Lost Cities is a card game. It’s a good game, but the board that comes with it is meaningless. I can’t imagine trying to turn it into a full board game if the game play is the same. If anything, make the cards smaller and sell it as a simple deck.

Jim, from what I have seen from Nuremburg photos, the board for this game is a main part of the gameplay and is much more than just a place to lay cards. It looks like the game will have similar cardplay to Lost Cities but quite a few new elements and a different feel as well.

Marketing this as Lost Cities the boardgame seems like an excellent move to me. Not only will it grab fans of the cardgame, but seems like it will work thematically with the board… players are increasing their position on the various scoring tracks - kinda sounds like exploration.

I was responding to Jay’s “same game” comment. If it’s a different game, then fine.

He means, it’s the same game as Keltis, not the same as Lost Cities.

I just lost some respect for Jay.  Changing the theme to capitalize on the success of a different game is totally uncool.  Besides, Celtic myth and history don’t have enough representation in the board game worlds, while pirates, Vikings, and railroads have too much.

I can’t speak to the coolness, Eric, but I assure you such capitilization happens *all the time*.  Besides, I’d be willing to bet that the Celtic theme of the original was paper thin and very well may have been a retheming of the original design.  So what’s the difference?

Yes, I’m fairly certain that it started out as the Lost Cities boardgame, then was changed by Kosmos to Keltis for their own marketing reasons, but others who are co-producing it with them decided to keep the original theme.

The board is much more an integral part of this one, by the way.

"I’d be willing to bet that the Celtic theme of the original was paper thin”

Well, uh...this IS Knizia we’re talking about…

The difference?  The difference is that one version of the game was presumably Knizia’s idea while the other was a publisher’s idea.  It’s not a big difference, it’s not a significant difference, but it’s not a necessary difference, either.  If, as you say, the theme doesn’t matter, then they shouldn’t have gone through the trouble of changing the one that Knizia came up with in the first place.

Theme is a big difference to a marketing department!

As Jeff points out, who says that Knizia came up with the Celtic theme?

I don’t own Lost Cities yet… I think it’s great that I will be able to get a 2-4 player version instead of just 2 players… and if there is a rules difference, I can just get the old rules for Lost Cities online!

The 5-6 player expansions always peeved me about Settlers and their refusal at Mayfair/Teuber to do a big box. At least Jay will always try to accommodate both the new and old players of games he makes!

Re-theming is all about money and what works for one may not work for others. It happens before games get published all the time for many different reasons. It really isn’t a big deal unless the game is so tied to its theme that changing it kills the game… which most games f do not, so no biggy.

"Changing the theme to capitalize on the success of a different game is totally uncool.”

In this case, the mechanics of Lost Cities are the basis for Keltis.  It is much “cooler” to clearly identify the new game’s origins and nature than it is to apply an entirely new theme. 

However, looking at the cards, I see no numbers on them.  I have a feeling that this new game may be more “inspired by Lost Cities” than it is a four player implementation of the original game.

Jonathan - there are numbers on the cards. If you look at the BBG image of the board and card - they are in the rocks.

Opps i meant BGG, but i am sure you knew what i was trying to say.