Introduction and object of the game
Lost Cities is a board game by Reinier 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 can be on the 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 and researchers 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.

Start of the game The 25 event tiles  are shuffled and placed face-up randomly on the spaces marked for them on the game board. The 110 cards (twice values 0 to 10 in each of 5 colors) are shuffled and each player is dealt randomly 8 cards. Those cards are only visible to the player and not to the opponents. The remaining cards are placed face-down as a supply next to the board. If there are 2 players before dealing there are 30 cards randomly removed.

You can see your cards above     the playing field:

Playing overview
The game consists of 3 expeditions. After each expedition, the players score their positions. After the 3rd expedition, players also score the artifacts they have collected during the game.

The game is played in clockwise order. On a player's turn, he takes his turn, which consists of two phases, played in the order shown:
1. Play a card:
- either begin a path by selecting an adventurer or researcher;
- or move forward on a path already begun;
- or discard the card (face-up on a discard pile).
2. Take a card:
- from the face-down supply.
- from one of the face-up discard piles.

Play a card
The player selects one of his hand cards and takes one of the following three actions:

1. Begin to search a path
- The player clicks on a card (in the box: your cards) and chooses if he wants to place an adventurer or researcher wants to place on the first space of the path (-20) of the same color as the card played. The -20 value means that this figure's score, at this moment is 20 minus points.
- The card is placed face up in his play area (below the name of the player to the left of the board). Only he may later place cards on this card.
- Important: the researcher earns the player double points at the end of the game: either plus or minus! And there is only 1 researcher!
- Note: each player may only begin one search per color! Of course, several players may have searches on the same path (e.g. 3 players each begin a search on the blue path).
There is 1 Researcher (bigger figure):  and there are 4 Adventurers (smaller figures) .

2. Move forward on a path he is on
- The player decides which of his paths he wants to explore and move forward on.
- He chooses a card of the color of this path from his hand. The card is placed on a card of this color already lying in his play area. The new card must have the same value or a higher value than the card it is played on.
- Then the figure on this path is placed one step further.
- Note: if an event tile is on the step he reaches, he finds the event; see below <Find an event tile>.
- When a figure of a player reaches the last (ninth) step, and the player plays a (valid) card for this path, then he may move any of his other figures one step forward on the path it is on.

3. Discard a card - The player chooses one of his hand cards and selects the option to discard it. During the game, players are likely to discard many cards. The cards are separated by color (at most 5 stacks) with only the last card discarded per color showing on its stack. - Note: as the game proceeds, a player often collects cards which he cannot use and can, therefore be discarded. When a player, for example has played a red 4 and a red 7, and then draws a red 3, he will want to discard this card! However, he may want to wait until no other player can use this card.

Draw a card The player ends his turn by drawing a card. He has 2 possibilities: - He draws the top-most card from the face-down supply. - He draws the top-most card from one of the face-up discard piles. Note: he cannot pick up the same card if he just discarded that card. Now, the player has again 8 cards in his hand and his turn is over. Now, the next player, in clockwise order, takes his turn and starts by playing or discarding a card from his hand.

Find an event tile
When a player moves a figure to a space with an event tile, he must execute the action indicated on the tile:
- Artifact tile!  The player takes the artifact tile from the board and an artifact  is placed in his play area. The tile space remains empty!
- Victory point tile!  The player takes victory point chips in the value shown on the tile. The value is added to the coins  of the current round. The researcher does not take double points. The tile remains face-up on the space.
- Arrow tile!  The player may move any of his figures that are already on a path, one step forward. If this moved figure reaches a space with an event tile, the player executes the action indicated on that tile, and so on. The tile remains face-up on the space.

End of an expedition and scoring
- An expedition ends immediately when a total of five figures pass a bridge (between the 6th and 7th steps on each path). This does not mean that every bridge on every path was passed. It is possible that on one path two players pass the bridge and on another none pass the bridge.
- If one reaches a space which ends the expedition and it has an event tile, the action indicated by the tile is not executed!
- An expedition also ends, when the last card from the face-down supply is drawn.

Now the scoring: Each figure on the board earns a player victory points:
- Each adventurer earns the player as many points as shown on the space where he is standing. Each researcher brings the player double the points shown on the space where he is standing.
- The points are paid to the players using the victory point chips. If a space shows negative points, the player must give up that many victory points in chips. No player can have fewer than zero points.

The next expedition
- After the scoring is complete, all 25 event tiles are shuffled as at the beginning of the game and placed again, randomly, on the spaces marked for them on the board.
- The cards are shuffled face-down and 8 cards are dealt randomly to each player. The remaining cards are placed face-down as a supply next to the board.
- The players keep their victory point chips and their artifact chips. The new expedition begins with the player to the left of the player who played last in the previous expedition.

Game End
The game ends after the scoring of the third expedition.
- Now players count their artifact chips. You get extra points for those chips according to the following formula: 1: -50 points, 2: -45, 3:-40, 4: -10, 5: -5, 6: 0 points, 7: 30, 8: 35, 9: 40, 10: 70, 11: 75, 12: 80, 13: 110, 14: 115, 15: 120, and 16: 150 points. A player with fewer than 6 artifact chips will lose victory points.
- Each player now adds now the value of his victory point chips. The player with the most points wins. If players tie with the most points, the player among them with the most artifact chips is the winner

Variants
- Short game: In the short game, only one expedition is played. The difference is in the scoring: the collected artifacts are scored on the short scoring table: 1 artifact chip: -20 points, 2: -15, 3: 10, 4: 15, 5: 30, and 6: 50 points.
- Keltis Rules: using ascending and descending card values to move. As soon as a player plays a card for a path that is different from the first card played, he determines whether subsequent cards for this path will be higher or lower. A player can choose differently for each path, but once he decides for a path, he must play cards on that path according to this decision.