In the base game of Root, the Woodland Alliance (WA) is supposed to be the winch that pulls the strings ever tighter, causing tension wherever they go. In a game where two major factions are mostly content with building their sawmills and roosts, you need a faction like the WA to be present to stir the pot. Similar to the observation in our deep dive of the Riverfolk, the WA is another faction with a sharp contrast in design for both their strengths and flaws.

In regards to narrative, the WA is extremely thematic, perhaps even the most realistic faction in regards to their playstyle and strengths ... but ... that realism doesn't translate to their weaknesses and hindrances. In regards to gameplay, the WA has a huge range of diplomatic options, second only to the Riverfolk in breadth ... but ... the benefits of diplomacy is outweighed by both the benefits and consistency of Sympathy Tokens (ST).

In terms of historical examples, the WA is pretty accurate in its portrayal of an underground rebellion. They start the game as little more than a nuisance as they spread their sympathy tokens, easily picked off by others for some free points here and there; however, once they achieve “popular support”, they grow to a point where their spread becomes nearly impossible to effectively curtail. The battle mechanics also fit well in line with the theme. Due to both their smaller warrior pool and the fact that warriors need to be spent for Officers, the WA never has the capacity to become a significant military threat. Instead, they rely on “guerilla warfare” (i.e., always taking the higher dice when defending) to discourage aggression from others. Other bits and pieces, such as losing Supporters when bases are destroyed to signify a loss of morale, all couple together beautifully.

However, other factions' interactions with the WA are not nearly as thematic, particularly in the way people have historically dealt with insurrections. The primary interaction between the WA and other factions is through ST (and subsequently Revolts); currently, the only consistent way to remove ST is through Battle. But there's more than one way to skin a cat. The use of overwhelming military strength is certainly one method of combating internal unrest, and while this interaction makes sense in terms of the Eyrie flocks and Riverfolk sellswords, it doesn't thematically (or mechanically) gel with the Marquise and Lizards, the latter of which can't even Battle as a regular Daylight action.

Personally, I believe the WA is missing an option to remove ST in a less aggressive fashion, and history supports this claim. Generally speaking, violent subjugation of popular uprisings aren't very effective; what tends to work a lot better is increased policing as well as ongoing investments in improving the standard of living for the locals. Basically, you show the populace that life is better with you around than without you at all. However, in its current iteration, removing ST is strictly a military affair, and the industrialists (Marquise) and fanatics (Lizards), who would traditionally favor non-violent quelling of revolts, is left shorthanded.

Table talk, by design, is an integral part of Root (though not as front-and-center as a game such as John Company). One of the “invisible” resources or traits each faction has is their options for diplomacy. Simply put, when it comes time for negotiation, what can the faction put on the table as leverage? Since nobody in particular wants the WA in their clearings, the WA is always seen as an intruder to be kicked out. In turn, this makes negotiating positions and truces a vital part of the WA's game arc, particularly in the early to early-mid game when they're in need of a foothold.

The big stick in their arsenal is of course, the ST and subsequent Revolts. Due to the fact that ST cover a wide range of states, from completely inconsequential in some clearings to being a great danger in others, the WA has a lot of flexibility in how they choose to leverage their ST. This is absolutely a good thing, as it makes the table talk interesting. Furthermore, due to their relatively high churn rate for cards (since the WA has two hands to spend cards from, the Supporters Deck, and their actual hand) and their strong crafting ability, the WA can naturally curry favor from the Lizards and Vagabond, the two factions that are the most difficult to negotiate with.

Unfortunately, most of that well crafted negotiation is thrown out the window in actual gameplay. All of that finesse and intrigue is simply overshadowed by raw point gains from ST, so much so, that the point values for ST were actually reduced in the updated rules. However, nerfing the point values is only treating the side-effect. In most area-control games, a lot of focus is placed on the players' ability to create opportunities for themselves; but just as important, is the ability for players to deny opportunities for enemies.

The problem with the WA is that other factions do not have a lot of meaningful ways of denying them opportunities to spread ST besides Battle. More than that, scattered skirmish-type battles across multiple clearings. In most community polls ranking faction strength, the WA consistently top the charts, and rightly so. “But why can't other factions just pummel the WA down?”, one might ask and the answer to that is because the WA are too good at subverting Battle. A quick rundown:

• Besides the Eyrie and maybe the Riverfolk, these skirmish type battles are an incredibly arduous task for most factions, whether it's because of very limited turns (Marquise), lack of board presence (Vagabond, at least in the early game), or a straight up lack of a Battle action (Lizards). These factions are usually much better at siege battles, taking on large groups of enemies in a single clearing. That means that out of the 5 possible opponents in a game, the WA counters 3 of them (60%!) for most of the gameplay.
• Even if the WA has Bases, sieging them is a pretty awful experience. Because the WA defender always takes the higher die, the WA has a 40% chance to take no hits, and a 75% chance to only take 1 hit. It takes a perfect 3-3 roll, only 6% chance, for the WA to take 3 hits. Let's not forget the flip side, the attacker has a 68% chance of losing 2 or more warriors.
• Furthermore, defensive Battle cards (Ambush, Sappers, Armorers) are stronger than offensive ones (Scouting Party, Brutal Tactics).

Now, the WA does pay for this by being absolute trash on the offensive, but it doesn't matter since the WA doesn't need to be offensive, at all, to score points. Denying them Supporters is also not an option once they have Bases as the WA can just as effectively spread ST using their Organize action. As a result, once the WA managed to get some ST coverage and 1 or 2 Bases, they effectively become impossible to stop without a larger coordinated effort between all the remaining players (or a lucky and well-timed Favor of the X card).

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in this case, it takes the rest of the players to effectively police the WA. While in an ideal situation where everyone plays optimally that is fine, in practice, it's doesn't always pan out. I've always felt that the “everyone is in charge of policing this person” design philosophy has always been a sort of anti-pattern in asymmetric games because all it takes is for one person to slip up and give the “One” a good turn before they start steamrolling. Unless the game is explicitly “One vs. All”, someone invariably will slip up and it's a little disheartening to, yourself, play perfectly but still lose because someone else dropped the ball.

Luckily though, the WA is only a few tweaks away from being truly great. As a faction, they already have a solid narrative and unique playstyle; the only thing left is introducing more interactions between the WA and other factions. Most importantly is a non-Battle option to remove ST for non-combative factions; something that benefits both sides with the idea of herding the WA into opponents' territories without having to outright destroy them. Currently, the WA is treated more like the Flood from Halo as opposed to a more realistic model of them, such as the Nicaraguan Contras, that the game's design should embrace.

The Riverfolk Company (RC), is Root's implementation of a merchant class, with a good dose of inspiration taken from the Hacan in Twilight Imperium. Unlike Twilight Imperium, Root does not have that “social” aspect of the game that Politics Cards and Trade Goods innately bring. While I believe that the RC is ingeniously designed to fit within the constraints of Root, the faction's reliance on “off-the-board” meta-gameplay — in a game otherwise largely devoid of it — ends up creating a dichotomous gameplay experience. I've rarely seen the RC do “just OK”; they either do extremely well or extremely poorly.

What causes this faction to have almost two entirely different gameplay experiences? I believe it is because the RC's power-curve grows exponentially and peaks at a much higher point than any other faction. More importantly, the only counterbalance to this scary growth curve isn't provided in the rules themselves, but instead on the RC player's own ability to push their Services to the other players.

Let's start by recognizing that Daylight actions are a commodity in and of themselves. Naturally, the more actions you have, the more you get to do, the better position you'll find yourself in. While the RC certainly isn't the only faction that has a growing action pool, they're certainly the one with the potential to have the largest. It's not uncommon for the RC to end a turn with next to no Funds and start their next turn with plenty in the bank. The RC's ability to not only have a multitude of actions per turn, but continue to do so turn after turn is what gives them the edge in the game.

Their early-game is largely centered around their ability to put out Trading Posts (TP). Not only do TPs allow for more interactions from other players, they are also the RC's only consistent way to score points early-on. Once the RC gets 6-7 TPs off their playerboard, the gameplay shifts quite dramatically (i.e., the pivot). This is due to two particular things:

• The RC's ability to craft cards really takes off. Not only do they have more flexibility in crafting than any other faction, since their crafting is not dictated by control of clearings, but they can also consistently craft 2 or even 3 cards per turn. While the Eyrie, Lizards, and Marquise can also achieve multiple crafts per turn, they're severely limited by the clearings their buildings are located in. Furthermore, there is a higher opportunity cost involved for each of those factions as the card suits are often more valuable for other purposes rather than the crafting benefit. Not only do card suits have zero bearing on the RC, but due to their open hand policy, anything they don't craft is subject to be taken by others. Ironically, this inverts the RC's crafting opportunity cost where anything they don't craft could be an opportunity lost.
• Up to this point, the majority of the RC's Funds has probably gone towards building TPs. Once the pivot occurs, TPs become less important while crafting takes center stage. The important ramification of this pivot is that while TPs require spending the Funds, crafting only requires committing the Funds. Those Funds that were once returning to the other players now continuously return to the RC turn after turn to be reused. This is a big change in terms of the ROI each Fund provides.

However, the maximum amount of points TPs provide is 18, so we're still a good ways away from the 30 to win. The game actually provides the RC a built-in way to score those points, by scoring Dividends on unused Funds. However, in actual gameplay, Dividends tend to be a poor way to cash in Funds for points. While half a point per Fund isn't a terrible exchange ratio, the mechanic mostly stinks because the RC player incurs all of the risk. At this juncture, getting your TPs destroyed actually triples the damages to you:

1. Fewer TPs = fewer services bought from you; also, the destroying faction gets 1 point
2. You lose half of your uncommitted Funds. You already have a big target on your head any time you have a large amount of Funds left after your turn; now, towards the late-game, when certain factions start running low on warriors, they'd take any opportunity to force you to return their warriors back to them.
3. You're also probably not just leaving TPs undefended, so any warriors you lose in battle defending those TPs you have to spend Funds to re-recruit.

As the RC player, you can't do anything about negative #1, but you can certainly do something about negatives #2 and #3. Since you want to try and recycle Funds as much as possible to get the most value out of them, and committed Funds are safe from TP destruction, it's only logical that you'd want to commit all your Funds thereby negating negative #2. This heavily dissuades others from attacking your (well-defended) TPs, since it's a lot of effort for just a single point, which greatly reduces the threat of negative #3.

Well, if you're not scoring Dividends, how do you get your remaining points? Right off the bat, any items you can craft are immediate candidates since crafting guarantees at least 1 point per fund (double the Dividends, mind you). Assuming the RC player has a healthy cache of Funds after the pivot, the logical next answer here would be Battle. Surprisingly, the mercantile RC actually brings with them a number of advantages into Battle. Due to their extremely healthy card economy, and their excellent crafting abilities, it's quite likely that the RC will be able to possess a couple of the Battle-oriented cards. Furthermore, we established that battling the RC isn't very lucrative if all their Funds are committed. Finally, the RC can hinder others by destroying other faction's buildings/tokens while undertaking little risk since they are not dependent on controlling clearings. The result? A militant late-game RC ends up being both effective in combat and unrewarding to fight against, a scary and unfun combination for those that must deal with it.

For all their strengths however, the RC does suffer from the fact that there's very little rules coverage protecting them “off-the-board” interactions. For instance, the RC fares much better in higher player-count games, simply because there are more players to purchase their Services. I, for one, have never seen the RC be even remotely competitive in a 3-player game while they usually rank first or second in 5- or 6-player games. What's more is that the disadvantages don't just stop at having fewer customers. Having less players also devalues TPs since there's only so many services that another will buy per turn. You can have 5 TPs in another faction's clearings, but they're not going to buy your services 5 times. This often means that less TPs will be built, resulting in fewer early-game points, and forces “the pivot” to occur earlier, resulting in a weaker ability to craft later on. None of this even accounts for the fact that the if one of the few players is the Vagabond, the only meaningful Service they'd consistently buy would be for cards since the rules don't allow them buying Mercs and they can already cross rivers when they Slip.

A small catch-up mechanic, Protectionism, is built-in to prevent the RC from simply having no actions on their turn, but also doesn't scale with the player count. The purpose of a catch-up mechanic is to be a safety net so that a player's own poor decisions don't sink them for the rest of the game. However, through no fault of their own (lower player count, having Vagabond(s) in the game), the RC can simply have games with many turns where they get zero purchases and Protectionism isn't effective enough to cover those scenarios. Some small changes to Protectionism, such as +1 warrior in 3-player games and +1 warrior per Vagabond present, would go a long way in making the mechanic feel more rewarding.

Another “off-the-table” issue is the seating order advantage. The player directly after the RC in turn order always gets first dibs on cards and since the RC cannot refuse a sale, this can lead to some pretty contentious situations. Most significantly would be if the Eyrie and Marquise sat on opposite sides of the RC. While this issue doesn't affect the RC themselves, it does negatively effect someone else's gameplay experience. Whoever gets the short-end of the stick essentially has a potential new weakness (less access to bird cards) that is out of their control while the other player has a permanent new strength (more access to bird cards) that they got out of luck. This is very much an anti-pattern that repeatedly pops up in Root whereby seating order contributes too much into the overall gameplay experience.

Interesting, one thing that would've fit the RC thematically that was left out of the game would be the ability to create binding contracts, perhaps not on all mechanics, but at least for card buying. Perhaps the RC and another player can commit to a card's purchase at an increased price (as the “holding fee”). Alternatively, we can take a page out of Twilight Imperium and give players the ability to give their own VPs to put holds on cards.

All-in-all, I really do enjoy the RC's merchant mechanic, even if the plot doesn't really fit the narrative. In their current state, the RC invariably ends up being a warmonger in the later parts of the game once the easy crafting and TP points are exhausted. The Dividends mechanic is superbly thematic, though the implementation leaves something to be desired. It's undeniable the RC is an impactful faction, as they bring with them a bag of mechanics that change how other factions play in pretty meaningful ways. With just a few small tweaks to address the anti-patterns and the scaling issues, I believe we can see the Riverfolk less as a situationally-viable faction and more of a “core narrative” faction.

Throughout the rest of this deep dive, we'll be talking about the single issue that contributes the most to the Vagabond's flaws: the faction's current design betrays its design philosophies and only works in its current state because it doesn't experience competition for resources.

In Cole's Designer Diary regarding the Vagabond's design, he highlights two principles that drove the faction's design:

1. Instead of having an internal scoring engine, the Vagabond should score primarily on player-to-player (P2P) interaction.
2. The Vagabond should act as a balancing force, weak by himself, but strong with Allies supporting them.

The trouble with those two particular design principles is that they pretty much describe a vicious circle. By having no intrinsic way to score points, the faction has no urgency or priorities; but, by being weak, the faction has no pressure to exert to entice other players to interact with them and give them urgency or priorities. Cole speaks a bit about the struggles the Vagabond's purely P2P design in a post Kickstarter blog article. Quote:

“The role worked, but it also felt somewhat aimless in the early game. The trouble was that it’s purpose depended wholly on the other players and the arc of the game.”

What caused the Vagabond's gameplay to fall flat? Personally, I'd chalk it up to the overwhelming presence of one-sided mechanics that constitute the Vagabond's gameplay experience. Because other factions rely mostly on the central “core mechanics” (controlling clearing, building things, battle, etc.) of Root, they are all intrinsically tied to one another via their common mechanics. The reason these mechanics create such tightly coupled gameplay is because these are two-way mechanics. Each action the active player takes must consider the leverage the opposing player has (e.g., Player 1 doesn't just Battle Player 2 willy-nilly because Player 2 fights back). However, the Vagabond's lack of common mechanics also breaks this important pattern of action-reaction.

Besides Battle and occasionally the Character Card's special ability, most of the Vagabond's remaining mechanics are one-way mechanics. These are actions that require another player, but either have no bearing on the other player, or is done so in a way where the other player has no leverage or counter-actions. For example, the Aid action, supposedly a central part of the Vagabond's design and the driver of their main feature, the Relationships, is incredibly boring. Even though I get a card, I cannot leverage the Vagabond's Aid into my strategy. As another faction, I cannot rely on the Vagabond to provide consistent Aid; when I do get Aid, I cannot guarantee that the card I get will be useful; and furthermore, I cannot refuse the Aid. What should be an important event is made so dull since there's no risk involved on either side: I don't lose the crafting points if an item is taken, and the Vagabond has no risk of being denied.

In fact, the entire Relationship mechanic is quite one-sided. Whether or not I'm Hostile has no bearing on my turn-to-turn actions — I don't get any points for damaging the Vagabond's items, nor do I suffer any movement penalties — the effects are strictly for the Vagabond alone. Even should I reach “Allied” status, the benefits are still mostly for the Vagabond. They get another avenue to score, and it's not like the Aid cards when Allied are any better. This mechanic is the core of the Vagabond's design philosophy, and for the other players around they table, they couldn't care less about it. I have personally never been a part of a game where someone's Relationship with the Vagabond was a deciding factor in an important mid- or late-game decision. It's an afterthought at best and just noise at worst.

Ironically, the faction that was meant to be most dependent on player-interaction ended up with a core mechanic that has the least interactivity. To address this issue, Cole implemented the Quests as a way to give the Vagabond “another source of non-player victory points.” The Quests, along with the Vagabond's ability to craft cards, betrays the 2nd major design philosophy. Ideally, the Vagabond should be weak in the early game, naturally growing more powerful as they collect more items (actions) and foster Allies. However, in its current state, the Vagabond is too self-sufficient in every phase of the game, which in turn, further undermines the Vagabond's Relationship mechanic.

In the early-game, the Vagabond can keep toe-to-toe in VPs with most of the factions. Through a combination of crafting, Quests, and Aid actions, the Vagabond manages to remain competitive in the period of the game in which they're supposed to be at their weakest. In most 4/5 player games I've played, by the end of turn 3, the Vagabond never fails to be in the top 2/3 highest scoring factions. Why is this the case? Because there is no pragmatic way to prevent the Vagabond from scoring, and there is no incentive to do so. As we touched upon earlier, Aid actions cannot be stopped, and the only way to prevent crafting and Quest points is through Battling the Vagabond and damaging their items. Unfortunately, not only is Battling the Vagabond unrewarding, it also eats up a valuable action in a phase of the game where players do not get many actions. This makes the very act of attacking the Vagabond a prisoner's dilemma, which objectively does not work in any game without binding contracts. If everyone spends an action to attack the Vagabond, then that would certainly curtail the Vagabond's strong early-game. However, no one wants to take the risk because the others who don't commit to the plan end up with an advantage (less likely to be the target of Strikes or Battles from the Vagabond).

Why do we want to avoid Battles with the Vagabond? Well, in most cases, you become Hostile to the Vagabond, which now allows them to score even more through Infamy should they Battle or Strike you. As it turns out, our “weak by himself” Vagabond is actually pretty amazing at combat. Let's list out their combat strengths and notice how many of them are unique to the Vagabond:

• Right from the get-go, they have exclusive access to an unblockable Strike (or 2 if Ranger) action. This not only softens you up, but has the added potential to reduce the number of counter-hits you do in an actual Battle.
• Secondly, the Vagabond, unlike every other faction, does not get weaker in-between attacks. The Vagabond calculates max hits via undamaged swords but when they takes hits, they do not have to damage their swords. This means that they can continue a second or even third Battle action at full strength since exhausted swords still count towards their Battle strength.
• Even stronger still, they score 1 point when removing your warriors and 2 points when removing your buildings/tokens. Not even the Eyrie, the most aggressive faction in the game, is this effective at scoring from Battles.
• Even stronger still, the Vagabond can craft all of the cards that affect Battles, meaning that there is no advantage another faction can get that the Vagabond cannot also get.

Let's say the Vagabond wipes out your clearing. Do you counterattack? Battles are in nature pricey actions; not only do you need to spend actions to move warriors and actually do Battle, you also open yourself up to counter-hits as well as Ambush and Sappers cards. We already established that attacking the Vagabond is a prisoner's dilemma. So if you dump your actions into battling the Vagabond, I'm sure the other players would be very appreciative of that because now they don't have deal with it. They get all the benefits of having the Vagabond beat down, but without shouldering any of the costs or risks to do it.

Before the 2018-12-21 rules changed fighting the Vagabond was 10x worse since any counter-hits they landed would actually get the Vagabond points. This created a Catch-22 scenario where the Vagabond could not lose as the only way to stop them would be to attack them which in turn pushed them closer to victory.

The first iteration of this analysis I put on Reddit was met with some people saying “But the Vagabond is a balancing force. They're supposed to help out the underdog with good Aid and fighting for them.” The question I'd pose back is, why would they ever do that? Once the game progresses past the Vagabond's supposedly “weak” early-game, by the time they have 10-13 items, they end up being enough of a threat that they simply do not need an ally to do well. They don't need to help the underdog, give anyone good Aid cards, or stick their neck out in a tussle because the Vagabond can win without the help of anyone else. So much so that in over a dozen games I've played with the Vagabond present, not a single time did the Vagabond even try to pursue a Coalition victory. It just doesn't make sense for them. The Vagabond is already a scoring powerhouse, difficult to fight, and extremely mobile. In its current form, the Vagabond is much more a bully in the game than a balancing force.

Besides being an antithesis of a “balancing-force,” the Vagabond's current design, to push it harshly, if fundamentally broken. To iterate my point from the start of this post, the only reason they remain playable in their current state is because they have no competition for resources (items, quests). The moment you throw in a competitor (i.e., a second Vagabond), the “solo” gameplay for both Vagabonds completely fall apart. Once you remove the option of having a private pool of Quests and resources only one player has access to, you end up with a Vagabond experience that is much more in line with the original intentions.

There are plenty of threads on BGG complaining about how the Vagabond isn't as fun or strong in two Vagabond games. That's because they do not get a 5 card draw at the end of their turns, they do not get to single-handedly wipe out clearings with 4+ enemy warriors like they're Rambo, they do not get to consistently get 5-7 action turns round after round. Only in 2 Vagabond games is Relationship and having Allies important; you know, the things that were meant to be the core mechanics for the faction. I would even go so far as to say that the Vagabond should only be allowed if both of them are in play.

Conceptually, I love the Vagabond. In much the same way that Tzeentch in Chaos in the Old World is sort of an heavy interaction-based god, the Vagabond should have played that same part in Root. On paper, per Cole's design diaries, the Vagabond is a vastly interesting character, with lots of available scoring opportunities predicated on Relationships. In reality, the Relationships scoring doesn't hold a candle when compared to the zero player interaction Quests or the Infamy you get from Battles. This isn't to say that the Vagabond has no place in the narrative of Root, only that its role as the “networking middleman” is pulled off with much more finesse by the Riverfolk.

For this part, we'll take a look at two factions which I believe are standouts in term of their design: The Eyrie and the Marquise de Cat. I believe these two factions to be “foundational” factions that set a baseline experience for the game. In terms of design, they fit right into the base schema of most COIN games, and provide a consistently engaging gameplay experience throughout. Though highly anecdotal, I have personally enjoyed games I played with the Marquise and/or Eyrie present than games where neither of them are there.

One of the fundamentals of the COIN series is that factions are softly opposed to one another. By virtue of you doing well, it means that at least one other player is doing worse. However, just having a rival mechanic isn't what makes the mechanic special. What makes it impressive is when the tension comes naturally as part of the narrative instead of a forced interaction. It's what differentiates a game like this to a more take-that game. This not only makes the game flow smoother, but also makes it easier for someone (particularly a first-timer) to feel more impactful.

More-so than that, I find that both factions bring to the table something that no other faction can really replace: consistency. The Marquise is a fairly consistent source of development and does a lot of work towards laying out the “groundwork” of the board. On the flip side, the Eyrie is a consistent source of combat and destruction, often times doing a lot of the legwork in keeping checks on factions that rely on scaling into late-game (Vagabond, Riverfolk, Alliance). Sure, other factions can be aggressive or sprawl across the map, but none can maintain the same consistent pressure turn after turn.

Another similarity is that both factions are also very logical in their flow of actions. The Eyrie needs to recruit to have warriors to move to clearings to fight and build roosts; the Marquise needs to get wood and deliver wood to build buildings to craft and recruit. In that way, a newcomer to the game has a pretty good chance of doing well just by doing the logical things their gut tells them to do because they're building the narrative, not playing a gimmick.

However, having the spotlight isn't just the glitz and glamor, you also gotta bare the heat. The Marquise in particular comes under fire relatively quickly in the course of a game. Because they start everywhere, people assume that they're much stronger than they actually are. Thus, the Marquise easily becomes painted as the “villain” of the story and often unfairly (and unnecessarily) becomes the target of aggression from the other players. Between the Eyrie having to satisfy their Battle commands, a constant threat of Revolt from the Alliance, and an ongoing need to protect the Keep, playing the Marquise is a big juggling act that can sometimes be a bit frustrating — particularly for a newer player. While other players start with little and build upwards, the Marquise begins with a lot and eventually gets contained. This isn't to say that the Marquise isn't doing well if he's not everywhere, but it is ironic in a game largely centered around area-control that to do better is to control less.

Though the issue itself is naturally resolved with more experience to the meta, it does lead to some unsatisfying games early on. At the core of the issue is a mismatch in narrative and presentation. Strength for the Marquise does not lie in the number of warriors they have, but the number of buildings and supply lines they can maintain. Therefore, by having their setup be so warrior-heavy, newer players naturally assume the Marquise to be stronger than they are — a logical conclusion given the area-control aspect. The deceptive appearance of strength of the Marquise also indirectly causes a lot of the “inbalance” felt towards other factions, particularly the “underdog” factions like the Alliance or Vagabond, who do not get enough aggression until it's too late.

That said, I do want to emphasize that these are ultimately human-related flaws and not of the design itself. The faction works. Regardless of which stage of the game you're in, the Marquise remains relevant and influential. They aren't the most exciting faction and won't make “big plays” like the Alliance or Lizards might, but the represent a faction of steady growth. Getting ganged up on is an unfortunate side-effect of the game's setup, but Marquise players are given a very unique position in the politics of Root.

Originally, the Marquise was supposed to have its own post with a lengthy section on the negative power-cycling (small losses always lead to bigger losses) of the faction due to how difficult it is for them to maintain a healthy warrior population. The 2018-12-21 rules change to the Marquise's Keep has largely addressed that issue, though I believe it will lead to a slew of other problems as now the Marquise has too healthy of a warrior population which will allow them to "turtle" too effectively. Only time will tell.

Then we have the Eyrie, undeniably the most combat-heavy faction. In my personal opinion, I believe them to be hands-down the best designed faction in both the base game and Riverfolk expansion. The reason I say this is because the Eyrie manages to have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, but is not pigeonholed by either of them. Their strengths in combat and ability to fly across the board do not typecast them to only relying on aggression; likewise, their predictable turns and the looming threat of Turmoil is enough of a weakness for other players to exploit but not a permanent ball-and-chain. A rotating roster of leaders also ensures some variety in the course of a session and adds a bit of spice.

Gameplay-wise, the Eyrie is unique in their usage of a pre-programmed action track. From a design perspective, this is a necessary balance: giving a faction both the strength of combat and freedom to do so at their own leisure is a recipe for disaster, so the Eyrie's mandate to both perform combat and build nests forces them to engage in suboptimal fights. Furthermore, because the conditions for their Turmoil is public, a lot more negotiation is made possible by the presence of the Eyrie. While other factions tend to either not have much to leverage (Lizards, Riverfolk), or little to negotiate for (Alliance), the Eyrie strikes a comfortable balance between both having something worthwhile to negotiate (their battle strength) and enough leverage in the hands of others to make it possible.

For all their strengths though, the one design flaw is simply how punishing their Turmoils are. At the moment, a Turmoil kind of double-dips on damages: not only do the Eyrie lose the remainder of their turn and all of their mandates, they also lose points per bird mandate. From a points perspective, the Eyrie is not often rocketing above the competition anyway, so the point loss seems a bit aggressive, especially since losing all mandates is already a punishment in-and-of-itself. While a playstyle that leverages Turmoils often is theoretically possible and opens the door to lots of interesting strategies, the current highly-punishing nature of each Turmoil has derailed each of my attempts to do so. I believe even a small change, such as losing 1 point per two bird cards, can open the door to a much more diverse narrative where the usage of the leaders are not so all-or-nothing.

All in all, the Eyrie and Marquise fulfill their respective roles perfectly. One is concentrated on maintaining supply lines and building buildings, while the other is pushed to conquer and expand their territory. The Eyrie is not an enemy of the Marquise, but their motivations naturally are at odds with one another. Compared to a game like Liberty or Death where the Patriots and British take center stage, the tug-of-war between the Marquise and Eyrie is what drives the narrative forward in Root.

First and foremost, let's start with my most played faction: The Lizard Cult. I enjoy a game I can tell a good story about afterwards, so when I heard Cole describe the Lizard Cult (hereafter abbreviated as LC) as a faction with an interesting narrative, I was naturally very intrigued. From the get-go, I knew the community's laments regarding their weakness, but I was determined to try and make them work. After almost a dozen sessions with the LC, my conclusion is that there isn't one singular cause for their weak stature, but a collection of design issues, each exacerbating the others.

These issues boil down to three particular points:

1. Their dependence on the most random part of the game
2. A significantly slower early-game and a lack of good rebounds
3. A lack of control over their own gameplay and narrative

Root's design presents only two overarching mechanics where luck is a factor: the card deck and the battle dice. Unfortunately for the LC, their main source of actions during Daytime revolves heavily around their ability to draw the suits they need. If you can't get any duplicate suits, or worse — drawing all bird suit — you essentially have no meaningful turns. Regrettably, the Law does not provide any balancing mechanics to offset poor card luck. This has been such a problem on three separate occasions that my group has a house rule where the LC can't start with more than one bird card in their initial hand.*

* The 2018-12-21 rules in which bird cards now pull Acolytes from your General Supply instead of from the board nullifies the need for this house rule.

Compounding to this issue are two more negatives:

1. the limited hand size applied to all factions
2. the lack of any “wild” or “empowering” suit

Of course, there are other factions that utilize card suits heavily, such as the Eyrie and Alliance, but they don't quite suffer from having a limited hand size like the Lizards do.* (The Eyrie does not burn through cards and gets access to “draw +1 card” Roosts pretty quickly. The Alliance have their supporter cards in a totally different pile that doesn't even contribute to their hand limit.) Generally, the bird cards, while few, are powerful additions to both the Eyrie's and Alliance's hand while the same bird cards are of low-value to the LC. Furthermore, not only do the Lizards have a suit that is weaker for them, there isn't anything on the other side of the scale, a balancing suit which would be considered stronger.

* The 2018-12-21 had changes that made the LC's “draw +1 card” Gardens more accessible which makes the hand size constraint much more tolerable.

Which brings us to the LC's overall frustrating gameplay. Your primary method of getting points as the LC is to build and score Gardens; however, building a Garden and scoring said Gardens are two separate actions, whereas other building-dependent factions either score automatically (Eyrie), or have the scoring and building all as part of one action (Marquise, Riverfolk, Alliance). Furthermore, while other factions do not incur losses to score, the LC both requires you to spend an action, and to discard the card you score with. While the ability to score multiple suits does help, it's incredibly difficult to get two (out of the three) suits up to the “+3” column and sustain those Gardens for more than one turn. This makes the LC the only building-dependent faction where their ability to score isn't guaranteed. Building a garden doesn't mean you get to score, and just because you scored this round doesn't mean you get to score the next round.

Frustratingly, the LC faces yet another challenge when attempting to score Gardens. You see, when a Garden is destroyed, they also lose a random card from their hand (more on that later). This means that going into the next round, not only does the LC have a lower capacity to score (now having fewer gardens), they also have a lower capacity to bounce back (now having fewer cards/actions). A particularly rough round might leave you with three fewer Gardens and only two cards/actions to try and recover. This leads to a vicious cycle where if you fall down, you tend to stay down for the rest of the game.

Adding oil to the fire, Gardens are also buildings, as opposed to tokens. The fact that Gardens are buildings and not tokens means they're subject to all the additional rules that buildings need to follow (control of a clearing, having an available building spot). Compare this to a faction like the Marquise, another building-reliant faction: not only do they not lose actions when a building is destroyed, but as a consolation, they're guaranteed to re-score that same building should they rebuild it in the future. In essence, not only are Gardens slow and intrinsically unrewarding to build and score, they're also extremely damaging when destroyed.

Interestingly, the 2018-12-21 rules dramatically change the role Gardens play in the game. Gardens used to be essential to build to get the LC's card mill started. Now, only the first two Gardens of each suit (to get your "draw +1 card") are really "essential". This helps alleviate the pressure of having Gardens as buildings (since you don't need to build as much), and frees up a lot of the other Gardens to be used more creatively since they don't hurt your card economy if destroyed. That said, the point about scoring being a separate action is still true and in my experience, the LC continue to be the slowest, out of the base game + Riverfolk, to generate points.

This leads into the last bit which is control of one's own destiny. The LC is the faction with the least control over their environment. Not only do they have very little influence over a core mechanic of theirs (the Hated/Outcasts which also control their Conspiracies and crafting), but they also have one of the few “random card” mechanics in the game. Other factions, when they lose or give up cards, do so either via player's choice or in a predictable manner; however, when the LC loses a card due to Garden destruction, they must randomly discard one from their hand. If you lose your only card of a suit that you needed to score — oh well, better luck next time. Once again, the game punishes the LC by subjecting the player to blind luck when their assets are destroyed. The result? A lingering feeling like a spectator in their your own game: things just unfurl around the LC and the player has little to no options to exert any influence over the development of the situation.

The 2018-12-21 rules do help this a bit. A greater access to cards means the LC gets to discard more often which directly gives the player more influence over the Hated/Outcast suite.

This phenomenon isn't just limited to the cards as well. Conspiracies, arguably the most interesting part of the LC's kit, is actually scarcely* available. Due to how Acolytes are created, some factions simply don't have a lot of interactions with you that create Acolytes. Revolts from the Alliance and Crossbow shots from the Vagabond don't give you any Acolytes, and unless you're playing with a high aggression faction like the Eyrie (situationally the Riverfolk through their Mercenaries) you simply don't get enough Acolytes to make your Conspiracies interesting. Generating your own Acolytes is inefficient; as you only really get 5 actions per turn, spending 40%* of your turn on two actions (one to put a warrior on the board and a second to remove said warrior) to get a single Acolyte is quite underwhelming.

* As stated earlier, bird cards are a lot more feasible now. 20% of your turn for a single Acolyte still isn't great, but at least it's “free” since you no longer need a warrior on the board.

Looking at the bigger picture, the LC don't really “scale” larger over time. The impact of each of the LC's actions doesn't really change. All the other factions have a built-in sense of growth as the game progresses: the Marquise's actions get stronger the more buildings they have, the Alliance gets to cast a wider net of Sympathy, the Eyrie just straight up gets more actions per turn, etc.; but, the LC's actions never get any stronger, nor do they reliably get more actions. It's impossible for the LC to craft Tax Collector, and being able to craft a Better Burrow Bank, though a big help, is not guaranteed. The sense of growth and “being better than where you started” is a fundamental aspect of GMT's COIN games, and the LC's design doesn't always seem like it embodies that virtue.

So why has there been so little in terms of rebalancing the LC? Cole has stated in his Reddit AMA that he's satisfied with how the LC plays because they provide an interesting narrative, but I found the overall experience to be one of inconsistent hardship. While it's true that the LC has “plotlines” that no other faction can experience, it's hard to say that's better when a majority of those “plotlines” are about as upbeat as a Chekhov play. An interesting narrative doesn't cover for an inability to win and lackluster gameplay that can be simply described as “not fun”. In their current incarnation, the LC occupies a role where they're capable of blocking others but never seem to be adept at advancing their own objectives. They're like the designated kingmakers, doomed to play a support role in a competitive game with no teammates.

While certain issues with the experience of playing the LC definitely still exist, the new rules do address many of the mechanical problems. Interestingly, while the LC still struggle with keeping up on the points track, the new changes give them a more pronounced synergy with the Dominance cards. That said, Dominance cards tend to be the riskiest path towards victory as anyone who claims a Dominance card immediately paints a huge target on themselves.