I've spent thousands of hours of my life playing and studying chess and go. There are very few games that are rich enough to come close to holding my interest a

I've spent thousands of hours of my life playing and studying chess and go. There are very few games that are rich enough to come close to holding my interest as much as those; poker, Titan, and Diplomacy are the only ones that immediately come to mind. Then last year I finally delved into 18xx (I had vaguely known about the genre for decades) and it leaped into that list as well. There have been a few projects to make these games playable on computers over the years, but http://18xx.games/ http://18xx.games/, launched this year, is in my opinion clearly the best (disclaimer: I'm a contributor to the codebase). Ideally you can find a game with experienced players who are eager to help a newbie learn the ropes.