Your success in Root depends on knowing that each faction plays differently. The Marquise de Cat's control of the forest might seem overwhelming at first, while other factions fight for territory. But this edge doesn't stick around for long.
This asymmetric game is special because each faction needs its own strategy. The Eyrie Dynasties have what might be the strongest military force, while the Woodland Alliance grows stronger when others try to stop their sympathy tokens. The Vagabond takes a unique path to earning victory points by exploring ruins, finishing quests, and helping other factions.
Each faction has weak spots you can exploit, even with their differences. The Riverfolk Company has the simplest crafting system, while the Lizard Cult depends more on drawing cards than moving pieces. These small details make a big difference in winning games.
Understand the Core Mechanics of Root
Success in Root comes from understanding its complex mechanics. This game stands apart from typical board games where players follow identical rules. The race to 30 victory points creates constant tension, and the first player to reach this threshold wins.
How scoring works for each faction
Root has universal scoring methods that work for all factions. Players score one point each time they remove enemy buildings or tokens. They also earn points through crafting items. The player taking their turn wins if multiple players hit 30 points at once.
Notwithstanding that, each faction's unique path to victory makes Root fascinating:
- Marquise de Cat: Scores by building new structures in clearings they control
- Eyrie Dynasties: Gets points each turn based on their built roosts
- Woodland Alliance: Scores by spreading sympathy tokens across the woodland
- Vagabond: Gains victory points through quests and helping other factions
- Riverfolk Company: Earns points from leftover funds and trade post construction
- Lizard Cult: Scores by building gardens and showing matching cards
Root offers another way to win through dominance cards, beyond the race to 30 points. Players with at least 10 victory points can activate these cards to pursue different win conditions, like controlling three clearings of one suit. This adds strategic depth since players must watch various paths to victory.
Why asymmetry changes everything
The game's asymmetry runs deeper than surface differences. Root is a completely asymmetrical game. There are four factions that players can choose from but each one has completely different rules and ways to gain points.
Natural tension emerges on the board through this asymmetry. The Marquise de Cat starts with almost total board control, but other factions have powerful tools to challenge them. The Eyrie builds strong forces and momentum but faces constraints from a strict decree system that might collapse. The Woodland Alliance starts slow but becomes a powerhouse late in the game.
This asymmetry creates unique strategic depth that keeps players from feeling they've mastered the game. Different faction combinations create new dynamics that need flexible strategies instead of fixed approaches.
The role of crafting and item economy
Crafting serves as a vital part of Root's economy. Players activate crafting pieces matching card suits to craft items, using each piece once per turn. Successful crafts give immediate victory points and sometimes ongoing benefits through lasting effects.
Items become even more important with the Vagabond in play. Their actions run on crafted items, making them stronger over time. Other players must weigh crafting benefits against the risk of powering up the Vagabond's engine.
The crafting system opens doors for faction diplomacy. You can strike deals 'Hey I'll craft this sword if you use it to hit the birds'. This social element adds depth to Root's strategy and encourages temporary alliances through table talk.
Root mastery requires understanding your faction's unique mechanics and how they fit into the woodland's complex ecosystem. These mechanical foundations are the building blocks for advanced strategies we'll explore next.
Secret Strategy #1: Marquise de Cat – Build to Win
Image Source: Root Wiki - Fandom
The Marquise de Cat starts with unmatched board control. This advantage won't last long unless you follow a focused building strategy. Your path to victory as Root's industrial powerhouse comes from building a strong economic engine that keeps generating victory points through construction rather than endless battles.
Focus on sawmills early
Your success as Marquise depends on prioritising sawmills at the start. You should place your first sawmill in your keep's clearing because it's safer from attacks. A powerful opening move would be to build a sawmill, then overwork, and finally build a recruiter. This gives you both resources and the means to reinforce troops.
Sawmills are maybe your most valuable buildings since they produce the wood you need to construct everything else. Your building strategy will hit a wall mid-game without enough wood production. More importantly, you need to get that second card draw with recruiters quickly to boost your card economy. After that, go back to building sawmills to lock in those late-game victory points.
A smart workshop placement will boost your early economy. Your original workshop should go on a mouse clearing to maximise crafting chances. Both original and exiles decks have seven single mouse craft cards worth 10 VPs total. This setup helps you score valuable victory points through crafting.
Control space with martial law
Military presence is vital for the Marquise even with your industrial focus. You need three troops per clearing that has your buildings. This exact number creates two advantages: it establishes martial law so opponents can't place tokens and you retain control of your buildings even after a single battle action - even a maximum roll of 3-0 won't destroy your structures.
Clearings next to hostile forces need stronger defences, especially when you have Eyrie roosts and Alliance bases nearby. These vulnerable border areas should have more than three warriors to survive multiple battles in a row.
Field Hospital ability is one of your best tools to keep territorial control. You should use most cards to activate Field Hospitals and respawn fallen troops at your keep, unless a card is extremely valuable (bird favour cards or unbought command warren/cobbler). You can reach your maximum of 25 warriors by recycling forces and recruiting regularly. This lets you skip recruitment to focus on building, marching, or battling.
When to push for dominance
Your most effective action sequence in mid-to-late game becomes: Move → Battle → Build. This pattern makes the most of your limited actions by clearing space, securing clearings, and scoring points in one turn. The Marquise usually avoids attacking because it costs too many actions, but sometimes you need to get aggressive.
You'll need a coordinated attack if all building slots are full and you need new clearings for construction. You should also strike if you see the Eyrie struggling with a vulnerable decree, particularly with suited recruit orders. Breaking their government this way gives you a big advantage in tempo.
Sometimes letting opponents destroy your buildings works in your favour. They get 1 VP for removing a structure, but you get a chance to rebuild it for more points. This strategy can help you score faster late in the game when rebuilding becomes your main way to victory.
The Marquise's large armies and natural clearing garrisons work well with dominance card strategies. Once you control several clearings of one suit strongly, a dominance victory might be your best shot.
Secret Strategy #2: Eyrie Dynasties – Master the Decree
Image Source: Root Wiki - Fandom
The Eyrie Dynasties work differently from other Root factions. They thrive on programmed actions and calculated risks. Your decree grows each turn with mandatory actions that give you amazing military strength. But watch out - it can become a time bomb if you don't manage it well. You'll need to become skilled at this unique system to turn from a casual player into a woodland champion.
Choosing the right leader at the right time
Each leader shines at different points in your conquest:
- Despot: This is your safest bet to start, especially if you don't have many bird cards. With Move and Build viziers built in, you can expand right away. You'll get bonus points for destroying enemy pieces. This leader works great against early Woodland Alliance tokens.
- Charismatic: A strong early-game pick that makes your recruitment twice as good - you get two warriors instead of one with each Recruit action. Pick this leader when you need to build forces faster, especially if your starting hand has cards matching your home clearing.
- Commander: This leader works best in mid-to-late game as territory fights heat up. The extra battle hit helps you take down well-defended enemies, but you'll rarely want to start the game with this one.
- Builder: This is your go-to mid-game choice once you have several roosts and craftable cards. You can ignore the Eyrie's normal crafting limits and rack up victory points through crafting.
Smart players often switch leaders through planned turmoil. They take a small point hit to refresh their decree at key moments.
Avoiding turmoil through smart card placement
Turmoil hits when you can't complete a decree action. You lose points, dump cards, and must change leaders. Here's how to dodge this costly mess:
Recruit Column: Be careful with suited cards here. Add cards matching your starting clearing's suit, but never use a suited card if enemies can reach your only roost of that colour. With the Charismatic leader's double recruitment, two cards in this column will do the job.
Move Column: You can safely put suited cards here since movement usually works out. Just make sure you can reach clearings of the right suit.
Battle Column: Save this spot for bird cards, especially early on. Suited cards here are risky - enemies can move away their warriors and leave you with no valid targets, forcing turmoil.
Build Column: This is your trickiest action, stick to bird cards whenever you can. One suited card means you'll run out of build spots in four turns, and this column causes turmoil more than any other.
Using bird cards for flexibility
Bird cards are your wildcards in the decree. They meet any action requirement no matter the suit. These cards are gold, so:
- Put bird cards in Build and Battle columns first. These actions have the strictest rules and cause turmoil most often.
- Add just one bird card per turn to your decree. This keeps your options open for later turns.
- Use bird cards wisely for crafting items, especially with the Builder leader. The Eyrie might not craft as well as others, but items giving instant points are worth it.
- Remember each bird card in your decree could cost you victory points during turmoil. Weigh the now versus later.
Sometimes triggering turmoil makes sense - like when your decree gets too big or you need a different leader as the game changes. Plan these moments to line up with finished builds rather than failed recruits. This way, you keep your presence on the board even when your government falls.
The best Eyrie players look several turns ahead. They know how today's decree choices affect tomorrow's required actions. With smart card placement and leader picks, you'll turn the Eyrie from a brittle, rigid faction into a point-scoring powerhouse.
Secret Strategy #3: Woodland Alliance – Weaponise Sympathy
Image Source: Reddit
The Woodland Alliance thrives by turning oppression into a chance for growth. Your opponents' interactions with sympathy tokens make you stronger. Playing as the insurgent faction in Root means victory comes through smart planning and perfect timing rather than raw power.
Early game: where to spread sympathy
Your original sympathy token placement sets up your entire game strategy. The quickest way to succeed is finding "Hive clearings" connected to all three suits (fox, rabbit, and mouse). These central spots give you the most options to expand and stop opponents from blocking your progress through suit control.
Here are three ways to approach your starting position:
- Optimal path: Place tokens to access different suits while avoiding getting trapped in one suit. On the Autumn map, start in the northwest corner, move to the central bunny, then to the northeast corner. This gives you access to all suits as you expand.
- Suboptimal path: When other factions get in your way, change your best path to avoid contested clearings. Skip the central fox clearing ("Texas") even if it's mathematically best when you know it won't last long.
- Counter-optimal path: Sometimes putting sympathy in dangerous spots helps control powerful opponents. This risky move can force factions like the Eyrie to waste time removing your tokens instead of building their strategy.
Your first sympathy token costs just one card, making your opening turn vital to establish position. You need adjacent sympathy tokens to expand quickly after placing your first one.
Mid game: when to revolt and where
Data shows revolting on turn 2 works better than waiting for turn 3. Make your first revolt top priority because it powers up your whole game by:
- This is a big deal as it means that you can go beyond the 5-supporter limit
- You can place warriors directly on the board
- You get your first officer
Pick revolt locations that match unbuilt bases on your faction board. Revolting costs two matching supporters and removes all enemy pieces from that clearing. Time this clearing effect right and it becomes devastating.
Train an officer right after revolting if you can - each one lets you do an extra military operation. Guard your first base carefully. Losing it means discarding all matching supporters and removing half your officers (rounded up).
Late game: officer management and pressure
Try to have 4-5 officers in late game - any more and you'll have too few warriors. Each officer adds another military operation, giving you great action economy once you're set up. These operations include:
- Move: Get warriors to threatened areas
- Battle: Strike at weak enemy positions
- Recruit: Add warriors at your bases
- Organise: Turn a warrior into a sympathy token
The organise action becomes more valuable as the game goes on. You can spread sympathy without using supporters. This helps deal with rising sympathy costs on your faction board and martial law penalties (needing extra supporters when placing sympathy where three or more enemy warriors are).
Knowing how to convert warriors into sympathy tokens helps you bypass restrictions when enemy warriors fill the board. Yes, it is true that once you have bases, you can hold unlimited supporters - use this to spread sympathy aggressively.
Late game transforms you from small threat to unstoppable force. Your network of sympathy tokens and bases forces opponents to work together to contain you. This pulls them away from their own path to victory.
Secret Strategy #4: Vagabond – Play the Long Game
The Vagabond operates as a lone adventurer whose strength grows over time, unlike territory-controlling factions. This faction works as a game timer - if players don't keep it in check, it will tap into multiple scoring paths and end up with enough points to win.
Choosing the right character and items
Your character choice is the foundation of your strategy. The Tinker's starting hammer makes crafting readily available. You can win without fighting at all by staying under the radar until it's too late for others to react. The Thief's torch lets you grab cards from other players, which are a great way to get flexible opportunities.
Whatever character you pick, these items should be your main goal early:
- Bags – These determine your carrying capacity and are essential. Your long-term strategy falls apart without extra bags.
- Boots – More movement lets you reach better questing and aiding spots.
- Hammers – These let you craft, giving you quick points and more items.
You need to be smart about exploring ruins. Once you have your core items like a bag, hammer and boots, skipping the remaining ruins might work better than wasting moves.
Balancing aid and aggression
The Vagabond scores points in three ways: questing, helping other factions, and gaining infamy through combat. Top players usually focus on maximising just two of these at once.
Helping others becomes really profitable once you become allies, letting you score two points per aid action. Notwithstanding that, this status needs protection - opponents can wreck this strategy by attacking you. You can't improve relationships through aid actions after they turn hostile.
The psychology behind helping others plays a huge role in Vagabond strategy. Sometimes helping players who have no items, or picking cards instead of quest points, helps your long-term plan more than quick scoring.
When to go hostile and when to quest
You need to time your shift to hostility carefully. Infamy scoring offers the highest potential point rewards in the game. Once you have enough swords and items to take hits, attacking the faction with the most pieces can give you massive point gains.
Questing gives you steady points that others find hard to stop, especially when you face skilled players who target the Vagabond to prevent alliances.
Your path between helping others, infamy and quests should match the current game state. Helping becomes viable when players craft lots of items. If one player dominates with warriors and buildings everywhere, strategic attacks for infamy points might secure your woodland victory.
Secret Strategy #5: Riverfolk & Lizards – Advanced Factions
Image Source: Root Wiki - Fandom
The Riverfolk Company and Lizard Cult stand out as Root's most psychologically complex factions. These advanced options need tactical skill and a deep understanding of how players think and subtle ways to influence them.
Riverfolk: pricing and psychology
The Riverfolk Company runs or fails based on your pricing strategy. Professional players use a pricing system that changes throughout the game:
- Price 1: Early game catalyst, this encourages first purchases and gets meeples from other factions
- Price 2: Standard pricing that benefits buyers by a lot
- Price 3: Reserved for high-demand items or to test how desperate players are
- Price 4: Protective pricing for cards you want to craft or services you'd rather not sell
Beyond simple pricing, successful Riverfolk players create subtle advantages through "loyalty schemes" like "Buy now and I'll return all your warriors next turn". Learning about each faction's needs is a great way to get an edge, Eyrie will pay well to avoid turmoil, while the Lizard Cult looks for cards matching their scoring gardens.
Lizards: controlling the outcast suit
The Lizard Cult's biggest challenge lies in managing fate's whims through the Outcast suit. This suit controls your scoring, crafting and conspiracy costs, making it crucial. Here are four expert-level approaches:
- Let it Ride: Keep the current Outcast by discarding Bird followers
- Hedging Bets: Discard enough cards so the current suit leads by one
- Nudging: Aim for a new Outcast by going +1 in another suit
- The Sure Thing: Change or keep the Outcast with +2 discards in your preferred suit
Note that scoring points needs active choices. "If you don't decide 'this turn I am going to spend a card to score some points,' then you just never get any points". On top of that, it helps to swap dominance cards not just as a niche move but as a key strategy to control the Outcast suit.
At the time to go for a surprise dominance win
Both factions excel at unexpected dominance victories. The Riverfolk's swimming ability lets them reach corner clearings fast through rivers, making Bird dominance quite possible. The Lizard Cult's gardens give them instant ruling status in clearings, so they can control scattered locations.
The best approach involves "playing normally" while quietly preparing for dominance. Riverfolk should build their economic engine while watching for corner clearing chances. Lizards should focus on placing gardens in a single suit, ideally in spots others find hard to reach.
The Root of it All
Playing Root well takes both smart tactics and some across the table mind games. We've looked at pro-level strategies that revolutionise simple woodland creatures into tough competitors. Each faction is a chance to win differently - the Marquise uses industrial power, the Eyrie relies on military discipline, and the Alliance works through rebellion.
Your success in Root will end up depending on how well you adapt these strategies to each game. A Marquise player who builds blindly without thinking over board position will lose to opponents who know their weak spots. The Eyrie player must also balance an ambitious decree against possible turmoil disasters.
Your faction should match your gaming style. The Vagabond works best for patient players who like small advantages over time, while the Riverfolk clicks with those good at making deals and managing impressions. On top of that, the Lizard Cult gives a great experience to players who enjoy working with odds and finding surprise openings.
The game's asymmetry creates both chances and risks. So knowing how your opponents' special powers mix with yours will help develop counter-strategies. Top players know their faction's strong points and exactly when to use them.
These strategies give you the tools to rule your next woodland battle. They help you see the brilliant design that makes Root a lasting hit with gamers. Your woodland creatures are ready to rule the forest, can you lead them to victory?
