Lost Cities: The Board Game

Number of players: 2-4
Age of players: 10+
Length: 30-60 minutes
Designed by: Reiner Knizia

Each player leads a five-member group of four adventurers and a researcher on the search for lost cities. To reach each city, the players must travel a separate path nine steps long. On a player‘s turn, he plays a card and  moves one of his adventurers or his researcher. The color of the card played determines which path the figure moves on. The player should try to play a card of low value, because when the player wants to move this adventurer again, he must play a card of equal or higher value. Each player must send his adventurers on different paths - no two from the same player on athe same path. A player may send all his adventurers to search, but need not.
The goal is it to get one‘s adventurers as far as possible along the paths they travel since the first steps of a path score minus points. Only the later steps on a path score positive points. At the end of the game, the winner is the player who earned the most points. Artifacts, which adventurers can collect along the way, also earn the player‘s points toward a possible victory. Also, the researcher (the larger figure) is more valuable than the adventurers: during the scoring at the end, the player doubles its points, making it imperative to move it as far along its path as possible.