I simultaneously love that higher-level Cat strats are becoming more approachable, and hate that they are because I want the cats to stay in their underdog status so I can still surprise people by winning with them. After I accumulated a streak of Cat wins, my IRL playgroup have caught on. The game is better because of it, even if it means I win less often. Ha. Great work.
That means a lot, coming from you! If you're interested, the 'About' page on my channel has links to several other Root content creators, each of whom I wholly endorse.
Just had my first cat game as someone who was dreading it. I was a turn away from winning, despite being attacked by both the eyrie and vagabond, the only two other players in the game, who never attacked each other once. Thanks for the tips!
This is only tangentially related to the subject of this video, but my kids who are still a bit too young to play on their own saw my Root box and were asking about it so I showed them the stuff and ended up walking them through a few practice games on Digital and they're obsessed. My oldest daughter, who turns 7 this year, even drew a picture of the Marquise de Cat and it actually looked like it was supposed to be a cat person rather than the shapeless blobs all her drawings to date had been, so that made me super proud as a parent (she's definitely a future Corvid player though since she had most fun with the Crows and "won" with them, and she's definitely a chaos gremlin)
@@Nevakanezah_ It's an honor to be considered for that. Sadly their mother just did a recycle purge of sketches that were piling up in our small living space.
Man I wish i could've shown this video to someone I played with today. I was the cats and they were Lizards and they blamed me entirely for us losing against Eyrie. I was using action every turn to keep the birds at bay and the Lizards did nothing all game except sit and feed the birds cardboard. Plus they kept placing warriors in my clearings so I had to keep more of my warriors in the backline to avoid being backstabbed while also trying to police the birds. I still managed to get to 23 points but the Lizards have more warriors and more tricks to turmoil the Eyrie than me and yet thought I had the action economy or warriors (that they were diminishing) to stop them. Don't that guy, useless dude
On the winter map, don't try to control the entire top row. Leave the farther corner clearing from your keep (the NE one, in the example at 6:05) alone, and build your defensive line one clearing closer. There are two reasons why staking out the far corner is bad: 1) You have to spread out your warriors more to defend an extra clearing, but only gain one building slot (instead of two each from the two north-central clearings). 2) It's harder to defend, because there are two 'enemy' clearings adjacent to it. If you pull back to the central double clearings, anyone attacking you from the other half of the board MUST move through the corner clearing first (where another faction might be in their way), plus it's probably one space farther they have to travel. There's one upside to taking the far corner: if you want to stage a late-game assault on the other half of the board, it's somewhat easier, because you're closer and have more flexibility (the inverse of #2 above). But usually, the Cats are better off playing defensively.
I'll agree that both approaches are valid here, and the difference lies in what you're trying to prioritize. One of the biggest factors here is: I do it because you'll rarely get punished for it. Only a couple factions in the game are positioned to battle that corner in the first two turns, and of these, they're generally happier to spend that time cashing in on the four free clearings they started with. While it's not the safer choice, I prefer taking the corner for a few reasons: * It amplifies the cost an opponent has to pay to break into the top line. It's one more clearing opponents have to clear out before moving on, and with only one build slot, it's a low VP reward that they have to wipe completely if they want to build a foothold in there. * It forces opponents to commit to either the top line or the south choke, because a push on either direction is being reinforced from the same clearings. Opponents can't afford to let forces build up for a split push, and when they do commit to a side (or even beforehand, if you're proactive), your forces on these clearings are well-positioned to move in and break their stuff. * Once opponents do commit to clearing out the top corner, you can field hospital all those cats and have them ready and waiting in the very next clearing they want to move into. I illustrate this at 13:50 - Those aren't meant to be new cats coming in, _it's the same cats over and over again._ * It lets me build pretty much nothing but sawmills in the double-slot clearings, because I have advance warning for when people are trying to target this space. * Lastly, it just makes your opponents' lives harder. Why let the birds have five roosts for free when you can force them to work for it?
@@Nevakanezah_ Problem is, your opponent likely *doesn't* have to clear out the corner to break in: - The Corvids and any Vagabond can just waltz right through with their Nimble ability. - The Moles can tunnel directly into your juicier double clearings. - The Lizards can Convert the sparse defenders in the double clearings and then attack with them. Overall, that's 4 out of 7 pre-Marauder factions (I'm not familiar with how the Warlord & Keepers work) who can rather easily circumvent a corner defense. And 2 of the remaining 3 (Eyrie and Otters) will sometimes be able to muster a big enough army to just march over top of it, and attack behind. Don't forget that a corner defense is a single point of failure. If someone like the Otters or Moles do break through, they likely have the actions to wipe out both double clearings in the same turn. Field Hospital is actually an argument *against* holding the corner. Warriors revived at the Keep will require spending two actions (three moves) to get back to the front line corner; if you concede it, they can get back to the farthest double clearing in just one March. This applies whether you're reinforcing your defense after an unsuccessful enemy attack, or if you're counterattacking when they do manage to break the first line. For these reasons, the Cats are much better off with a 'defense in depth' strategy. Take the warriors you would need to guard the corner, and distribute them in the double clearings instead. You make your heartland a far less attractive target, and are much more likely to have your buildings survive if they attack you anyway.
@@The_Invisible_Hand I suspect that, because both of these approaches are informed by our respective experiences, we could argue the merits of either tactic and never find a happy consensus that was optimal for all situations. Given that I had a target duration for the video in mind, my recommendations likely reflect several of my own biases as I decided which strategies to include. I think instead, I'll content myself with the fact that our discussion has done a great job of outlining the kinds of considerations one can apply to even small decisions like this one. It's a very nice addendum for anyone who might scroll down with similar concerns about that particular recommendation.
EXCELLENT video! I really really hope you get to the WA and Vagabond someday. This has so much useful information and tactics that aren't in any other guides on here.
3 minutes in, already a subscriber. Fantastic video. I got stuck as the cats for my first 6 games, and you touched on everything that was bothering me. Can’t wait to try again!😁
This was awesome! Learned a few new tricks and several chuckles had. I particularly enjoyed the little cat faces. The Marquis are my favourite faction from base purely because they're so tough to win with. I'm ready to cut down some trees now 💪
I noticed at 4:29 you put your starting workshop in the mouse clearing with your starting sawmill. Wouldn't it be better placed in the topmost rabbit clearing??
Yeah, this one's just a small editing mistake, and i ended up forgetting to properly move it. I was ambivalent as to whether I set up this example for base deck where rabbit crafting is better, or E&P where mouse crafting is the safest bet when you only have one workshop to place.
You said the WA supporters deck is public information, but they are face down cards. Apart from the 3 initial cards, and any others that are obtained directly from the deck, we can have an idea of the rest of the cards that are related to the clearings where the sympathy token is/was. Excellent video!
It's debatable whether it's a mistake to start in the bottom right clearing (5:15) as th-cam.com/video/v9iLYIhfOsU/w-d-xo.html says it's their favourite start clearing.
What I'd like to try next time I have a dominance card to begin with is going all in for the dominance win. Retreat, build recruiters in the clearings and then just pile up a bunch of cats. If you have over 10 cats in each clearing it won't be easy to recapture the clearing. But I think in practice it will be difficult to pull it off that way.
Played Root 3 times. Managed to sneak a cat win on the second game. It did felt a little underpowered compared to birbs who replenish their hordes like literal zergs I did do spend first turn consolidating though
Great stuff Nev! After all my cats games on Digital, I feel woefully unprepared for ADSET and Lake/Mountain maps, I'll keep in mind these positional tips!
woah!! i came across this channel looking for guides, you definitely deserve way more subscribers from the quality of your videos imo. :O i’m new to root and knowing this guide is way above my current skill, the narration and amazing editing made me watch the video completely despise my pebble brain. definitely subscribing and will return to rewatch this when i have more games under my belt :D
@@Nevakanezah_ I wish I knew what it was like to win. Played a game with my mom who has never played Root or any game like it before and she still beat me while I was playing the cats. I over complicate things a lot and I do that with the cats especially. Right now I'm just trying to practice in the online game.
Doing well with cats really requires a strong grasp of the positional gameplay of root; both in terms of which areas of the board are safe/threatened, as well as figuring out who the real threats are and how opponents might interact with each other/you. They require good fundamentals moreso than anyone else, but you can still lose if someone at the table decides to shit on you anyway. Plus, 2p games are always really brittle like that, so don't feel guilty there. If you haven't yet, I'd check out the woodland warriors discord - They're the sweatiest part of the fandom. Either join games there and ask for advice, or share screenshots of your games to the strategy channel to get advice on where you might be able to improve.
I'd already trimmed that clip and synched up the timing when I realized I forgot to actually leave cats to rule that southern bird clearing when I recorded the example. Instead of re-do that work, I just slapped some text on the bird clearing and called it a day.
A friend of mine suggested a fix for marquise that involves making it so workshops are tied to action economy instead of Hawks for Hire. Maybe every two or three workshops grant an extra action or something of that ilk. Or perhaps you get in-built League of Adventurous Mice as a feature.
Someone beat you to the punch ages back. Look on BGG for a fanmade board titled "workshop cats", or the like. It's pretty much exactly what you described
Hi, I was rewatching the video and I have a question. Where does the law say that you can see the alliance supporter's deck? I'm checking the law right know and it just says that the alliance can inspect it any time, but it doesn't say anything about other factions... Or are just you refering to the fact you can ask how many supporters it has but not of which suits?.
I think I'm missing something about your description of the opening. On your first turn you only start with one wood. So if you spend two actions policing and build your second sawmill for one wood, and only gain two wood from two sawmills on your second turn, how would you be able to build two recruiting stations and recruit?
Ah, right you are. I had a sneaking suspicion that example was scuffed, as I recorded it late; probably had bird cards in mind at the time. I believe my intent was to say that you can still reach the same board state on turn 2 if you had to police instead of building a recruiter.
@@Nevakanezah_ yeah policing just once gets you to the same spot as long as you overwork. All you really lose out on is the flexibility of doing whatever you want on your third action on turn 2. Great guide though, I'm excited to try the strategies here. I've been looking to up my cats game as besides the Lizards, they're the only ones I can't win consistently with.
Iirc, I only provided suggestions for the corner clearings because there's a lot of variation in how different corners play, and if you're using ADSET, the discussion of where to set up becomes a lot more involved. ...And just in case you might be newer to the game: Under standard setup rules, the vast majority of factions are *only* allowed to set up in the corners. Advanced setup lets you start anywhere you like, making the middle fox clearing an option.
I don't really understand how you are drawing your "control regions" for the Autumn Map. It just doesn't feel like you're following any sort of consistent set of rules in designating the control area. Why is the center mouse clearing part of the control region for starting in the upper right but the fox clearing along the bottom is not considered part of the control region for starting in the bottom right?
How did I come up with them? Arbitrarily! The aim is to illustrate which clearings you could most likely hold onto in a typical game. Generally it's clearings within two moves of the keep, that you wont have too much trouble competing for in a typical 4p game. Sure it's not a 100% scientific model, but it's unrealistic to try aiming for advice that's going to be correct in every game, so instead i just give guidelines that help illustrate what i feel is feasible in most games.
Hi! Subscribed to you some time ago, hoping you would do more videos like this one:) Would you actually recommend against building more than 3 recruits?
At 16:31 notice that he's placing a 4th recruiter as his sacrificial building. This is a great idea because you really don't care that much about losing a 4th recruiter because you maintain the card draw. If the enemies target a weakly defended recruiter instead of a much more valuable sawmill, that recruiter has paid for itself.
@@nitrorev yes, I’ve noticed! But other than as a sacrifice? I find it extremely interesting because the one strategy with which I’ve been able to not get too much « picked on » as the Marquise is going fairly heavy on recruits. Not that it makes me win a lot, though. But I’ve found that if I build, say, a fourth sawmill, I put a huge target on my back.
@@arthursimsa9005 Not sure what Nev has to say about this but because Sawmills are more important for scoring tempo, a 4th recruiter might make more sense in a deeply entangled game. Games where everybody is hitting eachother and scoring minimal points might drag the game out a bit longer to have the recruiter in place of a sawmill not be a detriment. Or for instance if you are getting picked on, recruiting 4 warriors instead of just 3 to make up your warrior loss will allow you more board control to better defend yourself and encourage opponents to seek trouble elsewhere.
It's basically an optimization problem - Recruiters are worth less as we empty our warrior supply, they don't make it any easier to score points over time (by providing more wood), and they take up slots we need in order to score. In a vacuum, we want to place as few recruiters as we can get away with; it just so happens that 3 recruiters gives us a decent warrior output and the extra card draw that helps field hospitals, making it the best value for the minimum number of recruiters. Case in point: If we could get all 6 recruiters on turn 2, sure it's 13vp, but then what? You recruit all your cats in 2 turns, and ~30% of the slots on the entire board are now taken up with pieces that aren't doing anything for you ever again. You can go with 4 or more and be largely fine (sometimes it's helpful if you plan to play dominance), but I would resist doing so unless you knew you were going to be losing a lot of cats consistently without being able to field hospital them.
"Red" is synonymous with "High-reach" factions, an arbitrary metric for drafting games that aren't wildly one-sided. These are factions with a large board presence, who have the flexibility to respond to emerging threats. The "Red" moniker comes from the colour-coded cards used for advanced setup. Red factions include the cats, birds, rats, badgers, and moles. "White" factions is everyone else, but sometimes people will refer to otters, moles, and badgers as "Pink" factions because they're kind of in-between.
This is how I play Marquise, and I'm so glad someone backs up the idea of not retreating your forces on turn one. I miss advice on battling: 1) Dedicating an entire turn to make sure your attack takes out cardboard which hurts an opponent more than just losing warriors. Save bird cards for this, because sometimes you roll 0-0, 1-0 too often. 2) Understanding that unspent wood lies around until the next turn, meaning you didn't lose points, you just postponed getting them.
Will preface my question by saying I'm a very new Root player and have only ever played with the base factions/deck, but I'm curious why in many of your setups you place your starting workshop in a Mouse clearing and not a Rabbit clearing when available, especially when you list access to Rabbit crafting as a plus in many of the setups you suggest. I understand that for just having one workshop, having it in Mouse is better than in Rabbit, but then why is Rabbit crafting considered to be so strong? If you start this way, you'd have to go pretty far out of your way to do any Rabbit crafting by building Workshops over Sawmills, no? How do you deal with this? Very entertaining and informative content by the way, I'm a big fan!
Rabbit has the highest possible vp gain because of coins, and access to cobbler & command warren in base deck. The catch is that all of these require two rabbit workshops, which can be a bit of a gamble to achieve. Myself, if my starting hand has good rabbit crafting ill go rabbit (same for fox, with emigree tbh), but mouse is just an easy and safe bet if you dont feel like committing to two matching workshops.
A question you might be asked several times: Field hospitals: 1. You as cats declare a battle to x faction. They use a la ambush. In this timing window you have to spend a card matching the clearing to use field hospitals? You lose 2 cats here 2. You roll 1-1. You lose 1 more cat, in this timing window you spend another card (another meaning used in ambush) matching the clearing or do waste only 1 card for ambush and warrior lost? 3. Again you roll and roll 1-1 you loose another 1 cat. Meaning lost another warrior in this interaction (damn you rng haha). A) Would you spend only 1 card to regain 4 cats? B) 1 card to regain 3 cats (incluiding the loss with the ambush) then 1 card to regain second battle for 1 cat? C) 1 card to regain 2 cats (ambush), 1 card for first battle and get 1 cat back and another card for the last battle?? Meaning 3 cards in total??? Damn that was hard to explain
Field hospitals is counted for every separately-timed instance of warrior loss. Thus, ambush does in fact force you to FH twice for the same battle. C is correct.
Yes, I'm just slow. Bird guide's next; it has script & VO done. I'm just working through visuals now, before picking BGM and maybe some broll before it's complete
Ah, unlucky. How close were you able to get? Idk how your game played out, but oftentimes I find that my endgame losses were avoidable by disrupting opponents earlier. Birds are a great example of this: If you turmoil them as soon as it's easily feasible, they lose a ton of momentum trying to rebuild and won't be as big a threat in the endgame.
@@Nevakanezah_ It was fairly close, like one turn away from winning. I had very aggressive WA spreading in my main clearings - they spent way too many followers and lost as a result but slowed me down. Then mid game eyrie hit me with a mouse favor which destroyed 2 clearings I had fortified against WA and I think that's when I fell behind
If you're in voice/in-person, take advantage of the silence and talk about what opponents are able to do on their turns in order to play them up as a threat. If you're on the digital version where no one reads chat, do what you can to preempt upcoming threats yourself by destroying people whenever it will do the most damage. They can't hurt you if you removed their ability to do so
@@Leo-ww5lf No idea on game count, but I'm at about 1100 hours combined on TTS and Root digital. I can't claim too much credit for the strategies though, as they've been developed by the competitive community; I'm just making them more accessible.
@@Nevakanezah_ Holy Moly that's a lot, a god among men would I describe you as. I commend you for making it more accessible and very nice editing! I hope we the viewers get to see more
If this video is your you are amazing, other than that I would slow down a bit the talking speed, I can't understand so quickly, I need to set 0.5 speed lol. Ps please other factions too 🙏
This is great. I approve of all the advice here. If only the Cats weren't so 1-dimensional in their 'true' path to victory, they'd be pretty cool. But they aren't... and it sucks.
>Is it to greedy Oh, it's positively *filthy.* Unadulterated grime. Disgusting, reckless, wonderful avarice. It's playable at any table that you think will fail to punish you for the first two turns, at which point this strategy catches up to the board position of typical play, but you're now a turn ahead on scoring/sawmills. Sometimes the faction mix is amenable to this (lizards, despot eyrie, WA if they're being nice/your sawmills are somewhere they really don't want to revolt), and sometimes you can find it in players who just aren't prepared to mix it up that early, even if they know what you're trying.
Thanks for quick reply, well, I could have googled that 😅 damn will need to wait at least until Q3 to get one, but at least this is official rules. P.S. @Nevakanezah your video editing skills and chosen way of narative is 10/10. This is something I would pay to watch on Patreon. I do hope you will cover the rest of the factions as well!
@@Averageeveydayuser You're too kind. I aspire to eventually have the full set of guides, but you can imagine that these aren't the fastest videos to make
I have not and will not watch this video. That said, there is no need for any other Marquis guide. Watch this one and don't watch any others. Nuff said.
![[Gittin Gud] Woodland Alliance Advanced Strategy Guide for Root](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qN6FhQrf3Js/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Gittin Gud] Woodland Alliance Advanced Strategy Guide for Root](/img/tr.png)
![[Gittin Gud] Riverfolk Company Advanced Guide for Root](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nSWypELHl1w/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Gittin Gud] Vagabond Advanced Strategy Guide for Root](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mvFzoSjfKHQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Gittin Gud] - Eyrie Dynasties Advanced Strategy Guide for Root](/img/n.gif)
I think you mean KITTIN Gud, amirite?
....guys?
Finally, after two whole years.
A comment worthy of pinning.
It's beautiful.
Nice.
This is the most detailed and advanced root strategy guide I have ever seen. Hope you make more!
I simultaneously love that higher-level Cat strats are becoming more approachable, and hate that they are because I want the cats to stay in their underdog status so I can still surprise people by winning with them. After I accumulated a streak of Cat wins, my IRL playgroup have caught on. The game is better because of it, even if it means I win less often. Ha.
Great work.
Great work on these videos. You clearly know your Root business, and your videos are very well done.
That means a lot, coming from you!
If you're interested, the 'About' page on my channel has links to several other Root content creators, each of whom I wholly endorse.
Just had my first cat game as someone who was dreading it. I was a turn away from winning, despite being attacked by both the eyrie and vagabond, the only two other players in the game, who never attacked each other once. Thanks for the tips!
Shoutouts to the Riverfolk Company otter that's always doing handstands. Dude's a legend.
I'm so happy seeing how much love was put into this tutorial
This is only tangentially related to the subject of this video, but my kids who are still a bit too young to play on their own saw my Root box and were asking about it so I showed them the stuff and ended up walking them through a few practice games on Digital and they're obsessed. My oldest daughter, who turns 7 this year, even drew a picture of the Marquise de Cat and it actually looked like it was supposed to be a cat person rather than the shapeless blobs all her drawings to date had been, so that made me super proud as a parent (she's definitely a future Corvid player though since she had most fun with the Crows and "won" with them, and she's definitely a chaos gremlin)
This comment gave me diabetes; that's adorable. If you're willing to send along a scan of her drawing, I'll make a community post out of it!
@@Nevakanezah_ It's an honor to be considered for that. Sadly their mother just did a recycle purge of sketches that were piling up in our small living space.
@@HobGungan Alas, my community posts shall remain relegated as the graveyard of my half-baked opinions.
As a new player, all I can say is that WE NEED MORE!
Absolutely incredible video!
14:47 I'm impressed they didnt go into turmoil earlier.
Man I wish i could've shown this video to someone I played with today. I was the cats and they were Lizards and they blamed me entirely for us losing against Eyrie. I was using action every turn to keep the birds at bay and the Lizards did nothing all game except sit and feed the birds cardboard. Plus they kept placing warriors in my clearings so I had to keep more of my warriors in the backline to avoid being backstabbed while also trying to police the birds.
I still managed to get to 23 points but the Lizards have more warriors and more tricks to turmoil the Eyrie than me and yet thought I had the action economy or warriors (that they were diminishing) to stop them. Don't that guy, useless dude
The pact is sealed.
i.imgur.com/PscpmPh.png
ETA: Right now.
th-cam.com/video/TPm85Sf7ugA/w-d-xo.html
Alright Gabe Newell, we shall sit and wait patiently.
We will wait, comrade
The video production is top notch. I am going to watch all!
On the winter map, don't try to control the entire top row. Leave the farther corner clearing from your keep (the NE one, in the example at 6:05) alone, and build your defensive line one clearing closer. There are two reasons why staking out the far corner is bad:
1) You have to spread out your warriors more to defend an extra clearing, but only gain one building slot (instead of two each from the two north-central clearings).
2) It's harder to defend, because there are two 'enemy' clearings adjacent to it. If you pull back to the central double clearings, anyone attacking you from the other half of the board MUST move through the corner clearing first (where another faction might be in their way), plus it's probably one space farther they have to travel.
There's one upside to taking the far corner: if you want to stage a late-game assault on the other half of the board, it's somewhat easier, because you're closer and have more flexibility (the inverse of #2 above). But usually, the Cats are better off playing defensively.
I'll agree that both approaches are valid here, and the difference lies in what you're trying to prioritize. One of the biggest factors here is: I do it because you'll rarely get punished for it. Only a couple factions in the game are positioned to battle that corner in the first two turns, and of these, they're generally happier to spend that time cashing in on the four free clearings they started with.
While it's not the safer choice, I prefer taking the corner for a few reasons:
* It amplifies the cost an opponent has to pay to break into the top line. It's one more clearing opponents have to clear out before moving on, and with only one build slot, it's a low VP reward that they have to wipe completely if they want to build a foothold in there.
* It forces opponents to commit to either the top line or the south choke, because a push on either direction is being reinforced from the same clearings. Opponents can't afford to let forces build up for a split push, and when they do commit to a side (or even beforehand, if you're proactive), your forces on these clearings are well-positioned to move in and break their stuff.
* Once opponents do commit to clearing out the top corner, you can field hospital all those cats and have them ready and waiting in the very next clearing they want to move into. I illustrate this at 13:50 - Those aren't meant to be new cats coming in, _it's the same cats over and over again._
* It lets me build pretty much nothing but sawmills in the double-slot clearings, because I have advance warning for when people are trying to target this space.
* Lastly, it just makes your opponents' lives harder. Why let the birds have five roosts for free when you can force them to work for it?
@@Nevakanezah_ Problem is, your opponent likely *doesn't* have to clear out the corner to break in:
- The Corvids and any Vagabond can just waltz right through with their Nimble ability.
- The Moles can tunnel directly into your juicier double clearings.
- The Lizards can Convert the sparse defenders in the double clearings and then attack with them.
Overall, that's 4 out of 7 pre-Marauder factions (I'm not familiar with how the Warlord & Keepers work) who can rather easily circumvent a corner defense. And 2 of the remaining 3 (Eyrie and Otters) will sometimes be able to muster a big enough army to just march over top of it, and attack behind.
Don't forget that a corner defense is a single point of failure. If someone like the Otters or Moles do break through, they likely have the actions to wipe out both double clearings in the same turn.
Field Hospital is actually an argument *against* holding the corner. Warriors revived at the Keep will require spending two actions (three moves) to get back to the front line corner; if you concede it, they can get back to the farthest double clearing in just one March. This applies whether you're reinforcing your defense after an unsuccessful enemy attack, or if you're counterattacking when they do manage to break the first line.
For these reasons, the Cats are much better off with a 'defense in depth' strategy. Take the warriors you would need to guard the corner, and distribute them in the double clearings instead. You make your heartland a far less attractive target, and are much more likely to have your buildings survive if they attack you anyway.
@@The_Invisible_Hand I suspect that, because both of these approaches are informed by our respective experiences, we could argue the merits of either tactic and never find a happy consensus that was optimal for all situations. Given that I had a target duration for the video in mind, my recommendations likely reflect several of my own biases as I decided which strategies to include.
I think instead, I'll content myself with the fact that our discussion has done a great job of outlining the kinds of considerations one can apply to even small decisions like this one. It's a very nice addendum for anyone who might scroll down with similar concerns about that particular recommendation.
Excellent video! I hear your name a lot on the Woodland Warriors podcast and I'm glad I finally found your channel.
Awesome video! I'm really impressive by all of the fun graphics!
I think talking about the game after the fact is one of my favorite parts of Root!
Easily the best guide I’ve seen on the cats and I’ve watched them all.
Please do the other factions.
EXCELLENT video! I really really hope you get to the WA and Vagabond someday. This has so much useful information and tactics that aren't in any other guides on here.
Watched this video and immediately won my next cats game :D
Loved the depth and density of strategy, thanks!
Nice! It's always gratifying to hear that the advice is working well in actual games
3 minutes in, already a subscriber. Fantastic video.
I got stuck as the cats for my first 6 games, and you touched on everything that was bothering me. Can’t wait to try again!😁
This was awesome! Learned a few new tricks and several chuckles had. I particularly enjoyed the little cat faces. The Marquis are my favourite faction from base purely because they're so tough to win with. I'm ready to cut down some trees now 💪
Fantastic guide and info. After watching I've won more games with cats than I ever did before.
Keep it up!
The next video in the series is on-pace!
Great stuff!
Bro was hoping for 100 likes and is sitting on 1.3k and counting, congrats!
This video still outperforms shit I launched *this month.*
What an absolute gem of a video. Top quality content, and your meme edits had me stitches! Cheers
Glad you liked it!
Excellent video, with helpful higher level tips that are sure to give me more to think about as I try to improve my cat game!
"If your watching this you have many games under your belt" Me watching this about to start my first game 👀
You might also want to check out Lord of the board, Waterman121, and Nitrorev!
@@Nevakanezah_ thank you! Update i won using your tips 🤣🤣 bless🙏
I noticed at 4:29 you put your starting workshop in the mouse clearing with your starting sawmill. Wouldn't it be better placed in the topmost rabbit clearing??
Yeah, this one's just a small editing mistake, and i ended up forgetting to properly move it.
I was ambivalent as to whether I set up this example for base deck where rabbit crafting is better, or E&P where mouse crafting is the safest bet when you only have one workshop to place.
Hell yeah, love the Twilight Princess music.
You said the WA supporters deck is public information, but they are face down cards.
Apart from the 3 initial cards, and any others that are obtained directly from the deck, we can have an idea of the rest of the cards that are related to the clearings where the sympathy token is/was.
Excellent video!
My intent was to say that the quantity of cards is public, but couldnt find an elegant wording
Thank you very much for making this. Incredibly well done and informative
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is so good and so dense with meaningful information. 10/10
Being dense is my specialty!
Very good! More! I require more root content! MOAR!
Just started playing Root and these videos have helped me so much, hoping for lizards next!
Great guide! The visuals were really entertaining. :D
Also, @8:30 'Do crow things.' XD
Just wondering why is there an intermittent beeping sound? It sounds like a car honking in the distance.
Chalk it up to my crappy recording setup at the time
It's debatable whether it's a mistake to start in the bottom right clearing (5:15) as th-cam.com/video/v9iLYIhfOsU/w-d-xo.html says it's their favourite start clearing.
What I'd like to try next time I have a dominance card to begin with is going all in for the dominance win. Retreat, build recruiters in the clearings and then just pile up a bunch of cats. If you have over 10 cats in each clearing it won't be easy to recapture the clearing. But I think in practice it will be difficult to pull it off that way.
Just pray they don’t have like “favor of the rabbits” or some similar card
@@sparkfrog777 Just make sure they can't craft it.
Played Root 3 times. Managed to sneak a cat win on the second game. It did felt a little underpowered compared to birbs who replenish their hordes like literal zergs
I did do spend first turn consolidating though
Great stuff Nev! After all my cats games on Digital, I feel woefully unprepared for ADSET and Lake/Mountain maps, I'll keep in mind these positional tips!
woah!! i came across this channel looking for guides, you definitely deserve way more subscribers from the quality of your videos imo. :O i’m new to root and knowing this guide is way above my current skill, the narration and amazing editing made me watch the video completely despise my pebble brain. definitely subscribing and will return to rewatch this when i have more games under my belt :D
Comments like these are pretty much the sole reason I'm making these videos. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Love this format, thanks for making this!
Guerric brought me here. It didn't disappointed me
I want that video you talk about on your large text. Specially the part about dealing with lack of building space. Hope you make it anytime soon.
While I can't make any promises as to timeline, do you happen to have the timestamp handy so I can make sure not to forget it?
@@Nevakanezah_ th-cam.com/video/7ocZH1B3WX8/w-d-xo.html i hope i'm doing it right (19:07)
I gotta watch this video again. I don’t know why but this faction for me is the most complex and hardest for me to understand 😅
Cats are definitely a challenge every time you play them, but it's also what makes them so satisfying to win with.
@@Nevakanezah_ I wish I knew what it was like to win. Played a game with my mom who has never played Root or any game like it before and she still beat me while I was playing the cats. I over complicate things a lot and I do that with the cats especially. Right now I'm just trying to practice in the online game.
Doing well with cats really requires a strong grasp of the positional gameplay of root; both in terms of which areas of the board are safe/threatened, as well as figuring out who the real threats are and how opponents might interact with each other/you. They require good fundamentals moreso than anyone else, but you can still lose if someone at the table decides to shit on you anyway. Plus, 2p games are always really brittle like that, so don't feel guilty there.
If you haven't yet, I'd check out the woodland warriors discord - They're the sweatiest part of the fandom. Either join games there and ask for advice, or share screenshots of your games to the strategy channel to get advice on where you might be able to improve.
Gonna play again very soon, like in 30mins. Wish me luck, boys 😅
At 17:37, how were the cats able to build there?? Can wood cross the lake?
I'd already trimmed that clip and synched up the timing when I realized I forgot to actually leave cats to rule that southern bird clearing when I recorded the example.
Instead of re-do that work, I just slapped some text on the bird clearing and called it a day.
A friend of mine suggested a fix for marquise that involves making it so workshops are tied to action economy instead of Hawks for Hire.
Maybe every two or three workshops grant an extra action or something of that ilk. Or perhaps you get in-built League of Adventurous Mice as a feature.
Someone beat you to the punch ages back. Look on BGG for a fanmade board titled "workshop cats", or the like. It's pretty much exactly what you described
@@Nevakanezah_ wow… I gotta use this. This looks awesome! Wonder if I can get it into TTS…
Truly an excellent video!!! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the other factions!
Hi, I was rewatching the video and I have a question.
Where does the law say that you can see the alliance supporter's deck? I'm checking the law right know and it just says that the alliance can inspect it any time, but it doesn't say anything about other factions... Or are just you refering to the fact you can ask how many supporters it has but not of which suits?.
The latter. The *number* of cards in there is public, but not the suits. Despite this, it's very valuable information to track.
@@Nevakanezah_ Thank for the clarification, I was very confused for a moment hahaha.
Man this was awesome. Do more!!!
Top notch Cats guide!
I think I'm missing something about your description of the opening. On your first turn you only start with one wood. So if you spend two actions policing and build your second sawmill for one wood, and only gain two wood from two sawmills on your second turn, how would you be able to build two recruiting stations and recruit?
Ah, right you are. I had a sneaking suspicion that example was scuffed, as I recorded it late; probably had bird cards in mind at the time.
I believe my intent was to say that you can still reach the same board state on turn 2 if you had to police instead of building a recruiter.
@@Nevakanezah_ yeah policing just once gets you to the same spot as long as you overwork. All you really lose out on is the flexibility of doing whatever you want on your third action on turn 2. Great guide though, I'm excited to try the strategies here. I've been looking to up my cats game as besides the Lizards, they're the only ones I can't win consistently with.
Thanks Nev, now I know why I'm losing all my cats games!!!
Why not place the keep on the fall map in the middle fox clearing that has all the connections?
Iirc, I only provided suggestions for the corner clearings because there's a lot of variation in how different corners play, and if you're using ADSET, the discussion of where to set up becomes a lot more involved.
...And just in case you might be newer to the game:
Under standard setup rules, the vast majority of factions are *only* allowed to set up in the corners. Advanced setup lets you start anywhere you like, making the middle fox clearing an option.
I don't really understand how you are drawing your "control regions" for the Autumn Map. It just doesn't feel like you're following any sort of consistent set of rules in designating the control area. Why is the center mouse clearing part of the control region for starting in the upper right but the fox clearing along the bottom is not considered part of the control region for starting in the bottom right?
How did I come up with them? Arbitrarily!
The aim is to illustrate which clearings you could most likely hold onto in a typical game. Generally it's clearings within two moves of the keep, that you wont have too much trouble competing for in a typical 4p game.
Sure it's not a 100% scientific model, but it's unrealistic to try aiming for advice that's going to be correct in every game, so instead i just give guidelines that help illustrate what i feel is feasible in most games.
Hi! Subscribed to you some time ago, hoping you would do more videos like this one:)
Would you actually recommend against building more than 3 recruits?
At 16:31 notice that he's placing a 4th recruiter as his sacrificial building. This is a great idea because you really don't care that much about losing a 4th recruiter because you maintain the card draw. If the enemies target a weakly defended recruiter instead of a much more valuable sawmill, that recruiter has paid for itself.
@@nitrorev yes, I’ve noticed! But other than as a sacrifice? I find it extremely interesting because the one strategy with which I’ve been able to not get too much « picked on » as the Marquise is going fairly heavy on recruits. Not that it makes me win a lot, though. But I’ve found that if I build, say, a fourth sawmill, I put a huge target on my back.
@@arthursimsa9005 Not sure what Nev has to say about this but because Sawmills are more important for scoring tempo, a 4th recruiter might make more sense in a deeply entangled game. Games where everybody is hitting eachother and scoring minimal points might drag the game out a bit longer to have the recruiter in place of a sawmill not be a detriment. Or for instance if you are getting picked on, recruiting 4 warriors instead of just 3 to make up your warrior loss will allow you more board control to better defend yourself and encourage opponents to seek trouble elsewhere.
It's basically an optimization problem - Recruiters are worth less as we empty our warrior supply, they don't make it any easier to score points over time (by providing more wood), and they take up slots we need in order to score. In a vacuum, we want to place as few recruiters as we can get away with; it just so happens that 3 recruiters gives us a decent warrior output and the extra card draw that helps field hospitals, making it the best value for the minimum number of recruiters.
Case in point: If we could get all 6 recruiters on turn 2, sure it's 13vp, but then what? You recruit all your cats in 2 turns, and ~30% of the slots on the entire board are now taken up with pieces that aren't doing anything for you ever again.
You can go with 4 or more and be largely fine (sometimes it's helpful if you plan to play dominance), but I would resist doing so unless you knew you were going to be losing a lot of cats consistently without being able to field hospital them.
3:06 what are “Red” factions? what are the other types of factions?
"Red" is synonymous with "High-reach" factions, an arbitrary metric for drafting games that aren't wildly one-sided.
These are factions with a large board presence, who have the flexibility to respond to emerging threats.
The "Red" moniker comes from the colour-coded cards used for advanced setup. Red factions include the cats, birds, rats, badgers, and moles. "White" factions is everyone else, but sometimes people will refer to otters, moles, and badgers as "Pink" factions because they're kind of in-between.
This is how I play Marquise, and I'm so glad someone backs up the idea of not retreating your forces on turn one.
I miss advice on battling: 1) Dedicating an entire turn to make sure your attack takes out cardboard which hurts an opponent more than just losing warriors. Save bird cards for this, because sometimes you roll 0-0, 1-0 too often. 2) Understanding that unspent wood lies around until the next turn, meaning you didn't lose points, you just postponed getting them.
Great stuff!
If you do make more, please get your audio correct. A bit challenging to work on strategy with the volume and tone of your audio shifting frequently
I made an eyrie and VB one that should be more consistent
Will preface my question by saying I'm a very new Root player and have only ever played with the base factions/deck, but I'm curious why in many of your setups you place your starting workshop in a Mouse clearing and not a Rabbit clearing when available, especially when you list access to Rabbit crafting as a plus in many of the setups you suggest. I understand that for just having one workshop, having it in Mouse is better than in Rabbit, but then why is Rabbit crafting considered to be so strong? If you start this way, you'd have to go pretty far out of your way to do any Rabbit crafting by building Workshops over Sawmills, no? How do you deal with this? Very entertaining and informative content by the way, I'm a big fan!
Rabbit has the highest possible vp gain because of coins, and access to cobbler & command warren in base deck.
The catch is that all of these require two rabbit workshops, which can be a bit of a gamble to achieve.
Myself, if my starting hand has good rabbit crafting ill go rabbit (same for fox, with emigree tbh), but mouse is just an easy and safe bet if you dont feel like committing to two matching workshops.
Great Video! Keep it up!
A question you might be asked several times:
Field hospitals:
1. You as cats declare a battle to x faction. They use a la ambush. In this timing window you have to spend a card matching the clearing to use field hospitals? You lose 2 cats here
2. You roll 1-1. You lose 1 more cat, in this timing window you spend another card (another meaning used in ambush) matching the clearing or do waste only 1 card for ambush and warrior lost?
3. Again you roll and roll 1-1 you loose another 1 cat. Meaning lost another warrior in this interaction (damn you rng haha).
A) Would you spend only 1 card to regain 4 cats?
B) 1 card to regain 3 cats (incluiding the loss with the ambush) then 1 card to regain second battle for 1 cat?
C) 1 card to regain 2 cats (ambush), 1 card for first battle and get 1 cat back and another card for the last battle?? Meaning 3 cards in total???
Damn that was hard to explain
Field hospitals is counted for every separately-timed instance of warrior loss. Thus, ambush does in fact force you to FH twice for the same battle. C is correct.
@@Nevakanezah_ thank you for your responses! Also I want to praise your videos, please continue making more!!!
@@Rimbombannus Glad you enjoy em!
Will you make strategies for the other three core factions?
Yes, I'm just slow. Bird guide's next; it has script & VO done. I'm just working through visuals now, before picking BGM and maybe some broll before it's complete
Wonderful
Why is bunny crafting clearing so important ?
Base deck only, bunny crafting gives more actions
what is he playing this on the digital edition doesnt have all the content that this one has please help
Tabletop simulator. You trade fiddlyness for content.
Check out the woodland warriors discord for people to play with
Goddamn! The finesse and content in this guide is actually crazy, really well done! I am sure no other guide on YT has the same depth as this!
Tried to make a lot of this work but simply lacked enough actions in the late game to reclaim AND rebuild clearing. Lost to birds
Ah, unlucky. How close were you able to get?
Idk how your game played out, but oftentimes I find that my endgame losses were avoidable by disrupting opponents earlier. Birds are a great example of this: If you turmoil them as soon as it's easily feasible, they lose a ton of momentum trying to rebuild and won't be as big a threat in the endgame.
@@Nevakanezah_ It was fairly close, like one turn away from winning. I had very aggressive WA spreading in my main clearings - they spent way too many followers and lost as a result but slowed me down.
Then mid game eyrie hit me with a mouse favor which destroyed 2 clearings I had fortified against WA and I think that's when I fell behind
@@JesterOnCrack oof, yeah. Favor cards are so brutal for cats. Sounds like you held up really well in spite of a very hostile game though
Amazing! I'm genuinely excited to play them! Do you have any tips where tabletalk is less common?
If you're in voice/in-person, take advantage of the silence and talk about what opponents are able to do on their turns in order to play them up as a threat.
If you're on the digital version where no one reads chat, do what you can to preempt upcoming threats yourself by destroying people whenever it will do the most damage.
They can't hurt you if you removed their ability to do so
@@Nevakanezah_ Thank you for your advice my Cat Overlord! How many games have you played with them to come up with these tactics?
@@Leo-ww5lf No idea on game count, but I'm at about 1100 hours combined on TTS and Root digital. I can't claim too much credit for the strategies though, as they've been developed by the competitive community; I'm just making them more accessible.
@@Nevakanezah_ Holy Moly that's a lot, a god among men would I describe you as. I commend you for making it more accessible and very nice editing! I hope we the viewers get to see more
love this video!
Fur ball making difference for me
If this video is your you are amazing, other than that I would slow down a bit the talking speed, I can't understand so quickly, I need to set 0.5 speed lol. Ps please other factions too 🙏
Loved the video
What was the computer stuff?
Table top simulator?
Yep, tabletop simulator with the "Root - Ultimate" mod.
Great video!
Wonderful 10/10
👍
Thank you
Nice
You should do one for each faction
In progress
Ranger moment
This is great. I approve of all the advice here.
If only the Cats weren't so 1-dimensional in their 'true' path to victory, they'd be pretty cool. But they aren't... and it sucks.
Great video! Out of curiosity, what do you think of the double sawmill opening for cats? Is it to greedy or are there matchups where it can be viable?
>Is it to greedy
Oh, it's positively *filthy.*
Unadulterated grime.
Disgusting, reckless, wonderful avarice.
It's playable at any table that you think will fail to punish you for the first two turns, at which point this strategy catches up to the board position of typical play, but you're now a turn ahead on scoring/sawmills. Sometimes the faction mix is amenable to this (lizards, despot eyrie, WA if they're being nice/your sawmills are somewhere they really don't want to revolt), and sometimes you can find it in players who just aren't prepared to mix it up that early, even if they know what you're trying.
ok u kinda went off with this one neva
What is advanced set up? Fan made?
Its part of the latest expansion, "marauders", which is slowly emerging from supply chain purgatory
Thanks for quick reply, well, I could have googled that 😅
damn will need to wait at least until Q3 to get one, but at least this is official rules.
P.S. @Nevakanezah your video editing skills and chosen way of narative is 10/10. This is something I would pay to watch on Patreon. I do hope you will cover the rest of the factions as well!
@@Averageeveydayuser You're too kind. I aspire to eventually have the full set of guides, but you can imagine that these aren't the fastest videos to make
@@Nevakanezah_ such vids worth the wait, take your time, we will wait 👌🏻
excellent!!
nice video
Wait wait wait, the WA supporters aren’t public info?
To be precise: The number of supporters is public. Its something thats often overlooked when evaluating who's in the lead at the table
boosting
Good video in terms of strategy, the Wojack memes are pretty cringe though.
I have not and will not watch this video. That said, there is no need for any other Marquis guide. Watch this one and don't watch any others. Nuff said.
I have not and will not read this comment