Lost Cities is an incredibly simple and fast game, which is, in my opinion, its greatest attribute. The ability to play 3 games of Lost Cities in 20-30 minutes is a refreshing break from the grinding brainbusters that other games can be. Lost Cities is intended to be played in a set of 3, and back when I was playing with my friend a lot we would consistently finish the match in under 10 minutes flat, including 3 rounds of rigorous shuffling.
The Lost Cities cards are 5 different colors, with three special handshake cards and the numbers 2-10 of every color. You can play on any color you want, but you must do so in ascending order. Handshakes come before numbers. 2s come before 3s. You can play out of order, so a common column might be: Handshake, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10. At the end of a round (when the last of the 60 cards is drawn), you score for every column in which you played at least one card. This score is modified by a flat -20, so playing willy nilly across the colors will actually cause you to lose points. Handshakes are multipliers, a boon if you have over 20 strength of cards, and a curse if you have less than 20. As you can see, starting a column early might not be the wisest without some insurance, but if you choose to discard your opponent can pick up the cards you got rid of. The decision between playing and discarding is the main focal point of the game.
FUN: 3 - Lost Cities gets a fair amount of free points in the fun category because I've played it a ton of times and the game appeals to so many people. I equate playing Lost Cities to playing Sudoko or solving a crossword, but there's another player there. Given that I'm an avid board gamer, it should come as no surprise that I prefer the two-player gaming activity. I can play Lost Cities while trying to win, I can play Lost Cities while watching a movie, or I could play Lost Cities with a 5-year old or with the world champion of poker and be happy doing all those things.
STRATEGY: 2 - Lost Cities is much maligned as an entirely luck-based game, and that accusation certainly has some fair basis. Learning the strategy to Lost Cities takes about one or two games, less time than it takes to explain the first half of the rules to any Fantasy Flight game. The basic decisions you make are when to start your columns, and what cards you should discard (allowing your opponent to have access to them). Sometimes you have a perfect set in your hand and it all makes sense. Sometimes you are playing and just happen to draw the appropriately colored 8, 9, 10 of the same column both you and your opponent started and you just crush them. Like any card drawing game, each game is fickle but there are averages associated with draws.
That being said, there are some patterns that you learn through the game. Is it worth just playing my 8,9,10 of blue now to waste time, or should I hold out for some juicy multipliers? If I start this column am I going to finish playing all my cards before the game ends? Some pretty basic questions, but they require some luck and some experience with the tempo of the game. The biggest strategy in the game comes in playing a 3-game match. Are you behind by 60 points? Just start playing handshakes everywhere and hope to get lucky. Up by 60 points? Do your best to sandbag your opponent.
SOCIAL: 3 - The "do I play or do I discard" conundrum almost always comes down to "how will discarding this card help my opponent?" The questions aren't hard to answer but observing their play is essential to informing how you should play. The decisions you make affect the decisions they make. Are you worried about starting a red column? Well your opponent just started one - maybe he already has all the good cards for it so you should wait a few turns to decide.
On top of that, Lost Cities is a light game. You can chat between rounds while shuffling about the game or other things. At the board game convention I attend every year I use this time to get to know my opponents. The game is smooth enough that that kind of discussion is encouraged, and in the end, its hard to be a sore loser about Lost Cities.
FLAVOR: 1 - Horrible. Nothing you do in this game has to do with investigating Lost Cities. The game is so bare-bones that I have made a version of Lost Cities out of a marker and Magic: the Gathering cards when I was in a pinch and absolutely nothing was missing from the game. The only reason this game gets a 1 for flavor instead of a 0 is that I enjoy the fact that the artwork on the cards indicates how close you are to the 'city.' For instance, a 2 white card is in the middle of a barren snowy area, while the 10 white card has a giant face in the side of a Himalayan mountain on it.
MISCELLANEOUS: 4 - The 4 is almost entirely for the unique niche that Lost Cities fills. A two player game that I can start and end at a moment's notice. To my knowledge, no other game serves that role as well as Lost Cities (which, of course, is likely just a limitation of my knowledge!). Lost Cities is the kind of game I teach people when I want them to feel comfortable in the world of games. Lost Cities is the kind of game a couple can play together and have no tension over. Also, the Replayability is off the charts - with something so fast its easy to do it again and again.
Parting thoughts on strategy: The key thing to remember is that every card has a 50% chance of being drawn by you, and a 25% chance of being drawn by you in the first half of the game. Worry less about how well you are doing and worry more about how well you are doing compared to your opponent - some games happen to be incredibly low scoring. It can sometimes be worth it to intentionally get negative points for the added benefit of a few extra card draws at the beginning. For instance, if my opponent has already played a blue handshake, 3, 4 - that suggests he probably has some more juice up his sleeve. I'd gladly play an 8, 9 of blue (taking -3 points) just for two extra turns of card draws. At the beginning managing your draws is most important, at the end making sure you have played everything you've drawn is!
May your
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