But I do like the multi-player, teamwork and intellectual challenge aspects of the game. I am not a techno-wiz and this is the only on-line multi-player game I have tried, so maybe I should try some others.

What other games do you suggest? I need something relatively easy to learn/break into, but with intellectual challenge, not pure luck.

Like perhaps Civilization? I heard mixed reviews on the latest version

Perhaps WOW? I heard its extremely addictive. Dip is plenty addictive, I don't want something to completely consume my life. That might be fun, but I can't afford it ;)

http://www.gametableonline.com/

You can play Axis and Allies here (costs a little), but I find it is a nice change of pace from Dip- no stabbing, just your alliance vs. your opponents.

(gg, by the way- unfortunate end, but, eh...it happens)

@pw-what is Settlers of Catan? whats it about? how many people play at a time? is it online? does it cost money? how addictive is it? (these are the questions I will want to know about all suggestions)

and THANKS!

@Barn-that sounds really good, i will check it out. How is the A&A community? are they brainy like this crowd?

and no problem with that game we just finished. I got suckered in by ebay, I knew he was lying about doing a 2way draw but my head wasn't in the game, and I messed up.

Axis and Allies- online, up to 5 players, $10 (one time purchase of Axis and Allies (revised). The site has a number of board games (especially Avalon Hill). Quite frankly, I think this community is unique and a bit of rarity. So, no nothing quite like this. However, I played a bit of A&A when I was younger and simply got worked when I first joined. There are some really smart players and it is a solid strategy game.

chess?

Crazy, Settlers of Catan is a board game that has a cult following, much like diplomacy. It's not that addictive, but the only place I know of to play it online closed membership because of too much interest. I'm lucky enough to have an account, but I don't know where else you can play.

It's based around the acquisition of resources. Every time the board is randomized. There are 36 (I think) hexagons that are placed randomly. Each one has a resource. Then chips with numbers 2-12 are placed, again randomly, on each hexagon. Every turn, you roll two die, and everyone gets resources for each hexagon next to their cities with the number chip on it that was rolled. You use these to build roads, special cards, and more cities. It's pretty fun.

Carcassonne - great game and they have it for the PC and smartphones. Also RoboRally, but that requires a lot of logic as you "program" your robot to maneuver through a hazardous environment.

take up serial killing, the cutting of thoats is still the same but at least you could get your picture in the papers.

VASSAL is an open-source boardgame engine with a ton of game modules already built, and if you spend a little time learning the system, you can design your own. It supports real-time and PBEM games. (A little bit of a learning curve to get started, but I'd say worth it.)

They have many interesting P2P games and variants here: www.itsyourturn.com. My personal favourite is Dark Chess - you can only see the squares your pieces can move too. They also have Horde Chess (one player has a normal setup, the other has 32 pawns) and Chinese Chess (Xiangqi - with elephants, cannon and a river crossing the board).

xiangqi was the very first game I learned to play.
I think of Settlers as Diplomacy with economics and space rather than armies and space.

Settlers of Catan is a pretty solid board game. And the nice thing is if you and your friends play it a lot, it has pretty decent add-ons to keep it interesting. The cards (not the card game version) but the cards that replace the dice add a nice flavor while getting rid of some of the extreme randomness of the dice (rolling 11 more often than 8 for example.) It is good for 3 or 4 people. The 5/6 player expansion is way too slow IMHO.

My favorite board game is Cosmic Encounters. Very chaotic game. Best played with 5 players, but 4 or 6 work good too. But you have to be careful what version you buy. The Hasbro version was a dumbed down crappy version. The new Fantasy Flight version is supposed to be back to being a good game. I personally play the older Mayfair version.

As for games you can play on the computer, all I can say is that WoW is very much a treadmill game. It can be fun but after awhile you realize it is all the same. If you've got time to dedicate to raiding, that might be different. I don't anymore. But back in my Everquest days, raiding was an absolute blast. 50-60 of your closest friends all working together on a goal was an amazing rush. I think the raid sizes in WoW are smaller though.

Oh, and for Settlers of Catan, there are versions you can play solo with the other positions being played by the computer. I can ask my friend for where to find that if you want. But not until Monday.

Erm... You could also look into Triple A if you don't want to pay anything, and get into the Axis & Allies gaming. I've never actually played it online (partly out of fear from my lack of skill, and partly because the online interface is mildly confusing).

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki

games against AI are still fairly decent.

I'd have to agree with the two that have been mentioned the most: Settlers and A&A.

The best site I've found for Settlers is here: http://games.asobrain.com/

But, they're no longer accepting new registration. I'd check back every so often to see if that changes.

A&A is much more like Diplomacy in the sense that it's a military game. However, it's much more tactical, while Diplomacy is more strategic. The teams are set (Axis vs. Allies) so you never have to worry about brutal stabs. But, you still need to co-ordinate with your teammates, so there is a decent amount of negotiation. So, this may be the perfect game for you.

There are many version of A&A, so if you're interested, you should ask before you buy it so you get the "best" one.

I was thinking something similar a while back and after a few internet searches I came across an old flame from my 1980's role playing days: it's a fun blend of all the elements you are addicted to from Dip and once you learn the domain it could replace your cravings for hysterics and team work. However I have not joined any of the sites:

http://www.paranoia-live.net
http://www.gamestalks.com/directory/Roleplaying_Genres_Science_Fiction_Paranoia.html

It's a kind of THX 1138 sci-fi citizens-in-a-world-of-ID-monitored-authoritarianism (prophetic for its time if you look at todays government). Some Jap dude apparently wrote an app for internet play........
Of course, roleplay isn't everyones cup'o'tea. Playing Diplomacy AND paranoia will possibly result in personality disorder!!

If you want to play boardgames on the net try http://www.brettspielwelt.de/
You can login with any name without a password, you just need to register if you want to have a tracking of your stats. Main language is German, but everybody can talk in English too. There is an English help site: http://www.brettspielwelt.info/

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-euphrates

I'd recommend this game, Euphrates and Tigris. Best played with four players. It's a game about division of power, and four kinds of power at that: commerce, religion, agriculture and political power. Each player has his own leader of one of the spheres. You can build and expand your own city and other leaders can call it their home. You can work together and challenge others. Empires will rise and fall. If you excell you can build a Temple and gain valuable points very turn. But remember, your leader needs a temple...

Wow so many good suggestions! Thank you everyone.

The Civilization board game (the original, not the one based on Sid Meier's Civ) is one of my favorites. The best feature (in a multi-player game) is that civilizations rise and fall over time, so every player will have a chance to dominate at one time or another. Also, because trading is a major component, even players who fall behind can influence the game. The trading would make it hard to play over email efficiently.

i just started playing this about 2 or 3 weeks ago when i saw some friends at school playing it. i LOVE strategy games and the thing with stabbing is that since its an online game and you know you cant trust everyone, even when you have a strong alliance make sure you keep some defense against stabs and warn your ally that your putting units up for purely defensive positions and make sure you support your own lines. best thing to do is create a stalemate line with allies so that neither player can advance on the other, this prevents stabbings and will make the game more enjoyable. i dont want to brag or anything but being a beginner on this game i dont want to give advice and not be able to back it up so if you check my profile you will see that not only have i been doing very well for a beginner but i advanced into the top 60% of players in the short amount of time i've been playing this game. i hope this advice helps =)

http://www.hattrick.org/
great football manager game

Crazyter, I am sure you would enjoy the Settlers of Catan. Try it out for free at www.playcatan.com. The tutorial explains the game quite well.

You can find out about a bunch of games on boardgamegeek.com
Their ranked list is also very good for looking at the more popular games and they also have categories.
Le Havre, Puerto Rico, Agricola and Tigris and Euphrates are definitely my favorite games. Le Havre and Agricola both use worker placement to get actions accomplished with very different themes. Puerto Rico's mechanism is taking an action each round in order to accomplish more complex tasks and Tigris and Euphrates has been described above. I don't know where to play online but face to face is always good if you can find enough people willing to sit down for 2-3 hours.

there is a german page (although is almost completely translated into, say, eng or spanish) which is http://www.brettspielwelt.de/, where there is a very amusing comunity, they have free to play Colons of Catan, Carcasone, and a lot more games. (Dominion I'd recomend)

I can also vouch for Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico - have played both many times but only F2F.

I like Agricola, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Carcasonne...etc, I suggest checking out boardgamegeek.com. One of my absolute favorite sites. Many of these games have made their way over to the net, and you can find links to them on boardgamegeek.com.

Best of luck!

Minecraft : )

what most succesful players do on this site is multi-account. that way you always have loyal allies! much more fun :)

@fiedler,
I know I don't multi-account, and I think I can safely say that players such as MadMarx, Ebay, Crazyter, TGM, Julien, and Babak don't either.

i got really fed up playing Settlers of Catan. My sister bought the board game. its all like natural resources and stuff. By the end of it i was fed up and wanted to use armies to just take the dang ore.

Also if you play settlers enough, you eventually get tired of people asking you if you have "wood for sheep".

One game that's less well-known but still a good time is history of the world.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-of-the-world

Only played it live but I found a site that has it online.

*History of The World*

Have you heard of MUD/MUSH type of games?

MUD - Multi User Dungeon. It is a text-based real-time type of game, there are dozens of them out there. You use a special client such as zMUD to connect to these games. I used to spend hundreds of hours on it when I was a bit younger.

Abgemacht +2

If you're interested in MUD and coding, have a look at MOOs - MUD Object Orientated
Can't imagne you are, but who knows. My first decent coding came up on a MOO - oh those were the days :P

Mine too. I was a pretty high wizard (coder) on DuneMUD from 2000 to 2005 or so.

Wow, MUDs are still around? I played various DikuMUDs from about 1991-1996, and in 1996 even people were migrating off them in droves because online gaming wasn't just text anymore.

I only *joined* the MOO I was on in about 2004 :P

I programmed on Kallisti Mud back in 91-93. Just did a google on it and found one by the same name, but I'm not sure if it is the same one or just someone using the same name. It was a DikuMUD.

Carcassone and Settlers of Catan (which I noted were mentioned above) are great games. This Christmas I bought the family "Dominion" and a couple of expansions (Intrigue and Seaside). GREAT game. Short games, different strategies for different setups. Easy to learn...just good fun. HIGHLY recommend Dominion.

Oh..Agricola - mentioned above....also good. More complexity. El Grande is another good one that requires a bit of strategy to master and win.