Tobold's Blog
Friday, January 24, 2025
 
The Root Problem

Root is a board game that is currently ranked at place 30 on Boardgamegeek, and has won numerous board game awards. I don't own this game, but I'll have an opportunity to play it soon. Now, whenever I get invited to play a strategy game with other people, I have two major goals for the first game: 1) Look at least reasonably competent, and 2) don't be the designated victim. I don't mind losing, but I do mind playing badly in a way that more experienced players would snicker at. So I am at the very least trying to know all the rules, and maybe some basic strategy advice. The problem with Root is that this is already an immensely difficult task, reminding me a bit of the famous EVE Online learning curve. In most board games, players who have already played the game several times have an advantage over players playing it for the first time. But in Root that advantage is rather extreme. I don't know any other board game that is as new player unfriendly as Root is.

The problem with Root is that there are only very few rules that actually apply to all players. Instead, every player plays a highly asymmetric faction, with its own rules, own strategy, and own path to victory. Unless you know *every* faction very well (and expansions added a lot of factions), and you know the strategy of every faction, and how they would win the game, you can't even tell in an ongoing game of Root who is currently winning. And it isn't that easy to know how you would stop somebody from winning, because sometimes just trying to advance your own position can help another player more than it helps you. The only general strategy advice for Root is: Don't look like you are winning, so other players don't gang up on you, then win with a surprise dash for victory.

Basically, in Root there are 4 players, each playing a very different game, and the 4 games occasionally overlap. You need to learn the rules of all 4 games. Or all 8, if you are playing with all expansions. You might even want to consider all 70 possible combinations of 4 different factions out of 8, if you want to optimize your strategy. The one thing that is certain is that if you only understand the faction you are playing, and only concentrate on advancing that one faction, you'll probably lose the game.

I can see the interest in such a game, but to me it appears very hard to get into. There is a video game version of Root on Steam and mobile, where playing through various factions to learn them seem feasible. But in real life, a 4-player game of Root can go well beyond 2 hours, and the number of games you'd need to play before being truly proficient with all factions is staggering. I do like some asymmetry in board games, but in Root it might simply be too much.

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Basically, in Root there are 4 players, each playing a very different game, and the 4 games occasionally overlap.

Not really. The game has a lot of interaction among players, it's absolutely not something like Wingspan where everyone plays in his corner. Territory control means that the games overlap a lot.... and they way interaction works (combat) is identical to all factions, and there's a lot of combat.... In order to play you don't need to know exactly how all the other factions work (even if it helps), the basic mechanics is more than enough. This basic knowledge is sufficient to see if someone is winning, but as in all this kind of games, it's always very dangerous to play against someone, unless it's in two-player mode, because you end up helping the others. There is no hidden information: the player boards are visible at all times, so you see what it's going on and where someone is going.
If you played Terra Mystica, which is also asymmetric, you have some basis for Root, with the difference that Root is way more asymmetric than Terra Mystica, where the "common ground rules" are more extensive.
For your 1st game, expect to lose, but ask if it's possible to play with the basic game factions, because adding in all the expansions from the start may not be a good idea.....
 
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