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Lost Cities: The Board Game |
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Availability:
In stock
List Price:
$39.95
Our Price:
$30.95
You Save:
$9.00 (22%)
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Description:
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 color 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 athe 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.
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Our Review:
If you loved the Lost Cities card game, you will probably love Lost Cities: The Board Game even more. It takes a similar game-play idea and expands it into a more colorful, more involved, and more interesting game that can be enjoyed by the whole family. Two to four players play the role of managing a team of five explorers who try to make it as far as they can down any of five different paths. The farther an explorer reaches, the more points are scored. Explorers that don't advance far enough on a path lose points.
Each turn in Lost Cities: The Board Game involves playing a card out of the player's hand, in one of five colors (representing the five paths). For each card played, an explorer advances one spot along the path. Cards for a given color can only be played that are equal to or higher in value than the previous card played in that color (cards are numbered 0 through 10, with two of each number in each color). Thus, players must carefully consider whether the cards in their hands will give them opportunity to advance far enough along any path they choose to start.
Lost Cities: The Board Game is a game about taking calculated risks in ever-changing circumstances, since cards drawn, card discarded, other players' actions, and the number of cards left in the game all have bearing on which decisions are best. There is a little more strategy involved than in the card game, and there are more decisions to make, making the board game more interesting and varied. There is still a healthy mix of luck too.
Lost Cities: The Board Game is excellent fun for two, three, or four players, and comes with "full play" rules and a "quick play" minor variation, accomodating a good range of play times. The Lost Cities board game is perfect light entertainment and its flexibility, relatively simple rules, colorful artwork, and fun theme make it an ideal family game. The German-language printing of this game (Keltis) won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in 2008. We love this game at BoardGameRatings.com and strongly recommend adding Lost Cities: The Board Game to your game library.
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User Reviews:
| Mike
Lost cities is a fun board game aimed at either the casual or family gamer. I have found it is best played with 4 people. There is both a short game (about 20-30 minutes) and long version (40-75 minutes) with the difference between the two on the number of rounds played.
The game is easy enough to learn (takes about 15 minutes), and the instructions are very clear.
The board has a nice look and feel to it. It’s colorful, and well themed. There are a lot of pieces including money, tokens, tikis, cards, etc, and therefore the initial setup will take about 5 minutes. I also like the fact that several of the spaces on the board are populated with random tokens, which means that the game is different for every round.
While the general strategies are the same throughout, the game does play differently each time through.
The game typically revolves around ambition management. You send your explorers and researches along different paths. Whenever you first start a new path you actually lose points but as you progress you earn points. If you are overly aggressive and the round ends, you will find yourself losing points. However, if you play it too conservative, other players will continue along their paths scoring more and more points. The round ends when five explorers make significant process along the paths (its not necessarily a race to the end).
Strongly Recommended!
by Mike (Jan 03 2010)
| Great, easy game
My husband and I got this game for Christmas and have played it more than any other since then. It's great for a quick 20 minute 2 player game or for an hour long game with 4. Fun, interactive, and easy to learn. Great game!
by Brooke (Feb 25 2009)
|  Game of the Year?
I enjoyed playing Keltis and will likely do so again. But the entire time I was asking myself what made them select this game. Gameplay is straightforward to the point of being simple: there is little in the way of strategy, though what is there is noteworthy (think Mahjong or Gin Rummy...it's all about the discard). The game is certainly better with more players, but there is nothing that sets it apart from so many other games for me.
It is fun and quick; the background story, however is far more interesting than the mechanics. If it were $10 I would highly recommend, but there is far too little depth, thought, and design for this to cost what it does and to be the stand-out that "Game of the Year" makes it.
by Jacob (Dec 12 2008)
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Rate Lost Cities: The Board Game by Rio Grande Games:
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