@⚗️alchemist⚗️ I have a bit of a problem with board games, and I think you're the only person who would have a decent answer.
I would like to play a board game with the following properties:
1) If both players are playing optimally, the win rate of the game must not necessarily be possible for both players to know before the game has begun. (This excludes Chess and Go - which are solvable - and it excludes Rock-Paper-Scissors and Poker because optimal strategies with fixed win rates exist.)
2) The game must be meaningfully playable with a variable number of players.
3) The game's fundamental skill must not be diplomacy. (A sufficiently good player should be able to fight off every other player if they all suck).
For two players, such games exist. For many trading card games, you do not know what your opponent's deck looks like before playing - so it is not possible to calculate your win rate before playing. Large amounts of hidden information solves 1) readily.
For 3+ players, I haven't found such a game. I'm aware that MtG has such a format, but my understanding is that it essentially boils down to diplomacy. Many strategy video games are like this too - Dominions 5 is an exercise in diplomacy at high level play.
I'm a little stuck, because I'm bored with the board games I play - I get proficient at them, and then I can see that highly skilled players simply have a tree memorized and then I get bored. I was wondering if you had any ideas for games which get around this issue.