Lost Cities Review | Why a 2 Player Classic Still Wins

Lost Cities is a two player card game for ages 10 and up that finishes in about 20 to 30 minutes. You deal 8 cards each, then on every turn you play or discard one card and take one more from the draw pile or the top of a discard pile. Each colour you open as an expedition costs you 20 points, wager cards multiply that column by 2, 3, or 4, and any column holding 8 or more cards earns a 20 point bonus. The best score after three games wins.

I am Spector, a dad to Alex, 7, and Emma, 10. Lost Cities is the game I hand my wife on a slow Tuesday when we both know we are going to lose something. Reiner Knizia designed it, KOSMOS published it in Germany in 1999, and Rio Grande Games has been putting it in American hands ever since. Twenty seven years later it is still the best twenty minutes of head to head card play on our shelf.

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Lost Cities at a Glance

Aspect	Details
Designer	Reiner Knizia, designed 1999
Expeditions	The Himalayas, the Brazilian Rain Forest, the Desert Sands, the Ancient Volcanoes, and Neptune’s Realm
Publisher	KOSMOS in Germany from 1999, Rio Grande Games in North America
Players	2, exactly two in the base game, with a printed 4 player variant
Playtime	About 20 to 30 minutes per game, played as a 3 game match
Age	10 and up
Deck	60 cards in the five expedition game, 72 with the 6th expedition
Cards per colour	12, one each of 2 through 10 plus 3 wagers
Setup	8 cards dealt to each player, the remaining 44 become the draw pile
Match format	Best total after 3 games, the previous winner starts the next game
Award	International Gamers Award 2000, two player category

How Do You Play Lost Cities?

You are running expeditions, not armies. Five colours sit between you, each one is a column of cards, and the value of the column is what you score at the end.

The turn is fixed and it is three steps in the same order every time.

1. Play or discard one card from your hand. This is mandatory. You cannot draw first.
2. Play it into one of your own columns, starting a new one or extending an existing one at the end only, or discard it face up on the discard pile for its colour.
3. Take one card from the top of the draw pile or the top of any of the five discard piles, and your turn ends.

Step one coming before step three is the whole game. Because you discard before you draw, you can put a card you do not need on a pile and then take a different card from that same pile, which is a legal and useful little trick. The only card you may not take is the one you just discarded, so the discard pile you build is a menu with one item removed.

There is no market row in this game, nothing gets refilled mid game, and the discard piles are never shuffled back into a fresh draw pile. The randomness is entirely the shuffle and whatever each of you chooses to put on a pile.

The game ends the moment a player draws the last card from the draw pile. Near the end, both players are allowed to count the remaining face down cards to work out how many turns are left, which is the only officially sanctioned card counting in the hobby.

How Does Scoring Work in Lost Cities?

Every expedition you start costs 20 points. Add up the number cards in a column, subtract 20, then multiply by 2, 3, or 4 for the one, two, or three wagers you played in it. A column with no cards in it scores nothing and costs nothing. A column with 8 or more cards in it earns an extra 20 points on top of everything else.

That is the entire scoring system, and it is the part almost every review online gets wrong. Here is what it means in plain numbers.

Cards in the column	Card total	Minus the 20 cost	No wagers	1 wager (x2)	2 wagers (x3)	3 wagers (x4)
One 2	2	18 below zero	-18	-36	-54	-72
2, 3, 4	9	11 below zero	-11	-22	-33	-44
2, 3, 4, 5, 6	20	0	0	0	0	0
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	27	7	7	14	21	28
2 through 9	44	24	44 with the 8 card bonus	68	92	116
2 through 10	54	34	54 with the 8 card bonus	88	122	156

Three things jump out of that table and they are the entire strategy of the game.

Expeditions can go negative. A single 2 in a column is minus 18, and a wager on that column doubles it to minus 36. The old idea that a bad expedition is merely a wasted turn is wrong. Bad expeditions are a hole in your score that your opponent does not have to share.

Twenty card points is break even. The 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 set of five cards totals exactly 20, which cancels the expedition cost and scores zero. Wagers on that column do nothing at all, because zero times two is still zero. This is the trap that catches new players, and it is why the wagers go on columns that already have cards in them.

The 8 card bonus is the biggest number in the game. A column of eight cards is worth 20 bonus points whatever else happens, and it applies after the multiplier. Eight cards from 2 to 9 with a single wager is 68 points, which is more than most people score in a whole game.

Scoring is done at the end of each game, the totals are written down, and the best score across three games wins. The player with the higher score in game one starts game two.

What Are Wagers and When Can You Play Them?

Wagers are the three grey handshake cards in each colour, and they have no value of their own. Their whole job is to multiply a column, and they are worth exactly nothing anywhere else.

Wagers in the column	Multiplier	On a 27 point column	On a 34 point column
None	x1	7	34
One	x2	14	68
Two	x3	21	102
Three	x4	28	136

The rule almost nobody states clearly: a wager card may only be placed at the beginning of a column, and the moment you put a number card in that colour you can never play a wager of that colour again. So the wager decision is made on the same turn you open the expedition, before you know whether it will work. If you open a colour with a 4, you have just given up the right to triple it later.

One small thing that confuses new copies of the game: the current artwork prints x2 on all three wager cards. They do not all double. They double, then triple, then quadruple.

How Do You Set Up Lost Cities?

1. Put the board between the two players. One side is the classic five expedition game, and if your box has a second side with six colours on it, choose your side before you deal.
2. Shuffle all 60 cards, or all 72 if you are playing with the 6th expedition.
3. Deal 8 cards face down to each player.
4. Turn the remaining 44 cards face down into a draw pile beside the board.
5. Agree who starts. The oldest player starts game one, and after that the winner of the previous game starts.
6. Play.

That is the whole setup. It is under a minute, which is exactly why it lives in a jacket pocket and comes out at bus stops and restaurant waits.

Which Version of Lost Cities Should You Buy?

There is a base game, a reworked edition with a sixth expedition, a dice version, and a printed 4 player variant. Here is the honest buying decision.

What you want	What to buy	Why
The classic game, exactly as designed, 2 players	Lost Cities	60 cards, 5 colours, 8 cards each, the 1999 design that every strategy book points at
More colours and a longer match, still 2 players	Lost Cities with 6th Expedition	The 2019 edition, 72 cards and a double sided board, one side 5 expeditions and one side 6
A group game instead of a duel	Lost Cities: Roll and Write	Knizia 2021 dice version, 2 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, 20 to 30 minutes, no cards
Three or four players tonight	A second copy of Lost Cities	The printed 4 player variant needs a second deck of the 2, 3, and 4 cards, 75 cards in total, played as partners

On the 6th expedition edition, the extra colour follows the same rules as the other five, and a sixth column is a sixth 20 point expedition cost. It is a longer, swingier game rather than a different one, so the classic side of the board is the one most people should play.

One naming trap worth flagging. There is a separate game called Lost Cities: The Board Game from 2003, also by Reiner Knizia, which is a board game with meeples, tiles, and golden coins, and it is not this card game. Searching for it turns up a lot of rules text for the wrong product, including pages that describe nine step paths and artefact chips.

Can You Play Lost Cities With 3 or 4 Players?

Not in the base game, and this is the question I get most. The box holds one board, one deck, and the design is a duel. Three players does not work.

Four players does, and the rulebook prints exactly how. Add a second copy of the cards valued 2, 3, and 4, which makes a 75 card deck. Players sit opposite each other as partners and play on the same side of the board. On your turn you may also hand two cards face down to your partner instead of playing, but you may not drop below 6 cards in your hand, and partners are not allowed to discuss what they are passing. It is a good variant and it is genuinely harder to win by accident than the two player game.

If your group is three, four, or five and you want the Lost Cities feeling rather than a duel, the dice version is the honest answer. It is a separate game by the same designer, not an expansion, and our guide to the evolution of card games covers where the small box card duel came from.

5 Ways to Win More Lost Cities Games

Everything in this section is house strategy from our table, not official rules. The rules above are the rules, these are what I actually do.

1. Treat a colour as dead once the 8, 9, and 10 are visible. Those three cards are where the points live. If your opponent has taken two of them in a colour, stop feeding that expedition and cut your losses rather than paying a second 20 point cost.
2. Open colours with a 2, 3, or 4 if you want to keep the wagers alive. The 2, 3, and 4 cards can be played first, so a colour opened low still leaves you the option to triple it later. The card you open with is the card you wager on.
3. Bank wagers on a column that already has five or more cards in it. The break even point is 20 card points, so a wager on a column that is already past 20 is doing real work. A wager on a fresh column is a bet that the next four cards cooperate.
4. Count cards when the draw pile gets low. Counting the remaining face down cards is official, and knowing there are six draws left is the difference between opening a fifth expedition and letting it go.
5. Take from a discard pile before you build on it yourself. The top card of a pile is the cheapest card in the game, and putting a card you do not need on a pile so you can take a different one from the same pile is a free upgrade.

If you want the other side of this genre, where the tension comes from the board and not from a deck, our Zero review covers a two player abstract with no hidden cards at all.

Is Lost Cities Good for Kids?

It is rated 10 and up, and that rating is fair. Emma played it well at 10, and the reason is that the game never asks a child to do anything a grown up would not do. Compare the value of a card, decide if a colour is worth 20 points, decide if a multiplier is worth the risk. All three are real decisions with visible consequences.

Where younger players struggle is negative numbers. A child who has only met subtraction as taking things away will not believe that playing a card can cost points, and will open expeditions out of pure curiosity. Our guide to two player games for competitive siblings has gentler starting points for a first head to head game.

The game also has a surprisingly good story going for it. It is about funding expeditions into places that might not be worth it, which is a decent dinner table conversation for a ten year old asking where the money goes.

Lost Cities FAQs

How many players does Lost Cities need? Two. The base game is a designed duel and the box holds one board and one deck. Four players is possible with a printed variant if you add a second copy of the 2, 3, and 4 cards, and three players is not supported in any official version.

How do you score points in Lost Cities? Add up the number cards in a column, subtract the 20 point expedition cost, then multiply by 2, 3, or 4 if you played one, two, or three wagers in that column. A column with 8 or more cards in it gets an extra 20 points, and a colour with no cards in it scores nothing and costs nothing.

Can you lose points on an expedition in Lost Cities? Yes. Every expedition costs 20 points, so a column holding only a 2 scores minus 18. A wager on that column doubles it to minus 36. The cards 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 total exactly 20, which is the break even point where wagers do nothing at all.

How many cards are in a Lost Cities deck? 60 in the classic five expedition game, which is 12 cards per colour: one each of 2 through 10 plus 3 wagers. The current 6th expedition edition ships 72 cards, and the printed 4 player variant uses 75 cards with a second copy of the 2, 3, and 4 cards.

Can you play a wager card after you start an expedition? No. A wager card may only be placed at the beginning of a column, and once you have played a number card in that colour you can never play a wager of that colour again. The wager decision happens on the same turn you open the expedition.

Do you have to play cards in order in Lost Cities? Yes, in ascending order, and you can only add to the end of a column. You can open a colour with the 2, 3, or 4 and then keep going up, but once you have started you can never insert a lower card in the middle.

Can you take a card from a discard pile in Lost Cities? Yes, you may take the top card of any of the five discard piles as your one draw each turn, or the top of the draw pile. The one restriction is that you may not draw the card you have just discarded.

How long does a Lost Cities game take? About 20 to 30 minutes for a single game, and the standard format is three games with scores added together, so budget about an hour and a half with a scoring break in the middle. Setup is under a minute.

Does Lost Cities have expansions? The 6th expedition is the one official addition, first sold as a 12 card grey promo pack at Gen Con in 2016 and then folded into the 2019 double sided board edition. Lost Cities: Roll and Write is a separate 2021 dice game by the same designer, not an expansion, and there is no official Lost Cities and Schotten Totten combination.

The Verdict on Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a two page rulebook wrapped around one idea: every expedition you start is a price you pay before you know the return. Get that right and the rest of the game is arithmetic you can do at the kitchen table. Open low, keep your wagers alive, and only multiply a column that already clears 20 points. That is the whole game, and after twenty seven years it is still the sharpest card duel we own.

If you want more head to head picks, our games like Risk list covers the big map games, and abstract strategy matches is where to go when you want the duel without any theme at all. Lost Cities is small enough to live in a bag, which is why it is also on our small space game shelf list.