How to play Lost Cities, a simple, strategic card game for 2 players.
Watch the Video
Read the Rules
The aim of the game
To win, form high scoring columns of similarly coloured cards in ascending value.
To set up
- Lay out the game board between each player.
- Shuffle the deck.
- Take 8 cards each.
- Place the rest face down to form a draw pile.
- The oldest player begins.
To play the game
On your turn either place or discard one card from your hand.
To place a card, put it next to the same coloured space on your side of the board, to start an expedition route. The next time you place a card of this colour, it must be of higher numerical value. Place it on top of the previous one, making sure you can see the numbers on each.
- You can only place one card per turn.
- Cards may only be placed into their respective colour’s column.
- You can’t place lower value cards on top of higher value ones.
- Once a card is placed, you can’t move it.
Cards without numbers are wager cards. These will multiply the score for your column; double for 1 wager, triple for 2 wagers and quadruple for 3 wager cards. Wagers may only be placed at the start of your expedition, before you place any number cards into the respective
column. If a number card is already in a column, you cannot place a wager card onto it.
Alternatively, If you can’t or don’t want to place a card, you may discard one, by putting it face up onto the corresponding coloured space on the board.
Finally, draw a card, either from the top of the draw pile, or one of the five discard piles. You may not draw the same card you just discarded.
Game end
Take it in turns, laying or discarding a card and then drawing a new one until the last card from the draw pile is taken. When it is, the game ends and scoring begins.
Players score every column they have placed cards in, in the following order;
- Add up the value of every card in the column.
- Deduct 20 points - this is the cost of your expedition.
- Multiple this value by 2,3 or 4 for every 1,2 or 3 wager cards at the start of it.
- Finally, Score a bonus 20 points if the column is 8 cards or bigger.
Note, if you don’t have a high scoring column, it could earn you negative points. If a column has no cards in it scores 0, don’t deduct 20 points from this column.
Total the scores from all your columns , make a note of your score and start a new round.
After 3 rounds, whoever scored the most points wins!
That’s Lost Cities; where you’ll need to be just the right amount of adventurous
Enjoy!