Lost Cities
Mechanics
Lost cities is a turn-based card game. There are five colors of cards. Each set of colors has four start cards and nine number cards that have the values 2-10.
First the player:
- Add to an Expedition (play a card):
- When Playing a card, only same color cards can be played on one another and must always be larger then the previous card laid down in front of the player. (This plays similar to Freecell)
- Or Discards a card:
- Played to the middle, on top of its color, where anyone can draw the card.
Second the player:
- Draws a card, to always have 8 cards, each turn. Players may draw from the unseen cards pile or from the discard piles for each color.
The game ends when the last unseen card is drawn.
The point system is set up to take away points from the players before points are rewarded. Each Expedition that is started takes away 20 points and the point of placing the number cards in order is to get more than 20 points, thus getting positive points.
Why is this fun / interesting?
The game is fast and easy to pick up, but the strategy around how to play is much harder.
First of all there are 65 cards, if I remember right, which means there is a minimum of 24 turns for each player (after the initial 8 cards are given to each player). Meaning you will have at least 24 chances to lay down cards.
So with 24 chances to place cards you have to look at how many “Expedition” you can achieve. There are 5 colors that you can start on and start cards you can use in order to multiple that expeditions point values (for better or for worse).
The number cards can be set into different tiers of value:
- 2, 3, and 4 are tier 1
- 5 and 6 are tier 2
- 7 and 8 are tier 3
- 9 and 10 are tier 4
The more cards you have from the higher tiers the better your chances of getting positive points from the expedition. Having the 9 and 10 means you only need one other card from that color to get positive points. Having 5 and 6 however means you need to have all of tier 1 or at least one card from tier 4 or some combination of tier 3 and tier 1.
Besides trying to make sure you get points, you need to make sure you don’t discard and give your opponent points. If your opponent has a run of red with 3,4, and 6, you don’t want to throw down the red 8, cause that gives them over 20. Now instead of having cards in your hand that you can play you also have cards that you are hording from the other player.
The problem is that you may have to discard a card instead of putting down a card in front of you:
1) If you have high cards in your hand, 7-10, you may not want to let your opponent know that. Once they know that you can not put down anything higher than that card they will either try to get rid of the smaller cards (discard with no fear of helping their opponent) or try to gather those lower cards (gathering all the lower cards, unusable for their opponent).
2) Placing a higher card means you can not go back and add lower cards later. If you have multiples of the higher level of cards (see tier levels above) then it may be alright to play them but if you want to gather more points, then waiting and discarding a card not needed may be a better option.
It seems the main strategy is:
1) Start one or two expedition at the beginning. Hopefully you have low cards in those colors to start playing. Especially if you have start cards available which multiply your score.
2) Once you see what your opponent is playing make sure not to discard cards that can immediately be played on the next turn.
3) Don’t try for another expedition later in the game until you know that you can at least make it to the high teens in points (meaning your cards minus 20 will be very small)
Mapping to Computer Games
Lost Cities has a strategy feel to it. You have resources available to you, your hand, and you have used past resources to purchase items, your expeditions. You and your opponent do not directly fight but you are trying to out smart each other with what you have on the board and what you have available to you. Showing that you only have high cards at the beginning is like only building high end units in an RTS. If your opponent builds a bunch of smaller units they can overwhelm you fast. There is always the trade off though that once you start an expedition you must see it through or face the consequences, losing points.
This may be a different way of running an rts. Instead of collecting resources, there is a pool of fixed resources that you can only draw upon at certain time intervals. How much of each resource you get may differ each time. So deciding whether to spend your low resources now or wait for something bigger to come along would be something more to think about when you are building units.
Joe Fitzgerald Says:
I think the idea of a fixed resource RTS might be worth pursuing. I am not certain how it would correlate to a single player game, but it would be interesting in a mulitplayer battle.
I agree with Ben’s strategy, but I have a few strategical insights to add:
- Investment cards (multipliers placed at the onset of an expedition) are worth their weight in gold. If you are certain (certainty is hard to come by however) that you will reach 20 pts. and beyond with your expedition, an investment is the easiest way to increase your points. Waiting for an investment card to show up is very necessary when you posess the 10, 9 or even 8 of any color. I would even suggest waiting for a second or third investment card if you posess two or three of the higher cards. Focusing on one or two expeditions with multiple investment cards (while forgoing other expeditions) is a lucrative strategy.
- Beginning expeditions while not being absolutely sure that you will be able to reach 20 points may not be a good idea. This will clutter your mind and cause you to make unnecessary moves. The “timer” of this game (the amount of cards left) is something that you should always be aware of, and just like golf, every turn is important. You do not want to end up with an expedition that adds up to 20 (equalling zero) and then think about the 10 turns that you wasted making that meaningless endeavor possible.
- Do not let the time run out with assets still in your hand. This goes along with being aware of the “timer” of the game. You must always be aware of how many cards remain in the unused pile. Near the end of play, when you still have several cards in your hand, you should count how many cards are left in the pile. If there will not be enough cards left for you to play all of your important cards (8s, 9s, 10s left in your hand), then you must strategically begin picking meaningless cards from the discard piles in order to lengthen the game.
The strategic level of play involved in Lost Cities warrents it continuous enjoyable play, but other than the possible fixed resource correlation to RTS gameplay I do not see many other mechanics mappable to computer games. I also love the description of the game……”Travel to uncharted territory!!!”……”Explore the globe!!!”……”Invest your time and resources to uncover limitless fortune!!!” Right…..we could just as easily play Lost Cities with a Hoyle deck.
Posted on August 2nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Brian Magerko Says:
The main forces I see with Lost Cities are the following:
1) Randomness: you have a random deck players are drawing from each turn.
2) Information: you are trying to map opponent actions to an opponent’s hand. For example, if the player puts down a red investor card, you may assume that the player has enough red cards to sum up to >=8 or so, depending on your estimation of the player’s experience and playstyle. This can also lead to potential bluffing, but bluffs rarely pan out (as opposed to poker, where a bluff can knock out an opponent).
3) Resources: Players have to balance: a) which cards stay in their hand (as Ben points out) and which is played each turn, b) which colors to play (e.g. starting off with a red 10 would make me very likely to try to play red), and c) WHEN to play cards that will definitely be played (similar to a, I know).
A random draw from a fixed set of resources is common in board games (e.g. Scrabble or Ra). I would contend that an increase in randomness renders a game less strategic. What interests me about Lost Cities is where it fits along that spectrum of being able to play a good strategy or being pray to too much randomness.
I’m not a great player, so I won’t pretend to know what the “right” strategy is. However, I am fairly certain that a good strategy involves having:
a) a fairly accurate model of the player’s hand as time progresses
b) a good understanding of the probabilities of future card draws for each player given what is on the table, in their hand, and the model of the opponent’s hand, and
c) an understanding of how many turns are left and how to maximize their score, given a and b.
How does this translate into computer games? It’s a fairly abstract game – as Joe pointed out, this can be (and was actually adapted from) a traditional card game. I can see this being implemented in a “fixed resource RTS,” with some specific features. For instance, there could be a race to move through a tech tree with only one player earning the right to a given technology. If a player misses it, they would have to try to earn the next tech in line or work on another branch in the tree.
This wouldn’t bring in the aspects of randomness or information though….which may be tough. Examining poker and trying to relate it to a game is difficult work – though exactly the kind of exercise this blog is trying to accomplish. You could consider a random distribution of upgrades or technologies as part of the tech tree process; working on a technology involves both you earning it as well as being randomly assigned the ability to work on it (or given an advance in it). Nothing like this has really been explored in an RTS…it would be interesting to test out exactly how this would work to be fun. Given all else that is going on, it may simply complicate things too much.
Posted on August 6th, 2007 at 1:52 pm