Just Adult Board Games.Co.Uk

Manufacturer's Description

Lost Cities is a multi-player game that has some similarities to Knizia's.

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 to 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.

Each player in turn plays one card out of a hand of 8, or discards one. He moves the corresponding playing piece on the path. Many of the spaces have a token that grants some bonus; either direct points (counted the scoring track), an extra move on a path, or wish stones that are needed at game end to avoid negative points.

The game ends when a total of 5 playing pieces have reached the 7th space (or more) on their paths.

Several groups of adventurers will begin the search for five long lost cities. Which group will find them first? Each player leads a five-member group of four adventurers and a researcher on the search for lost cities. To reach each city, the players must travel a separate path nine steps long. On a player's turn, he plays a card and moves one of his adventurers or his researcher. The colour of the card played determines which path the figure moves on. The player should try to play a card of low value, because when the player wants to move this adventurer again, he must play a card of equal or higher value. Each player must send his adventurers on different paths - no two from the same player on the same path. A player may send all his adventurers to search, but need not. The goal is it to get one's adventurers as far as possible along the paths they travel since the first steps of a path score minus points. Only the later steps on a path score positive points. At the end of the game, the winner is the player who earned the most points. Artifacts, which adventurers can collect along the way, also earn the player's points toward a possible victory. Also, the researcher (the larger figure) is more valuable than the adventurers: during the scoring at the end, the player doubles its points, making it imperative to move it as far along its path as possible. Top game designer, Reiner Knizia, won the 2008 Spiel des Jahres with his game Keltis; a multiplayer version of his popular card game Lost Cities. When Rio Grande Games brought out the English version, they decided to return to the original theme and produce Lost Cities: the Board Game.