Game Review – Lost Cities: The Board Game

Lost Cities:  The Board Game
Number of Players	2 - 4
Play Time	30 Minutes (Short Game);  75 Minutes (Long Game)
Ages	8 Years and up

For those that are looking for a game that has the theme of an Indiana Jones movie, I submit the game Lost Cities:  The Board Game.

In Lost Cities:  The Board Game the players are trying to complete archeological expeditions.  The players are given 5 explorers at the beginning of the game, one large and four small ones.  The farther along on an expedition track their explorer gets, the more points they score.  They must be careful when starting an expedition because if they do not move their explorer at least four spaces up that track they will lose points.  The large explorer is awarded double the points for their position on the expedition they are trying to complete.

The players move their explorer along the track by playing out cards in the color of the expedition in front of them in ascending order.  The deck of cards has cards in sets of five different colors.  Each set of cards has two cards for each number ranging from 0 to 10.  When a player plays a card in front of them it must be a number that is equal to or greater than the last card they played in that set.  Each time the player places a card in front of them they move their explorer up the expedition track.  As an alternative they players may discard a card in the player area on the board of that color.  These cards can be picked up later by other players instead of drawing from the deck.

The round ends when 5 explorers are moved 7 or more spaces up the expedition track or when the deck of cards is depleted.

On each expedition track there are bonus tokens available that give out extra points, allow the player to move an extra space up the track, or give the player a monument.  The monuments are worth additional points at the end of the game.  If you do not collect enough of them during the game you will lose points.

There is a variant rule where the player may choose to play the cards out in either ascending or descending order.   The order must be determined when the card is placed.

I find Lost Cities:  The Board game to be a fun game.  It is quick to teach and can be played in a 30 minutes if the short game is played, which consists of only one round.  The full game lasts for 3 rounds. 

The problem I have with it is the randomness of the game.  If you do not start the game with a set of cards that have low numbers on them you are almost guaranteed to lose the round.  The variant rule on starting sets with high cards does help remove the randomness of the cards a player gets so I insist that it is played when I am playing the game.

Lost Cities: The Board Game is one of those games that can be used to introduce new players to Euro games.  It has a competitive element to it with the races up the expedition tracks to get to capture the bonus chips, which many people that are familiar with mainstream games like Candyland and Monopoly understand.  Because of this it may be more suited as an introductory game than Ticket to Ride, which is a much better game for players that are familiar with card games.

I recommend this game for people that want to show off what modern board games are like but know their friends will not like Ticket to Ride.  I do not consider it a replacement of the Lost Cities.  The games do share a number of concepts such as theme and starting giving negative points unless a certain level is reached, but other than that they are entirely different games and should be treated as such.