Lost Cities

We are about to seek treasure in a lost city, but every expedition comes at a steep price. You can enlist local companions, which doubles both the risk and the reward in the end.

This version is adapted from the original by Reiner Knizia and can be played with a standard deck of playing cards.

Game Setup

1. Take a standard deck of playing cards and remove 4 Aces, placing them in the center of the table to represent the four lost cities.
2. Deal 1 Joker to each player. Shuffle the remaining cards to form a draw pile.
3. Each player starts by drawing 5 cards, so together with the Joker, everyone has 6 cards in hand at the start.

Game Play

Players take turns. On your turn, play one card then draw one card.

When playing a card, it must match the suit of the corresponding Ace:

• Play it on your side of the Ace to explore that city, or
• Place it on top of the Ace to discard that card.

When drawing a card, you may:

• Draw the top card from the draw pile, or
• Take the top card from any city’s discard pile.

The game ends as soon as the draw pile is empty.

Exploring with Cards

Each player’s exploration is independent, only consider the cards on your side.

• 2–10 (Number Cards): Except for the first one, each number card must be strictly higher than the previous card played in that city.
• Joker (Wild Card): May substitute for any suit’s number card. Can only be played immediately after a 2–9, its value is 1 + the previous card’s value.
• J, Q, K (Multiplier Cards): Must be played before any number cards are placed for that city. Playing 1/2/3 of these multiplier cards makes the final score for that city multiply by 2/3/4 respectively.

Scoring

For each city you explored, calculate:
(Sum of Number Cards – Cost) × Multiplier
The cost is 20. Sum all city scores you have (for each city you explored) to get your total exploration score.

It is recommended to play three rounds. The player with the highest total score across all rounds wins.