces grants high points, but ending early gives negative ones. After playing or discarding a card, the player draws a new card. Skilled team leaders assess when to play, hold, or discard their cards to move their own teams forward while at the same time preventing their opponent teams from getting ahead. Normal scoring occurs each round.) In Keltis, you only play 1 round, and score everything each round. Redevelopment of Lost Cities, first published with altered rules as Keltis, and then published by Rio Grande as Lost Cities: The Board Game with Knizia's original rules and theme. The replay value with Lost Cities is infinite. The game changes every time, for varying reasons. It’s partly because of each of the following.

There are cards with 5 different colors/symbols, each corresponding to one path; in addition, each card shows a number (0-10, twice each). The ability to place numbers equal to those before them in columns is a little bit of a pressure-off moment. And being able to combo moves to trigger urns and accelerators to gain more points is very satisfying. Likewise, being able to pass but having to balance crossing off dice just enough to get you out of negative scoring is another lovely twist. Because although it feels like the game is inviting you to take it easy or even cheat, the dice you want is going to come up at the point you need to pass. It always does!The game ends when a total of 5 playing pieces have reached the 7th space (or more) on their paths. During that first game, my wife caught with my trousers down as the game ended abruptly, leaving me with my top scoring cards in my hand. I’d realised too late that there would only be 1 more turn. But all is not lost, you can buy yourself a little more time during the game by drawing a previously discarded card and hope your opponent does the same. This sounds very simple but there are complications. You don’t have to go to all the areas. If you don’t have the right cards then sometimes you are better off not starting on the path at all. At the paths start off with minus points – you start on -20 and move up through -15, -10 and finally +5. You also have one big person, with them you win (or lose) double points – you decide which path to put them on. Lost Cities: The Card Game is from the Kosmos two player line. The game is very similar to Lost Cities: The Board Game, but is specifically designed for two players. As you go along the path you collect tokens that are either extra points, artefacts, or the ability to jump an extra square. The artefacts are counted up at the end of the game and become plus or minus points depending on quantity.

If you don’t want to use a dice on a turn, you can pass. But beware! Use it too many times and you’ll take a huge hit when it comes to end game scoring. Although it is also worth noting that if you don’t use it at all, you’ll also take a hit at VP time! Sneaky! If you love beautiful artwork then buy this game. Do you like going head to head with others? Then buy this game. If you love the theme of adventure then buy this game. Do you enjoy showing others how good your mental arithmetic is? Then most definitely buy this game. If you already love and own this game then keep exploring with Reiner Knizia’s The Quest for El Dorado. Lost Cities does give a high level of engagement and you can chose many different strategies. Our daughter likes to swap lots of cards in and out to create good paths. I like to collect lots of artefacts, whilst my partner has a very good eye for the balance between using cards and swapping cards. Final Thoughts on Lost Cities On a turn, you can either reveal the top card from the current pile (adding it to the display) or auction the cards on display. In the auction, you must raise or pass, and once only a single person remains in the auction, they pay the amount bid to the center of the table, then take any cards that they want to play and start or add to expeditions. Placing the same number in an expedition is okay. The auction winner can also place one card from the display in the box out of play. The auction winner ends their turn by adding a card to the display. Each player guides a team of explorers on up to five expeditions. To advance along an expedition path, a card in the path’s colour must be played for each step forward. The card must be of equal or greater value to the player’s card previously played on that path.Reiner Knizia: "The original version that we developed is exactly what Jay [Tummelson, owner of Rio Grande Games] has now published [LCBG]" Note: the rules for LCBG have the Keltis rules as variants, and have the board elements necessary for #1 above. Whether you want to clear your hand of unwanted colours or maybe you have cards in your hand that you’ve drawn but can no longer play. In these instances discarding your cards is a good way to optimise your hand without mounting more costly expeditions. Draw a card In each color, each player can play his cards either ascending or descending. Like Lost Cities, it's better to concentrate on a few paths, since the last spaces grants high points, but ending early gives negative ones. If you love beautiful artwork then buy this game. Do you like going head to head with others? Then buy this game. If you love the theme of adventure then buy this game. Do you enjoy showing others how good your mental arithmetic is? Then most definitely buy this game. If you already love and own this game then keep exploring with Reiner Knizia’s The Quest for El Dorado .

This is not just a rule difference, as the scoring is different for the monuments/stones based on the number collected.Like most card games, the box is fairly small, making it ideal for when you go away on your own adventures. One downside is that the discard board is tri-folded and doesn’t always sit completely flat. Final Thoughts You start off with eight cards. There are five differing colours of cards which correspond to five paths on the board. The object of the game is to move your people along the paths gathering points as you go. To do this you plot a route by playing the cards – these have numbers on them from zero to 10. As you go up the columns you’ll hit icons that let you accelerate up a column by duplicating a number elsewhere. Or run up past a pot and you can cross off an artefact icon that again rewards points at end game. You’ll also be hopefully climbing your way out of negative scoring territory and into positive points! I don’t want to say combo-tastic yet but I’m sure you can see how rewards might roll into each other! Haha

You must begin at the bottom and can only add a number above if it is equal to or higher than the one below it (NB: this is a twist on the OG where you must always lay higher as there is only one of each number in the card suits). Zeros are special as they are the only way you can gain a “handshake” that will double (or devastate!) your score at end game!. There is a very fine balance in terms of which cards to play. If you play a zero is it crazy to follow it with a seven, even if you have the eight, nine and 10 to follow. Only you can decide. The game is over when all the cards are used or when five people have travelled over the bridge (about three quarters of the way along the path). The game is played with each player having a small sheet showing 6 different potential expeditions. There’s also a column filled with artefacts (urns) and one with dice. Each round, the starting player rolls the 6 dice and selects one for number and another for colour. The remaining players get to select from the rest. Then everybody simultaneously writes their chosen number in the corresponding colour column on their sheet. Bottoms Up Whilst I do enjoy other hand management games such as 6 nimmt! and find them great fun to play; Lost Cities has the added benefit of being something that you want to show off. It’s something you want to get out of the box just to look at it.Time to travel once again to distant locations, but in Lost Cities: Rivals you might find yourself running short of cash to take the trips you want! Before beginning the game you should decide how many rounds you intend to play. The winner is the person with the most combined points by the end of those rounds. The manual recommends 3 rounds, whilst that’s usually a good amount, you may wish to have a practice round with new players first. Discard a card My edition of the game is over 20 years old but the game has evolved very little over those 20 years. The theme is spot on, I love that the discard board is designed to look like an explorer’s desk, it also has a nice linen finish. The artwork on the cards give the sense of adventure and the beautiful pencil illustrations fulfil the brief of colour coding each suit. There’s an element to the game which was completely overlooked by me the first time I’d played Lost Cities. By drawing a card from the face down pile you are moving one step closer to the end of the game.