Lost Cities
Okay, I’ve got 21 minutes to post this before Mrs. G catches on and puts me to work…. so if it’s sloppy, tough.
Anyway, Mrs. G and I took Lost Cities for a spin. This is one of the most often recommended couples games on the Geek. I was also recommended this by a Bunker attendee who shall be known as “THE”.
The idea behind the game is that you are sponsoring expeditions. These are represented by color-coded cards numbered 2 – 10, as well as 3 “investment” cards for each suit. The cards themselves show a progression of the expedition to the goal. The 2 card shows the beginning of the trail, and the 10 shows the final achievement.
Each player starts with 8 cards, and then takes one of two actions, either laying down a card on an expedition (in ascending order), or discarding a card. Once the action is complete, you draw a single card from the deck.
Here I have played my cards in three expeditions.
The game ends the second the last card is taken from the draw pile.
The complicated part of the game is the scoring. You tally up each expedition, and subtract 20 from the total. The 20 represents the costs to mount an expedition. From there, you multiply the result by one plus the number of investment cards played at the start of the expedition. If the expedition was negative, then the multiplier is applied to the negative number. Ouch!
Here’s how you would score the pic above:
Red Expedition: 34 – 20 = 14
Green Expedition: (21 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 2
Blue Expedition: (34 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 28
Total: 44 Points
Here is a more disastrous example:
Green Expedition: (27 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 14
White Expedition: (19 – 20) * (1 + 3 investment cards) = -4
Blue Expedition: (16 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = -8
Yellow Expedition: (16 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = -8
Total: -6 Points
The game is fast, and often it is hard to keep track of who went last, and whether or not it is your turn… or maybe it is that way because Mrs. G is a spazz.
Because of this, I suspect we will play it again. Yet another great filler between epic 2-player Twilight Imperium plays. Boo-yah!
(And I went 10 minutes over.)
Fun game. But not enough treachery.
February 19th, 2008 at 00:57She plays her games like she lives her life, my friends. Beware the Mrs. G.
February 19th, 2008 at 01:59What’s an average scoring game? It seems like there’s a lot of adding and subtracting and in the end your score is only like 20.
If it plays as quickly as it sounds it could be a good game to develop strategy try out different techniques.
On a completely unrelated note your site sometimes changes theme/styles and i think sometimes even without a new post. It looks like it keeps reverting back to an older theme. I like the new green one you made(or stole)
February 21st, 2008 at 10:14Of the 4 or 5 I’ve played so far, it ranged from -30 to 30. I’m sure it gets higher if you know what you are doing (all of the games so far have been n00bish.)
As for the theme of the site, this is a bug with WordPress that seems to be triggered by users viewing hte site on a mobile device (I think… mainly because it happens whenever I try it from mine.) I’ve looked it up and been too lazy to fix it. I’ll put it on the to do list.
February 23rd, 2008 at 22:28