gschloesser@earthlink.net wrote:
> > I've noticed a bunch of "new" Rio Grande games on the shelves of my
> > local game store these days and since several of them look
> > interesting, I was wondering if people out there could give me a quick
> > rating of the various Rio Grande products.
> >
> > I'm curious which game is considered the best 2 player game and which
> > is the better multiplayer game.
> 
> BEST TWO-PLAYER GAME
> 
> Lost Cities (8) ... very simple rules, but forces one to make agonizing
> decisions throughout.  This one has gone over extremely well with both my
> hard core wargaming buddies and my wife!
>
> Greg J. Schloesser

Larry Welborn <larrywelborn@home.com> wrote:
> Lost Cities
> 
> By far the best 2 player game released this year, IMO.  There are plenty
> of reviews elsewhere; but, if you like a quick, fun game with depth,
> this game is for you.  I rate it as the highest of the 2 player Kosmo
> games, and I really like Kahuna and Settlers card game.
> 
> Larry

sacentaur@aol.com (SACENTAUR) wrote:
> Rio Grande has become my favorite line of games. CafeJay has done a GREAT job
> bringing many fine titles to us:
> 
> LOST CITIES (8)-simple, but not simplistic. Acessible to kids and non-gamers
> alike. Best 2-player game I've seen in quite a while.
> 
> STEVE CAREY

<ideefixe@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I'd also recommend Lost Cities, the 2-player card game from Kosmos, long
> before Big City.  Lost Cities is also a little dry, but a hand of that is
> over in 10-15 minutes, so it's more like a single potato chip than a whole
> dried-out loaf of bread.

Doug Adams <doug@bom.gov.au> wrote:
> 8/10  Lost Cities - great two player game.  Thin theme, but the game is
> superb.
> 
> Doug

tldreaming@aol.com (TLDreaming) wrote:
> Lost Cities.  I know this game has been discussed previously, but I just saw it
> in the local store and thought it looked like it might be a good 2 player game
> to play with my wife (who doesn't normally play).  How is it?  BTW, just bought
> the settlers 5-6 player expansion.  look forward to the card game expansions
> (in English).
>
> -Fez

gschloesser@earthlink.net wrote:
> You're right ... this has been discussed here before.  I'd suggest to go back
> through the archives (DejaNews search works well) and read the related posts to get
> the various opinions.
> 
> I, for one, find the game a true gem.  It is for 2 players only and can play from
> 10 - 30 minutes, depending upon the number of hands you play (the rules recommend
> 3).  In spite of the simplicity of the rules, one is constantly faced with tough
> and agonizing decisions each turn.  I've played nearly a dozen times and rate it a
> solid '8'.
> 
> Greg J. Schloesser

"Robert Rossney" <rbr@well.com> wrote: 
> It is, I think, exactly what you're looking for.
> 
> Bob Rossney

Larry Welborn <larrywelborn@home.com> wrote:
> I absolutely love this game.  My wife and I have played it almost every
> night since I got my own copy a few weeks ago.  A quick, simple, 2
> player game that is much deeper than it appears at first glance.
> 
> It has the added bonus of being the first and only game my wife will ask
> me to play.  Usually, I have to initiate any game playing. We both also
> enjoy several plays in one sitting, usually playing 3 games or more,
> each consisting of 3 rounds.  The couple we game with the most also love
> the game.
> 
> I definitely recommend it.
> 
> Larry

tldreaming@aol.com (TLDreaming) wrote:
> Thanks for the information and suggestions regarding my request for information
> on Lost Cities.  This group's recommendations were perfect.  My wife was
> doubtful about the exploration theme of "Lost Cities" but after two games she
> really liked it.  She liked the depth of the strategy despite the simplicity. 
> Since we have a one month old child, we both liked the brevity of the game.  
> Games in which only two can compete without destroying each other (i.e. Magic
> or other CCGs) are rare and appreciated.  The components are very nice and the
> box has a nice feel.  However, the game could easily have been packaged in a
> playing card size box, but then how could Rio Grande justify the $20.00 sale
> price?  Regardless, the Game is fantastic and I'll recommend it to a few
> friends looking for games to play w/ their spouses. 
>
> -Fez

sos@katie.vnet.net (Steffan O'Sullivan) wrote:
> Of the three you mention, I have only played Lost Cities.  I find it a
> very poor game, and am amazed at the large number of people posting to
> this newsgroup who love this game.  I just don't get it.  It's pure
> boredom to me - about the lamest game from Germany I've ever seen.  I'd
> rather play Racko.
>
>  -Steffan O'Sullivan

Claudia Schlee <Claudia.Schlee@t-online.de> wrote:
> I partly have to agree with you. The game is very simple and in our opinion
> not that great. I would not call it the lamest game (because there are many,
> that are worse over here in Germany), but the game is nothing I would waste my
> money of it. The board is useless and after the first game no one ever puts a
> card on it to give the other player a chance to get it. As this seems to be a
> major part in the rules, the game only works in parts and not as a whole. I
> hope there will be "house rules" to make this one more interesting. In our
> opinion this one is just average compared to other card games in 99 and the
> Kosmos-card-series...
> 
>       Claudia Schlee & Andreas Keirat

gschloesser@earthlink.net wrote:
> Hmmm ... we must be playing either a different game or with different partners!
> The games I've been involved in have always been very entertaining and requiring
> some tough decisions throughout.  Discarding cards to the board is a very common
> play, but one certainly tries to make sure the cards he is discarding cannot be
> used by one's opponent.  However, it is also an interesting ploy to discard a card
> just to see if it entices your opponent, or to throw him off regarding what you
> are actually trying to collect.
> 
> I (and everyone I've played with so far) find the game thoroughly enjoyable and
> exciting.  In spite of its simple rules, there's lots of tough decisions to be
> made throughout.
> 
> Greg J. Schloesser

Doug Adams <doug@bom.gov.au> wrote:
> I agree with Greg.  I like to toss off some cards early onto the discard
> piles for a couple of reasons:
> 
> - if my opponent claims them, then I learn something.
> 
> - if my opponent doesn't take them, I am buying time later in the game. 
> By this I mean if I have cards still to play, I can delay the end of the
> game by drawing off the discard piles, and not the draw pile, in effect
> making the last twice as long from that point.
> 
> Doug Adams

gschloesser@earthlink.net wrote:
> LOST CITIES:  In spite of what my friend Steffan O'Sullivan says, I find Lost
> Cities to be a wonderful 2 player game.  Sure, the rules are simple and leave you
> asking, "Is that it?"  But during play, the decisions on which card to play or
> discard each round can be gut-wrenching.  I'm sure there's others, but Steffan's is
> the lone voice I've heard bemoaning this game.  I think it is a gem ... and it
> plays in about 20 - 30 minutes.
>
> Greg J. Schloesser

Doug Adams <doug@bom.gov.au> wrote:
> Lost Cities - I can recommed this one as an addictive 2 player game. 
> This game is so simple, yet when you have your hand balanced the
> decision of what to play becomes quite tough.  No play interaction? 
> Perhaps, however I'm watching my opponent very carefully and
> playing/discarding accordingly - to me that's a form of interaction. 
> Luck of the draw is a factor, but who cares with a game this quick? 
> Fast, fun, with a really nice sense of timing and tension.  A worthy
> addition to the Kosmos 2 player range.
> 
> Doug Adams

Bob Scherer-Hoock <bobshoock@mediaone.net> wrote:
> I'm afraid I'm with Steffan on this one. I didn't see anything here at all.
> The way the game was explained to us (and it was an oral presentation -
> there were no printed English rules around at the time), and the way it
> played, it was just two people trying to assemble their cards on the table
> as best they could, independently of each other. Might as well be side by
> side solitaire. Are you allowed to draw off the discard pile? We were told
> no. That would add some interaction - not much, but some. (Actually I can't
> even remember now if we had a discard pile - we may have been playing a card
> down on our expeditions each turn.
> 
> Bob Scherer-Hoock

aarondf@bu.edu (Aaron D. Fuegi) wrote:
> 	Bob, I'm afraid you were playing badly wrong from what you say.  Not
> only is there 1 discard pile, there are 5, one for each expedition, and players
> can draw the top card from any of the 5 or the regular deck.  Without this
> rule, the game would certainly not be nearly as good.  I Really enjoyed it, one
> of the top 3 games I played for the first time at the Gathering I would say.
> 
> Aaron

Bob Scherer-Hoock <bobshoock@mediaone.net> wrote:
> Hmmm. Not a shock. Mike Siggins emailed me with similar comments about the same
> time I saw your reply. That would make at least five games I was introduced to at
> the Gathering with incorrect rules: Lost Cities, Big City, Krieg & Frieden,
> Kontor, and Keydom. Funny thing is I enjoyed most of them, but all of them are
> better with the correct rules (funny thing). OK. I'll give Lost Cities another try.
> 
> Bob

"Robert Rossney" <rbr@well.com> wrote:
> Give this a try with the correct rules.  Playing Lost Cities without the
> five discard piles (one for each expedition) is sort of like playing Acquire
> without shareholder's bonuses:  you could do it, but the game you're playing
> isn't Lost Cities.
> 
> Bob Rossney

<ideefixe@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I also played a couple of hands of Lost Cities with Frank -- in the first
> one, naturally, I got the rules wrong! -- and it was quite interesting.  I'm
> eager to give it another go.  We were doing the discard thing right, but I
> hadn't quite gotten it through my head that if you start any one of the five
> expeditions at all, even just with a handshake card, it's going to count
> against you until you get to 20 with it.

drstevowen@aol.com (DrStevOwen) wrote:
> I think Bob's reaction to Lost Cities highlights the problem of playing a game
> without the proper rules. As has been mentioned elsewhere LC is a clever, quick
> card game of resource management. Your interaction with your opponent revolves
> around the information or mis info you provide (and vice versa) with your plays
> and discards, and 
> also the discards that are picked up. Near the end you can speed or slow the
> final conclusion by choosing to pick a dicard or from the pack and again impact
> upon your opponent.
> An underrated game in some circles, I feel.
> 
> Steve Owen

dk2@io.com wrote:
> After just one 3-round game, I tend to give this one higher marks than
> Chris (Farrell) does. There are a lot of subtle tactics you can employ, analysis
> of the consequences of each move is not obvious, and I don't think
> luck is quite that important, particularly not if you play multiple
> rounds as the rules suggest. Also I think the "feel" of the game is
> superb considering how simple it is: the endgame is particularly fun,
> as you're racing against time to play the best cards you have in hand.
>
> the Dave

Larry Welborn <larrywelborn@home.com> wrote:
> I have played Lost Cities extensively the last few days and I think
> there is a lot more to this game than many realize. Early in the game,
> one often has the unenviable task of choosing from many plays, all of
> them bad.  The game becomes tense in the mid-game, as you often have to
> start expeditions prematurely, or risk being unable to lay all your
> cards down.  The end-game, as others have commented, is a race against
> time as you try to play all of your cards.  The discard piles add a nice
> element to the game, as the player has to balance getting rid of junk
> cards, feeding your opponent useful cards, and the occasional attempt to
> entice a player to start another expedition.  The game offers a lot of
> decision in such a quick playing game.
> 
> The game should definitely be played over several rounds, three seems to
> work well.  Multiple rounds tend to balance out any "lucky" hands. A
> friend suggested that a nice variant might be to play to a specific
> score, similar to rummy games.  I haven't tried it out yet, but I
> probably will soon as it sounds intriguing. 200 or 250 points should
> make for a good game.
> 
> I think this is an excellent game and is definitely more than "filler".
> 
> Larry

bob@csua.berkeley.edu (Robert Chang) wrote:
> I think that Lost Cities is a very good game that makes
> great filler.  Its length really prevents it from being much more than
> that.  After all, you can't really make an evening out of Lost Cities
> unless you want to play it 50 or 60 times.  Its a quick game with some real
> decisions and its actually very fun.  My only gripe is that its connection
> to its theme is tenuous at best.  
> 
> -bob

Larry Welborn <larrywelborn@home.com> wrote:
> The games does play quickly.  But last night we played 4 games of 3
> rounds each before we switched to a game of El Caballero and Caesar &
> Cleopatra.  Most Kosmos 2 player games do not get multiple plays in a
> sitting from me.  Both Kahuna and C&C are quick enough for multiple
> plays but 1 game an evening is about all I care for.  Lost Cities is a
> game I can play multiple times in one sitting without tiring of it and
> it was the featured game of the evening last night.
> 
> You are right about the theme being tenuous at best.  Unfortunately,
> that is an affliction common to many German games.  But for me, a good
> game with a theme tacked on is better than a good theme with a game
> tacked on.
>
> Larry

paul@z-com.com (Paul Beakley) wrote:
> We've also been playing a lot of this -- both as a filler (handy when
> you have 6 people show for a 4-person game night) and as a game for
> family and friends.
> 
> Paul

echoota@aol.com (EChoota) wrote:
> Here are my first impressions of Lost Cities.  I didn't know of the game before
> I saw it on the shelf.  A whole bunch of other Rio Grande games had just come
> into the store and I was hesitant to plunk down my money on things like Big
> City, Union Pacific, etc. until I'd had a chance to play them.  Nonetheless I
> HAD to buy something.  Lost Cities looked interesting, a card game about
> treasure hunting.  Images of Raiders of the Lost Ark flowed through my head and
> I was off to the counter.
> 	Once I had a chance to sit down and read the rules I was a bit dismayed.  All
> the rules could fit on easily one sheet of paper.  Basically you get dealt
> eight cards, and then on your turn you either play a card or discard, and then
> draw another card.  You can play your cards to five different locations. 
> Investment cards which give multiplier bonuses need to be put down before
> exploration cards if you want to use them.  Exploration cards must be put down
> in a sequential manner.  That's about it.
> 	So much for a variety of different cards, locations and all the other chrome
> detail that I was hoping to find.  I looked again at the back cover and saw
> Knizia's name and it all made sense.  It's a mathematically constructed game
> system that had a theme pasted onto it.  That's why we have the unnecessary
> game board, I suppose in the hopes that if enough atmostsphere is presented
> then players may actually think of the game as being intended as an exploration
> game.
> 	Despite the game not being what I had hoped it to be I still find it to be an
> entertaining and short little game.  Knizia knows how to make a tension filled
> game and this one has it.  Elizabeth and I sat down to try out the game.  After
> I spent the two seconds explaining the rules she scrunched her nose and said,
> "that's it?"  We played our hands and by the end of the round we found
> ourselves deep in the red point wise.  Evidently there is a little more to the
> game.  With the mistakes made in the first round now clear to us now we had a
> feel for the game.  This resulted in a flurry of cussing the following rounds
> as we once again over extended our investments and watched with dread as the
> drawcard pile quickly vanished.  We still sucked but now we knew what we should
> be doing.  By the end of the first game my radical conservative play of cards
> let me pull myself out of the red while Elizabeth made steady but less
> profitable progress.
> 	With only two sessions under my belt I'm not ready to claim this as a classic
> but Elizabeth and I have found the game to be entertaining to the point of us
> playing an extra hour at a time because it induces that "one more round"
> effect.  Few games induce that effect in me save for 4X computer games, and
> both times we played I had to force myself to stop otherwise I'd be a zombie
> the next day at the office.  In fact, I'm trying to stay awake right now at
> work by writing this simply because I stayed up too late playing this game.
> 	I don't think anyone is going to be blown away by this game but so far it's
> been fun and addictive once you get into the game.  The simple rules hide some
> rather tough decision making and the more you play the more subtleties you'll
> find.  I've read elsewhere the complaint that there is no player interaction. 
> In a direct sense yes, but once you peer into the system you'll see that there
> are plenty of ways of screwing over the other player through the retention of
> cards.  The more you pay attention to the other player's game the better yours
> will be.

"Robert Rossney" <rbr@well.com> wrote:
> >So much for a variety of different cards, locations and all the other chrome
> >detail that I was hoping to find.  I looked again at the back cover and saw
> >Knizia's name and it all made sense.  It's a mathematically constructed game
> >system that had a theme pasted onto it.  That's why we have the unnecessary
> >game board, I suppose in the hopes that if enough atmostsphere is presented
> >then players may actually think of the game as being intended as an exploration
> >game.
> 
> True, but I think a little unfair.  Personally I find the board and the
> cards delightful.  I especially like the care that has gone into designing
> the five different expeditions.  If you just break out the game and start
> playing it, you won't notice that the suits are like little movies.  The
> theme is not integrated into the mechanics of the game - that is, there's
> nothing in the gameplay about working your way down to the secret lost city
> in the center of the earth like Arne Sagnussen - but it's very well
> integrated into the game's components.  The cards could simply be 2 through
> 9 of five different colors, but they're not, and I find the way that they're
> not quite pleasing.  And in this household, at least, the game gets enough
> play that it's worth having good components.
> 
> > Few games induce that effect in me save for 4X computer games, and
> >both times we played I had to force myself to stop otherwise I'd be a zombie
> >the next day at the office.
> 
> I've noticed this about Lost Cities too.  After playing a hand, both my wife
> and I want to start over again almost immediately, to see if *this* time
> we'll start out with a better hand.  It's a lot like playing FreeCell, where
> win or lose the first thing you do when you're done with a game is click
> "New game."
> 
> >I've read elsewhere the complaint that there is no player interaction.
> >In a direct sense yes, but once you peer into the system you'll see that there
> >are plenty of ways of screwing over the other player through the retention of
> >cards.  The more you pay attention to the other player's game the better yours
> >will be.
> 
> The more experienced the players, the more interesting the bluffing game
> becomes.  For example:  if my opponent has started building on red, blue,
> and green, and I'm trying to build on white but don't quite have the cards I
> need to get started, I find that playing a yellow investment card
> occasionally coaxes a key white discard out of her.  It's a gamble:  I'm
> betting that over the course of the game I'll draw enough yellow cards that
> playing the investment card won't punish me too badly, but if it gets her to
> discard a white investment card that I can use to triple or quadruple the
> white 9 and 10 I have in my hand, it's even worth losing points for.  Now
> that she's figured out that I may be doing this, though, when she sees that
> yellow investment card come down she has to think through whether or not I'm
> bluffing when choosing from among a yellow 3 and a white investment card to
> discard.
> 
> I don't think this is the deepest game yet devised by any means, but it's
> deeper than it looks.  And it's very fast-paced.  Also, it expands on Alan
> Moon's principle of giving the player the choice between several equally
> desireable options:  often, you have to choose between several equally
> *undesireable* options.
> 
> Bob Rossney

echoota@aol.com (EChoota) wrote:
> >True, but I think a little unfair.  Personally I find the board and the
> >cards delightful. 
> 
> Ah, I didn't mean to come off like that.  I think the layout of the game is
> great.  The board, while not really necessary, still provides a nice quality
> and tone to the game.  The cards are great also with their pan and zoom effect
> as you get closer to your destination.  I was just hoping from the look and
> feel of the game for something else, I'm still pleased with what I got.