Catan - Cities & Knights

The players in the game represent the eponymous settlers, establishing a colony on the previously uninhabited island of Catan. The island itself is laid out randomly at the beginning of each game from hexagonal tiles ("hexes") of different land types each producing one type of resource: ore, grain, wool, lumber, or clay (brick). One hex is desert which does not produce anything.

"Catan – Cities & Knights" offers gripping gaming fun for everyone – from fans since day one to first-time players. There are a total of eight different computer opponents to choose from. The extensive Campaign includes many varied scenarios, from the simple Basic Game to diverse Seafarers scenarios (Oceania and Heading for New Shores, among others) to Cities & Knights scenarios in combination with Seafarers (Greater Catan C&K, among others).

Download the Catan from here.

Travian

While Travian is a strategy game, with events occurring and resources accumulated in real time, it should not be confused with other types of real time strategy games where actions occur in a highly interactive and fast paced environment. The player starts with a village but seeks to amass an empire.



See a detailed description at Wikipedia.

Or play it online free here.

Metro board game

Build metro tracks in the metropolis of Paris to reach to longest path. It's real fun to fight against the computer or other human.

Read more about the game here.

Play Metro online free here.

Play chess

The invention of Chess has been attributed to the Indians both by the Persian people and by the Arabs who later conquered Persia. Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī, an Arab historian, provided scholarly details of the game as it was played in India and elsewhere. He details the use of chess as a tool for warfare strategy, mathematical calculations, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy.Mas'ūdī notes that Ivory in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon pieces used by the Indians, and asserts that the game was introduced from India along with the book Kelileh va Demneh during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.



Play chess online free here.

Read more about chess at Wikipedia.

Scrabble

Scrabble is a popular word game and board game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles.


Read more about Scrabble at Wikipedia.

Play it online free at games.com or at scrabulous.com.

Hoity-Toity

The players in the game represent the members of the pretentious Antique Club. Their goal in life is to have a better collection of old stuff than every other member in the club. They have two options every turn, choosing where to go (the Auction House to bid on an antique, or a manor house to participate in a competitive exhibit) and what to do there. The outcome of the players' actions depends on the choices and card play of the other players in the same location. The game therefore includes a considerable bluffing component.

Read more about the game at wikipedia.

Play it online free at spielbyweb.com or read the rules here.

The Princes of Florence

The Princes of Florence is a board game playing in the medieval Florence city. The players should attract artisans, professions, which enriches the city culturally.




Source of the image is: http://blog.pixnet.net/haofeng/post/1177319

Read more about the game at boardgamegeek.com or at brettspielwelt.de.

Play it online free here.

Ludo

Ludo is one of the most played game of my childhood. It is easy learn and makes lots of fun for the players.

During game play a piece moves from its starting square, clockwise around the perimeter of the board, and up the player's home column to the finishing square. In the space to the left of each arm is a circle or square to hold a player's pieces before they are allowed into play.


Read more about the game at wikipedia.


Play Ludo online free here.

Samurai

Samurai is a board game where the players fight on the four major Japanese islands to increase their influences.
The Samurai won the German Game Prize 4th place award in 1999.

Read more about the game at wikipedia.



Play it online free here. In order to play it you should create an account on the site.

Crokinole

Players take turns shooting discs across the circular playing surface, trying to have their discs land in the higher-scoring regions of the board, while also attempting to knock away opposing discs.

More about the rules here.


The soure of picture: http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca

Play Crokinole online free.

Stratego

Stratego is a strategic board game featuring a 10 × 10 square board and two players with 40 pieces each. Pieces represent individual officers and soldiers in an army, though the game is in all other respects an abstract strategy game. The object of the game is to find and capture the opponent's Flag, or to capture so many pieces that the opponent cannot move at all. Players cannot see the ranks of each others' pieces, so misinformation and discovery are important parts of the game.

Read more about the game at boardgamecentral or at wikipedia.

Play Stratego online free here.


The source of the image is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stratego_Board.jpg.

Puerto Rico

Players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy. The aim of the game is to amass victory points, mainly by shipping goods to the Old World or by constructing buildings.

Puerto Rico can be played by three to five players, although an official two player variant also exists. There is an official expansion which adds new buildings which can be swapped in for those in the original game. In February, 2004, Andreas Seyfarth released a separate card-game named San Juan based on Puerto Rico and published by the same companies.


The source of image is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Puerto_Rico_setup.jpg.

More about the game read at wikipedia.

Play it online here.
In order to play, you will first need to install the Curl © RTE (Runtime Environment), version 5.0 (or 4.0 or 3.0), available (free) via the Curl RTE download page at www.curl.com for Windows (an 8 meg installer) and Linux (a 16 meg rpm).

Rails-Across-America

Another popular railroad board game available playing online. Your attempt to railroad the United States into falling under your monopolistic thumb, you'll need to build tracks connecting to the many cities present on the map of the US and some in Canada and Mexico. But the goal here isn't really the money you make, but the prestige you gain from building the most and longest lines.



Unfortunatelly I haven't found free version but you could buy it here.
Some cheat codes here.

Ticket to Ride

Easy to play railway building games but with lots of strategies. Connect cities across the USA for high scoring routes. Colorful board and great little trains.

Read more about the game at wikipedia.

And of course play it online.



Source of picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_to_Ride_(board_game)

Abalone

Abalone is a two-player strategy board game which can be quaintly summarized as "sumo wrestling with marbles", as the objective is to push opposing marbles off the edge of the board. The rules can be mastered in a minute or two, and the flow of the game is fast-paced.





If you would like to know more about the game visit Wikipedia.

Or play it online free.