Each of the (up to five) expeditions in front of you is scored separately and the results totaled. (Skip scoring a suit where you played no cards.) For each one: Since BGA displays a running total as you play, this alternative (equivalent) scoring explanation might seem more fitting: 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. 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. 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.

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. At the end of the game the person with the most points – converted into coins – wins. To play a three round game takes about 45 minutes.Teaching the game is about as easy as setting up the game. Each suit represents a different expedition, the numbers in the corner represent the number of points you’ll gain when playing that card. Players must pay 20 points to mount an expedition, so think carefully before jumping in. Some cards do not have numbers, instead they feature handshake icons, these are wager cards which act as multipliers. 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. Each turn has two steps: first, either play or discard a card. Then take a card, either from the draw pile or from the top of any discard pile. 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.

Each suit has 12 cards: numbered cards from 2 to 10, plus three "investment" cards marked with a handshake symbol.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. 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. 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 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 The round is scored by subtracting 20 from the value of each expedition, and multiplying each with the Investment cards. Failure to achieve 20 points in each expedition results in a negative score for that attempt, or no points if a total of 20 is exactly made. Investments in a failed expedition exacerbates the negative score.