Another small two player game I brought on our journey to Portugal was Lost Cities by Reiner Knizia. This game is faster to play and easier to learn than Patchwork but has a depth of strategy that has kept me eager to play for many years. Before moving Michelle hadn’t played the game and I was eager to try it out with her. Let’s get into the rules and whatnot and then I’ll tell you how the game worked for the two of us!

In Lost Cities players are choosing to fund expeditions, when you choose to fund one of the five options (designated by different colored cards) you immediately lose points, if the expedition is successful you’ll gain those points back and potentially earn many more. You can choose to fund as many expeditions as you want, but your score can go negative if you aren’t careful with your choices. Considering how simple the game is, this theme is integrated perfectly and fits the push-your-luck gameplay.

Lost Cities is played with a special 60 card deck. My edition includes the completely unnecessary board as pictured above. Each player is dealt 8 cards and on their turn; they play a card then draw a card. Once the last card is drawn from the deck the round ends immediately and points are calculated.

Each different expedition (color or suit of cards) includes numbered cards 2-10 and three investment cards that show hands shaking instead of the normal number. First you can play a card either into a pile directly in front of you or onto a shared discard pile between the two players. Cards played in your area must be played sequentially from low to high numbers with optional investment cards being played first and same colors always go into a single pile. Cards played into the discard pile must go on top of their respective color in a single central pile.

After playing your card you may then draw a card from the deck or any of the discard piles as long as you didn’t discard into that pile this turn, (i.e. you can’t pick up the card you just discarded). As soon as you play a card and start any color’s expedition it is worth -20 points, but every numbered card you play in that pile is worth its face value. The handshakes double, triple, or quadruple the associated points depending how many you play. In the picture above the green stack of cards nearest us is currently worth -20 points and the yellow stack is -16. If you manage to get 8 cards in a single expedition you get a flat bonus of 20 points, essentially paying back the investment cost as a reward for a successful journey. Thematically the cards show increasingly amazing sights that the explorers find as they get closer to their exciting destinations.

These rules set up what sounds like an extremely simple game. You can play multiple rounds for points or see who wins the most rounds. In addition to the obvious decision about what card to play, participants can influence when the game ends by drawing from the discard piles instead of the deck so that the game will go on for longer.

Above the player nearest us had great luck with the blue cards, take a try at scoring and post what you think their total score was in the comments.

As I mentioned, this game is designed by Reiner Knizia who has been celebrated and prolific in the industry since the early 1990s. We own and enjoy Through the Desert, Ra, Battle Line, and a few other games that he has created.

So, how did this game fare with Michelle? I think it ended up being frustrating because I’ve literally played hundreds of hands of Lost Cities. Tricky decisions about what to do with a starting hand and which colors to play or ignore are second nature to me. I think that the rules are so simple it was easy for me to forget that this isn’t a simple game which put Michelle at an aggravating disadvantage.

Nonetheless, Lost Cities will survive as one of my favorite two player card games. If you have someone to play with I absolutely recommend adding it to your collection. Because you can play however many rounds you choose, a game can take ten minutes or multiple hours. It is super fast to set up and put away but still offers multiple interesting decisions every round. When you visit us maybe one or both of us can get a chance to play with you and we’ll see what you think! Michelle would be ecstatic to play with another noob.