[biot]

Meta-question: board games like chess and go are entirely based upon skill, but are there board games similar to Monopoly or Catan where you have the board, pieces, cards that grant abilities, etc. which are based entirely upon skill?

You'd have to eliminate dice entirely and make movement solely the choice of the player, within a defined set of rules. Cards wouldn't come up randomly but would be earned based on objective criteria. Conflicts for position/status/etc. need to be settled objectively as well.

I can think of a number of computer games which might fit the criteria, but I'm unaware of what's out there in the physical board game world.

[mtm]

The closest one I've run into is Agricola: it's almost pure skill ('almost' because there is an optional set of 'occupation' cards that get randomly distributed at the beginning of the game). The theme is building out the best farm by the end of a set number of turns.

The main thrust of the game is for players to take turns choosing actions from a limited common pool that is reset at the beginning of each turn. One of the actions is 'go first next turn'. Everyone ends up competing for actions. The game seems complicated at first but is actually fairly simple. Great fun!

[gte910h]

If you like Agricola, try La Havre. Same guy, better game, similar amounts of luck. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35677/le-havre

[streptomycin]

This isn't an answer to your question, but I think it would be pretty easy to come up with a few rule changes to make Catan deterministic.

You could get rid of the dice rolls by saying that a tile with a certain number on it will produce a resource every X turns.

The robber could either be completely eliminated, or you could just have players take turns moving it at some interval.

[gte910h]

You've hit my hobby (but I dislike the games you're talking about).

I'd contend chess's outcome is based purely on the decisions of the players, but there are often close calls in that game as well, which it is reasonable your opponent will zig or zag, etc, where your chances of winning come up entirely on if you happened to believe if he was zigging or zagging and did moves to counter zigging or zagging appropriately several turns ago.

Multi-player games still have the chaos of multiple people making decisions. So yes, there is no technical randomness, there is still chaos and uncertainty:

Lifeboats: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/249/lifeboats <= People place various pawns representing their factions, in boats, then vote which boat to move, then vote which boat springs a leak. If your boat doesn't have enough room for everyone due to the number of leaks, you pick someone to drown. If your boat has more leaks than people, everyone on your boat drowns. Points are tallied by how many of your people survive the journey and to which island they get to after the above is repeated several times. There is a trump card, but everyone starts with 3 of them, they are not random.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy <= period of time of negotiation, everyone writes down secret orders, orders are resolved simultaneously using a very strict ordering.

Stratego: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1917/stratego <=Advance people in a chess like manner with player markers being partially hidden

Blokus: Lay down tiles and try to last as long as possible http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2453/blokus

Gemblo: Same as blokus, harder to find in the US, done better: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19427/gemblo

Antike: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19600/antike only luck is who you get as your place on the board. It's okay, but it has a certain snowball quality to play some games. Somewhat Risk like

Hive: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive chess, without a board, with bugs. Fun, short, but non-random

1830: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/421/1830-railways-robber-... a game about being a robber baron. Interesting stock market mechanic, etc.

Of these, lifeboats is a little fun, but honestly, most interesting game mechanics are there to make a game playable more than a few times (which is one thing the above games lack), and most of them have some degree of randomness. The next crop of games has a minimal random element:

Power Grid (Random element: which power plants will be up for auction): You all play Monte Burns esque robber barons over a electrification empire. Very "brain burner" to many people's minds: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

Puerto Rico (Random Element: which plantations are available this round): You play plantation owners on Puerto Rico during the days of the sugar trade. The theme is distasteful to some http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico

Chicago Express (Random Element: Seating order): Robber baron type scenario, but playtime is <1 hour after the first game or so: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31730/chicago-express

[biot]

When I said "like Monopoly or Catan" I wasn't looking for games similar to them in style or gameplay -- I meant like them in the sense that they have features such as cards and other additional game elements beyond just the board and playing pieces.

Come to think of it, Battleship is purely skill based though it's quite simplistic in that, like chess, it only has a board and pieces.

Thanks for the list. I'll check them out.

[gte910h]

I wasn't intentionally presenting ones similar in style or play, just in amounts of uncertainty.