Tips lostcities

General

• Remember the 8-card rule; expeditions packed with numerous cards add a whopping 20 points!
• Drawing from the deck is vital. Obviously, if a good card is available among the discards, or you need to delay the endgame, take a discarded card. But otherwise, take from the deck, because either it's a card that may benefit you, a card you can discard to buy time, or a card your opponent wants.
• Keep in mind that if you leave a large gap in a suit, this helps your opponent: if you play Blue 7 after Blue 3, this helps your opponent gauge better what to do with Blue 4, 5, or 6; concealing that information and forcing them into indecision is important.

Discarding

• If you decide to bail on an expedition for which you have multiple cards, try to prevent your opponent from taking them all. For example, if you have a Green 4 and Green 5 and your opponent hasn't yet begun a Green expedition, consider discarding the 5 first; if your opponent takes it and ends up starting an expedition with it, then whatever you do with the 4 will be useless to your opponent.

Pacing

• Keep track of how many turns are left in the round by looking at the X ___ counter below the draw pile. Keep in mind that this number is for both players, so if it shows X10, that means you only have 5 more turns. Make sure to play all beneficial cards before the deck is empty and a new round is triggered.
• Try to position your deck-drawing so that you pull the final card, which makes the other player's last-drawn card unplayable.

Wagering and Score Management

• Wager cards are typically worth playing if you also hold a color-matching card; you can decide on your threshold of risk based on what you have and what same-color cards have already been played. To score well in this game, you must invest substantially in a venture without knowing in advance whether you will draw matching expedition cards in the right order.
• It's often more constructive to hold onto cards of a suit your opponent is trying to complete than to try to complete it yourself (at least until their expedition has surpassed your cards' values, so that they become unusable to your opponent if you later discard them).
• It's risky to attempt all 5 expeditions as you may end up wasting more turns just to get back to net zero across more expeditions rather than scoring higher with fewer ones; even if you embark on 4 expeditions, it's likely that one will score poorly, if not even negatively.
• Be willing to lose a small number of points in non-wagered suits if it'd allow you to stall and continue drawing from the deck to massively boost wagered expeditions. Effective stalling, even if it results in significant gaps while you wait for the cards you really need, is the heart of this game.