Caylus was wildly popular for a year or two, but it's rare to see people play it now. Ironically, the game designer was too good at removing the element of luck for the game to be popular.
Ah, yes. I had this experience with my card game, Ambition ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhH... ). I came up with the concept when I was overseas (Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, fall 2003) and had left my German-style games at home, but wanted a low-luck card game (regular deck) to play. Building a trick-taking card game with minimal hand-luck turns out to be really hard, and involved a lot of statistical work, but I managed to get it down to a point where about 3-4% of the variance (in a typical 75-minute game) was drawn cards.
The problem was that it was over-optimized and too complicated and, being a theme-less abstract card game, it still didn't have a fully "German" feel in any case. So I ended up taking rules out and injecting small amounts of card-luck back into the game to make it more fun to play. Now it's closer to 5-6%, which I'm fine with. Scaling back the optimizations made it a better game.
It took some time, though, to convince myself that it's a feature that I (still probably the most experienced player) only win about 45% of 4-player games.
I think Seasons has a low random factor compared to other card games. This is despite the fact the game incorporates both cards and dice. You can play it online for free on http://boardgamearena.com . You can watch people play without registering.
1) Rather than starting with a random hand, the game starts with a draft. Each player gets some random cards, he must pick one of them and pass them to the next player. So even if you get all "great cards" at first, you can only take one. By the time your cards go back to you, pieces of your dream combo might be gone.
2) Dice are used for option selection, not tests of success/failure. Players+1 dice are rolled, each player picks one. The last player usually has an interesting choice too, because the die that wasn't picked determines how much time passes in the game.
3) Cards are balanced very well. Out of 50 cards, there are only 2 clear stinkers: Balance of Ishtar and Idol of the Familiar. The rest are so well balanced the game gets away with "you get -5 points per card in hand at the end of the game" rule.
4) Many card-drawing effects offer you a choice. Amulet of Fire makes you take 4 cards and discard 3 of them. Divine Chalice works in a very similar way, so does Naria. You can even activate a power which gives you a choice between 2 cards when you draw one (draws are very rare in this game, it's entirely possible to win the game without a single card past your initial 9).
5) 3 times per game, for a price of negative VP, you can bend the rules. This is an another airbag against random screwage.
So in summary, there is a random factor but best players keep winning consistently.
In general, I like games which have randomized options but (pretty much) deterministic results of actions taken. Wesnoth is a bad example, the outcome of your attack is highly random. Neuroshima Hex makes you draw 3 cards each turn and play 2 of them, but apart from that the game is deterministic. Furthermore, if you get bad cards at the start the luck tends to even out over the period of the game, because later you'll be drawing only good cads. Each player has his own deck and the usual win condition is when a deck runs out. I highly recommend the game. You can play it online, too:
http://online.neuroshima.org/
Ah, yes. I had this experience with my card game, Ambition ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S7lsZKzHuuhoTb2Wj_L3zrhH... ). I came up with the concept when I was overseas (Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, fall 2003) and had left my German-style games at home, but wanted a low-luck card game (regular deck) to play. Building a trick-taking card game with minimal hand-luck turns out to be really hard, and involved a lot of statistical work, but I managed to get it down to a point where about 3-4% of the variance (in a typical 75-minute game) was drawn cards.
The problem was that it was over-optimized and too complicated and, being a theme-less abstract card game, it still didn't have a fully "German" feel in any case. So I ended up taking rules out and injecting small amounts of card-luck back into the game to make it more fun to play. Now it's closer to 5-6%, which I'm fine with. Scaling back the optimizations made it a better game.
It took some time, though, to convince myself that it's a feature that I (still probably the most experienced player) only win about 45% of 4-player games.