Let's Talk About Root

I think their review of this one is very good contentwise. It's a possible critique; Root is like a short dynamic puzzle.

They argue that once everyone knows the puzzle it isn't that great but I'm not sure that's true, ymmv etc.

I didn't really dig their review because it felt like Quinns wanted Root to be a euro game. He says his enjoyment came from learning factions and trying to do "their thing", and that he ran out of game when he tried them all. That's the exact point where you should be able to play the "real" game, so to speak! Root's meant to be played above the table, not heads-down staring at a player board.

I tend to agree with you, but since Root is so short I think it's a fair argument that Root barely allows you time (that 30vp ends quick) to do much above the table gaming.

I find table talk and politicking matters a lot. Most of the factions are pretty darn fragile if more than one person decides to kick their sandcastle at a bad time.

Played a couple solo 1v1 games to get a hang of the game a little more.

Eyrie v. Marquise, 30-29. Was a back and forth affair Marquise would have won if any decent crafting cards were drawn in the latter half. Eyrie went into turmoil once, because he ran out of troops to place during his recruit steps!

Eyrie v. Woodland Alliance, 30-16. Alliance got a base and tried to go on the offensive, destroying just one roost. Got smacked down hard and was unable to stop the Eyrie's run. Much too early for me to say with any certainty, but 2p games seem hard as the Woodland Alliance.

From a design perspective I think it's interesting that 7/8 of the recommended game compositions on page 22 of the "Learning to Play" guide include the Eyrie. Because of the decree, they force action and can't exactly turtle. Their roost growth provide a game clock that others have to meet or beat. In playing them, I found that I went into turmoil a lot less once I used Battle and Build more sparingly, or only bird cards in those slots.

4 player game of root, some of the same players so we just shuffled things around. Two of us were alittle annoyed with the vagabond last time, so we played Eyrie, WA, Cats, Riverfolk.

Cat player did a great job of pumping up numbers, buying bird cards from the Riverfolk and then deciding....Here. I'm here and you aren't. He did complain alittle about the lack of build spots due to the Vagabond not being present.

Eyrie was new to the game and had a hard time managing the decree. we let him take a couple turns back when he'd set himself up to collapse after only 1 or 2 turns due to his build limits. overall he liked the game, but wasn't the powerhouse that the eyrie was last game.

Woodland alliance popped up with bases in a corner in two adjacent clearings and just scared everyone. maybe jumped the gun alittle as the riverfolk plopped a bunch of otters in a base spot and then the cats and birds paid him to take out the base there. after that initial two bases jumping out at once, the other players kept him beat down pretty well.

as the riverfolk again, I did much better with selling services...but also making trade posts with my own pieces. and crafting items to "export" for extra pieces. Crafting is big deal with these guys to score points.

Last game it was Eyrie/Vagabond at the top. this time it was the Cats and Riverfolk battling to the finish, with the Cats using the card (score 1 point for each clearing you rule) to jump to 29 points, then attacked a lone trade post for the win.

lj1983 wrote: as the riverfolk again, I did much better with selling services...but also making trade posts with my own pieces. and crafting items to "export" for extra pieces. Crafting is big deal with these guys to score points.

I played Riverfolk for the first time the other day and I didn’t do all that well. Of course I forgot about building trade posts off myself for the first few turns so that was a bad start. I also found exporting to be mostly useless except to bury cards you don’t want others to get. Because you have to commit 2 funds to get the same effect as doing nothing.

Vysetron wrote: I didn't really dig their review because it felt like Quinns wanted Root to be a euro game. He says his enjoyment came from learning factions and trying to do "their thing", and that he ran out of game when he tried them all. That's the exact point where you should be able to play the "real" game, so to speak! Root's meant to be played above the table, not heads-down staring at a player board.

I also got the impression that he was almost always teaching someone new and having to make sure everyone was following the rules, making it take longer for him to get to the 'real game.'

Last night I played with the 8 year old. He has been organizing his stuffed animals according to which faction they'd belong to. He doesn't have any birds, but his bat stuffed animal has been recruited by the Eyrie. With heavy coaching, his Birds stomped my Woodland Alliance 30-12. The one nice thing about the birds for a younger player is that everything has to happen in a specific order, the downside is eventually you're doing ~10 actions per turn, and going into turmoil would be upsetting, even with a heavy lead. He had the Despot, which meant he got 2 points each time he crushed my sympathy tokens, and it often just meant a card off the top of the deck would go to my supporters. Seems like the WA need some other factions in the mix to draw a little attention away from them. For most of the game, he was heavy on Recruit and Move, with just one bird card each in battle (after 3rd turn) and Build. I'm starting to see why it suggests you flip the teams and see who can do better in a given matchup with 2p games.

Played a 5 player game last night. Cats, Birds, Vagabond, otters, and Lizards. We also played on the winter map.

I played the otters again, and had a much better time. I got all of my trading posts out except one, and I was in the lead at 20 VP when both the birds and the lizards went for Dominance. Lizard player ended up taking it. That fifth player really gives you a bunch more things to think about and deal with. More people to keep track of, etc. I think I prefer it with 4, but we'll see how future 5 player games go.

Also not a fan of the winter map, after a single play. Most of the same clearing suits were bunched together, and it just felt smaller with fewer options. Going to avoid this if possible. I'm curious how the two new maps will play.

Got another game tomorrow, hopefully straight vanilla all the way.

Yeah, the idea of the unbalanced custom map doesn't do much for me hypothetically.

Played around solo again in anticipation of a 3 player game tonight, but I had all 4 out. The Marquise got some good items early, so the Vagabond decided to trade with him and stick it to the Eyrie. Seeing this, the Woodland Alliance focused on spreading sympathy in Cat territory. Marquise got to an early 20-10 ish lead, but it ended up being really close with the Vagabond taking the win. The Eyrie didn't draw a bird card all game, so got stuck with a couple difficult "I can't turn left" Zoolander-roborally turns. Still managed to crawl back up to 18 VP as everyone relaxed pressure on them.

I have a couple rules questions though.

1) Can the Woodland Alliance cause revolts in clearings matching a suit if they've already placed that base? Do you just do as much as you can in the revolt text or do you have to do it all?

2) Can the Vagabond dump a hand of 4 cards (and exhaust 4 items) to get 8 points in one turn with their ally? If so I guess the in-game response is to play whack-a-vagabond for a bit.

1) Revolt only happens in a clearing matching an unbuilt base.

2) yep.

That's what I thought, thanks.

I made some meeples for the two new factions on my 3D printer. Just need to paint them the appropriate colors, as I don't have the right color filaments.



Now that I have a legit copy of the game, I'll probably turn the PnP map I originally made into a double sided version with the Mountain and Lake maps. Let's see if I actually use them before December when the real versions are released.

It's extremely interesting to me that rank and file TWBG regulars (not our/any reviewers who post here) seem to be really digging into this game like 8 months after it reached its peak hotness...