I almost only tried Mechanical Marquise and Electric Eyrie since we always want to try new factions and their reach values are often low so we need the high reach these two provide :D (until the Mechiavellian Moles come out!)
FYI, there's an error in the rules regarding Crackdown. The extra sympathy "removed" from clearings matching a destroyed base are actually "returned", not "removed". You do not score points for these. Very important as it utterly breaks the game, especially as the Vagabond as you saw here, to score 2 points for each of these. It was a wording change that slipped through in printing.
Always love 💕 to see you guys playing Root. With so many bots to manage I'm surprised you had such few mistakes, but just fyi: - 1:03:10 Monique's maximum hits isn't 2, it's 4 (2 from swords + 2 from allied cats). So she should have killed all WA pieces with first battle. - 1:11:49 Eyrie should have moved from 9 because it has more birds than 11. - 1:21:57 Monique says she can't move to 12 because she would need 2 boots but that would only be true if there were hostile warriors there, not pieces (maybe you're following some older rules?). - Naveen is using old version of field hospitals. It was revised so that a single card saves ALL removed cats and it works in any situation, not just battles. Naveen I see you really love crafting 😅 Anyways awesome job guys!
do you have an example for "a single card saves all removed cats and it works in ANY SITUATION, NOT JUST BATTLES"? like what other situation then a battle?
That was a fantastic playthrough session! Well done. I think this channel is fast becoming my favorite channel for playthroughs and how-to-plays. Your love of board games shines through very clearly. You have good synergy together and don't overtalk each other or get snide or disrespectful. You both also are able to disseminate complex rules easily with thoughtful articulation. It's really a pleasant thing to watch and it makes learning games much easier and more fun. I only saw the Klingon text pop up a couple of times, which shows that you both had a great grasp of the rules and procedures. Again, well done! This happens to be one of my top ten games; my issue is finding enough like-minded gamers in my area but now that you've done this run though, I feel ready to tackle the Clockwork Expansion, so we can play with a full player count. Again, thanks and I look forward to more of your playthroughs.
At 50:49, Naveen should have rescued both warriors. When you field hospitals you rescue all warriors that have been removed in this instance of "damage" or "removal" (like in a revolt). And at 56:54 the move was correct, you indeed have to spend the bird card :) .All the best, I find it really relaxing watching you both play and I always learn something new when I watch people play Root :D
Actually he did not have to spend the bird card since Cats always get three actions. 1st action he built a Recruit station for 2 points. 2nd action he recruited 3rd action he did overwork do discard a mouse card to place a wood at the sawmill He should have used the bird card to take a 4th action since he had to discard down to 5 anyway I agree with you, I always learn something new watching others play Root. I am trying to minimize my mistakes with the bots, so this vid is helpful.
Ah... good to see you guys again. I had to resort to getting my UA-cam game fix from other content creators! :o haha... thanks for another great playthrough and review. I appreciate the decision to use the winter board. Also, I've never seen the Vagabond, so that was cool too! Thanks for sharing your time and thoughts. =)
These videos have been super helpful! We have only played the base game at 2 players and we didn't really enjoy it, because as you know the base game doesn't play great at 2, but I love that there are so many options to enhance the game and I'm really excited to try it again! Great video as always! :)
You guys are so wholesome and lovely! I just found you last week and I've watched about 10 videos so far. I have terrible depression and your wholesomeness has been helping me out quite a bit. Thank you for these videos! ♥
Love this! The automated alliance is the only bot faction we haven’t played. The Electric Eyrie is so brutal and complicated (so many actions!) and impossible to make go into turmoil. I hope you will do more Root playthroughs with different faction combos. Your videos are so helpful to learn from!
I knew nothing about board games 2 weeks ago but ever since your Stardew Valley video I've been here watching all your vids. Didn't know Root had a co-op mode and now I really want to pick this up too!
You have created another great video! You mentioned the winter mat has a river that restrict the =movement of Vegabond some what. This is what mentioned rule: 2.3: "Rivers
This was really great, I love your Root playthroughs! There was a lot of tension and I enjoy how interesting the game is even when you use the bots, it is definitely one of the better bot algorithms out there. I am looking forward to what they are going to think of for the other factions, when the new expansion arrives, it is really very interesting. By the way, I also love co-op games. Maybe a return to Spirit Island some time? Not this month, obviously, but hopefully soon :) Also, if you are looking for a nice co-op game with a lot of theme, I can strongly recommend Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck-Building Game, it is a very nice (and difficult) game and the mechanics play very well into the theme.
This comment got big but I want you both to know I love your videos and I love this game, thats why I left this comment. Keep up the great work and yeah I would have made many more mistakes than this if I made an attempt. 42:55 Because shes attacking the alliance and they have no warriors, its undefended. Does this mean she got a 2 + 1 = 3. The vagabond still does a +1 regardless of how many swords they have? 1:21:05 Eyrie had more rule in clearing 9 because of the building. 2.5 Rule. A player rules a clearing if they have more total warriors and Buildings in it than each other player. Naveen utilized this ruling correctly in regards to maintaining rule to move his wood through clearing 2. 1:21:55 The vagabond does not count as a warrior and can move into a clearing without triggering outrage. 9.2.2 Lone Wanderer. The vagabond pawn is not a warrior. 8.2.6 Outrage. Whenever another player removes a sympathy token or moves any warriors into a sympathetic clearing, they add one card matching the affected clearing from their hand to the supporters stack.
4.3.3 II Defenseless. "If the defender has no warriors in the clearing of battle, the attacker will deal an extra hit." Keyword, attacker...answered my own question. derp!
Another great video! I’ll admit that I initially thought cooperative Root wouldn’t be enjoyable. But, I stumbled into a game of cooperative Root and was amazed at the experience. Needless to say, I now highly recommend cooperative Root (even if I prefer the competitive version more 😉). Keep up the great content!
Very happy to see this video as I really like Root but 1) can't always get enough players together and 2) love co-ops. I had not planned to purchase the Clockwork Expansions before because solo play didn't interest me. But the idea that my partner and I could play cooperatively using one or two bots is really exciting!
Vagabot plays really well. Electric Eyrie is awkward to run - I find I constantly have to work out their priority. Their movement is also not optimal. I guess the idea is that they're trying to get lots of roosts out to score 4+ VP per turn (plus crafting and enemy tokens). It is actually quite fun running 3 bots solo - a bit of a brain burn, but not too bad when you get into it. Definitely gonna try the coop mode - could do it two handed solo!
02:25 Poor Naveen only took 2 actions. 😊 Then spent a bird card to get a 3rd action, which should have been his 4th action. Then did a battle and lost a bird card, which could have been his 5th action. If causing Outrage is going to make you lose a bird card, it's typically better to spend that bird card to get another action, then the WA will have to draw a random card and get a point. 🐰
I really need to try Root..Ive watched a few videos and I honestly dont understand the appeal but everyone seems to love it. Have you guys considered doing more Spirit island videos?..there is still a lot of unexplored depth, It would be fun to see how you guys interpret and approach the high complexity spirits. Just picked up the Branch and Claw expansion and its become my favorite solo\coop game by far. Cant wait to get my hands on Jagged Earth.
I just played the inverse of this game. Vagabot never really got into gear, but MM drew bunny/bird for 6 turns straight and 20 VP. Alliance crossed the line first, and Eyrie was a turn away if MM hadn't drawn bunny *again* (the next 2 cards were bird and another bunny!)
Just watched the underground video and posted there it would be great to see your riverfolk playthrough and maybe just maybe an online play or something with Quackalope.
Btw, i think the new marquise field hospital power allow the discard to move all the warriors back to the keep instead of just one. I saw Naveen’s field hospital only put 1 warrior into the keep instead of 2.
How can you craft cards that requires 3 hammer when playing the ranger? There are only 2 hammers in play: one hammer in the item supply and one hammer under one of the ruins. Loved the video btw :)
Is this true? I was wondering why the bot kept spreading sympathy with public pity and then spreading sympathy again in the daylight phase. SO MUCH SYMPATHY
Those Vagabond bonus boosts for removing Hostile Sympathy tokens look a bit imbalanced.... I think they alone accounted for 50% of the Vagabond points. :)
We have just started playing our first game of Root in co-op mode and are struggling to understand the movement rules for the Electric Eyrie. My partner thinks that a clearing with no enemy pieces should not count as "fewest" enemy pieces. If it does, they just keep breeding more birds but cycling through the same 2 or 3 clearings and going into turmoil. Is it because they should be moving to the nearest adjacent clearing without a roost, and use enemy pieces as the tiebreaker if there are multiple such clearings?
The rules to me are so crazy, but super fun. I only played the basic game. Co-op seems awesome from what you showed! Is it possible to play 4 player 2 bots 2 human with no co-op?
Thanks for the ROOT play through. I thought that the bots could battle each other. The E Eyre could have removed the Sympathy tokens. I have found the Auto Alliance to score so steadily they become a timer for the game that you must beat to win.
Normally, they could and should battle each other but since they are playing cooperative bots against humans, they don't consider each other's pieces as "enemies" :)
You can enable subtitles on the video, if you enable “Klingon subtitles” it will display corrections on screen for any rule errors that might have squeaked through.
@@NorthernCuts I do not see a "Klingon subtitles" option anywhere. I did see some on screen rules clarifications though, but I never turned any setting on to see it.
Exactly as everyone described. We only add subtitles on screen when we learn of rules corrections after the fact. It'll look like no subtitles during the times there are no errors.
If you all were to make another video showing off different combinations of bot factions and human factions, I know I would love to watch it. And since you have 3 videos at this point kind of walking the viewers though the rules, you could probably play a little more naturally to save some time and not feel like you need to explain every step. Just a thought!
Hi Ben, you're absolutely right! We're planning on future Root gameplays, especially now that we have the Riverfolk expansion. It'll be nice to not have to explain as much with the factions we've already covered. Thank you!
Hello guys. Thank you for this run. Root is very nice as a co-op versus two bots. I want to say that when Automated Alliance revolt, they remove all enemy's pieces. So in two circumstances you shouldn't remove Eyrie's birds. That would make Eyrie even more aggressive and dangerous. I think you left them too much to evolve. In addition, I don't know how do you resolve the action when the Alliance built a base in a clearing that had as result to destroy Eyrie's roost. Maybe they treat this clearing as unavailable due to their alliance?
Hmm. I wonder if anyone has ever tried a playerless version of root, using all the current bots? Sounds kind of pointless but it could still be interesting. :-)
Have you tried The Clockwork Expansion? Which bot is your favorite to play with?
The Vagabot is brutal, I almost always lose to it hahaha
@@ClericEric We're excited to try it with the Vagabot!
Automated Alliance just nuked me a couple of times now! 😆
Love your videos! Please keep posting more root! 🙏🏻
I do enjoy the simplicity of the Mechanical Marquis and the reach they provide.
I almost only tried Mechanical Marquise and Electric Eyrie since we always want to try new factions and their reach values are often low so we need the high reach these two provide :D (until the Mechiavellian Moles come out!)
FYI, there's an error in the rules regarding Crackdown. The extra sympathy "removed" from clearings matching a destroyed base are actually "returned", not "removed". You do not score points for these. Very important as it utterly breaks the game, especially as the Vagabond as you saw here, to score 2 points for each of these. It was a wording change that slipped through in printing.
i was thinking that this compared to every other scoring this game seemed way out of place
Wrong
Always love 💕 to see you guys playing Root. With so many bots to manage I'm surprised you had such few mistakes, but just fyi:
- 1:03:10 Monique's maximum hits isn't 2, it's 4 (2 from swords + 2 from allied cats). So she should have killed all WA pieces with first battle.
- 1:11:49 Eyrie should have moved from 9 because it has more birds than 11.
- 1:21:57 Monique says she can't move to 12 because she would need 2 boots but that would only be true if there were hostile warriors there, not pieces (maybe you're following some older rules?).
- Naveen is using old version of field hospitals. It was revised so that a single card saves ALL removed cats and it works in any situation, not just battles.
Naveen I see you really love crafting 😅
Anyways awesome job guys!
do you have an example for "a single card saves all removed cats and it works in ANY SITUATION, NOT JUST BATTLES"? like what other situation then a battle?
@@NinjarioPicmin all other situations where you remove cats, for example Woodland Alliance doing a revolt or a "Favor of the ..." card
That was a fantastic playthrough session! Well done. I think this channel is fast becoming my favorite channel for playthroughs and how-to-plays. Your love of board games shines through very clearly.
You have good synergy together and don't overtalk each other or get snide or disrespectful. You both also are able to disseminate complex rules easily with thoughtful articulation. It's really a pleasant thing to watch and it makes learning games much easier and more fun. I only saw the Klingon text pop up a couple of times, which shows that you both had a great grasp of the rules and procedures. Again, well done!
This happens to be one of my top ten games; my issue is finding enough like-minded gamers in my area but now that you've done this run though, I feel ready to tackle the Clockwork Expansion, so we can play with a full player count.
Again, thanks and I look forward to more of your playthroughs.
Absolutely love these videos even though I’ll never play half the games.
Aww that's really sweet of you to say! =)
me too, but don't they make you want to play them all? XD
At 50:49, Naveen should have rescued both warriors. When you field hospitals you rescue all warriors that have been removed in this instance of "damage" or "removal" (like in a revolt). And at 56:54 the move was correct, you indeed have to spend the bird card :) .All the best, I find it really relaxing watching you both play and I always learn something new when I watch people play Root :D
Actually he did not have to spend the bird card since Cats always get three actions.
1st action he built a Recruit station for 2 points.
2nd action he recruited
3rd action he did overwork do discard a mouse card to place a wood at the sawmill
He should have used the bird card to take a 4th action since he had to discard down to 5 anyway
I agree with you, I always learn something new watching others play Root. I am trying to minimize my mistakes with the bots, so this vid is helpful.
I never thought I’d want to try Root until I saw you guys play! Thanks for another awesome playthrough!
You should give it a shot! =)
Ah... good to see you guys again. I had to resort to getting my UA-cam game fix from other content creators! :o haha... thanks for another great playthrough and review. I appreciate the decision to use the winter board. Also, I've never seen the Vagabond, so that was cool too! Thanks for sharing your time and thoughts. =)
These videos have been super helpful! We have only played the base game at 2 players and we didn't really enjoy it, because as you know the base game doesn't play great at 2, but I love that there are so many options to enhance the game and I'm really excited to try it again! Great video as always! :)
You guys are so wholesome and lovely! I just found you last week and I've watched about 10 videos so far. I have terrible depression and your wholesomeness has been helping me out quite a bit. Thank you for these videos! ♥
Love this! The automated alliance is the only bot faction we haven’t played. The Electric Eyrie is so brutal and complicated (so many actions!) and impossible to make go into turmoil. I hope you will do more Root playthroughs with different faction combos. Your videos are so helpful to learn from!
Nice playthrough. Those 3 crafts (especially the 3VP) really helped the cats!
I knew nothing about board games 2 weeks ago but ever since your Stardew Valley video I've been here watching all your vids. Didn't know Root had a co-op mode and now I really want to pick this up too!
You have created another great video! You mentioned the winter mat has a river that restrict the =movement of Vegabond some what. This is what mentioned rule: 2.3: "Rivers
Really great commentary on your thoughts!
I have been waiting for this for a loooong time :)
It has arrived!!
This was really great, I love your Root playthroughs! There was a lot of tension and I enjoy how interesting the game is even when you use the bots, it is definitely one of the better bot algorithms out there. I am looking forward to what they are going to think of for the other factions, when the new expansion arrives, it is really very interesting.
By the way, I also love co-op games. Maybe a return to Spirit Island some time? Not this month, obviously, but hopefully soon :) Also, if you are looking for a nice co-op game with a lot of theme, I can strongly recommend Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck-Building Game, it is a very nice (and difficult) game and the mechanics play very well into the theme.
This comment got big but I want you both to know I love your videos and I love this game, thats why I left this comment. Keep up the great work and yeah I would have made many more mistakes than this if I made an attempt.
42:55 Because shes attacking the alliance and they have no warriors, its undefended. Does this mean she got a 2 + 1 = 3. The vagabond still does a +1 regardless of how many swords they have?
1:21:05 Eyrie had more rule in clearing 9 because of the building.
2.5 Rule. A player rules a clearing if they have more total warriors and Buildings in it than each other player.
Naveen utilized this ruling correctly in regards to maintaining rule to move his wood through clearing 2.
1:21:55 The vagabond does not count as a warrior and can move into a clearing without triggering outrage.
9.2.2 Lone Wanderer. The vagabond pawn is not a warrior.
8.2.6 Outrage. Whenever another player removes a sympathy token or moves any warriors into a sympathetic clearing, they add one card matching the affected clearing from their hand to the supporters stack.
4.3.3 II Defenseless. "If the defender has no warriors in the clearing of battle, the attacker will deal an extra hit." Keyword, attacker...answered my own question. derp!
Nicely done, I really enjoyed you crushing La Resistance!
Yay more Root content! Very excited!
Hope you enjoy!
Really loving these Root videos guys! Would love to see more!
Another great video!
I’ll admit that I initially thought cooperative Root wouldn’t be enjoyable. But, I stumbled into a game of cooperative Root and was amazed at the experience.
Needless to say, I now highly recommend cooperative Root (even if I prefer the competitive version more 😉).
Keep up the great content!
Yeah we were iffy about it upon first hearing about it. The Eyrie bot behaves a little strange, but still created enough tension for us.
excellent play through, thank you for making this! :)
Our pleasure, it was really fun!
I really hope to see more Root play from y'all! Great video BTW.
Ended up getting root digital after watching these videos! Looking forward to giving it a try!
I'm real glad Watch It Played brought y'all to my attention
Very happy to see this video as I really like Root but 1) can't always get enough players together and 2) love co-ops. I had not planned to purchase the Clockwork Expansions before because solo play didn't interest me. But the idea that my partner and I could play cooperatively using one or two bots is really exciting!
Vagabot plays really well. Electric Eyrie is awkward to run - I find I constantly have to work out their priority. Their movement is also not optimal. I guess the idea is that they're trying to get lots of roosts out to score 4+ VP per turn (plus crafting and enemy tokens). It is actually quite fun running 3 bots solo - a bit of a brain burn, but not too bad when you get into it. Definitely gonna try the coop mode - could do it two handed solo!
Really excited to try this Co-Op sometime, I love Root.
Love the videos. You made a couple rules goofs. Bots do score when removing cardboard from other bots.
02:25 Poor Naveen only took 2 actions. 😊 Then spent a bird card to get a 3rd action, which should have been his 4th action. Then did a battle and lost a bird card, which could have been his 5th action. If causing Outrage is going to make you lose a bird card, it's typically better to spend that bird card to get another action, then the WA will have to draw a random card and get a point. 🐰
I really need to try Root..Ive watched a few videos and I honestly dont understand the appeal but everyone seems to love it.
Have you guys considered doing more Spirit island videos?..there is still a lot of unexplored depth, It would be fun to see how you guys interpret and approach the high complexity spirits. Just picked up the Branch and Claw expansion and its become my favorite solo\coop game by far. Cant wait to get my hands on Jagged Earth.
Subscribed!
I just played the inverse of this game. Vagabot never really got into gear, but MM drew bunny/bird for 6 turns straight and 20 VP. Alliance crossed the line first, and Eyrie was a turn away if MM hadn't drawn bunny *again* (the next 2 cards were bird and another bunny!)
Hey guys, I think the setup for the Marquise includes 2 warriors in the keep clearing, doesn’t it?
Only for the bot, not when the Marquise are played by a human.
Monique, wait until you win a Dominance victory with the Vagabond. *chef's kiss*
That was the moment I fell in love with Root.
Just watched the underground video and posted there it would be great to see your riverfolk playthrough and maybe just maybe an online play or something with Quackalope.
Gonna try the coop mode! ❤️
It's really fun! The Eyrie bot can behave a little strangely though lol
Btw, i think the new marquise field hospital power allow the discard to move all the warriors back to the keep instead of just one. I saw Naveen’s field hospital only put 1 warrior into the keep instead of 2.
@@MrFrancisChio yes, Naveen seems to be using the old version of field hospitals
I'm one of the rare people who likes playing Root coop more than I like playing it competitive.
Yeah it was really fun trying to work together.
47:00 Martial law
Nice video as always. I’m curious, how did the bot felt with the Corvid?
How can you craft cards that requires 3 hammer when playing the ranger? There are only 2 hammers in play: one hammer in the item supply and one hammer under one of the ruins. Loved the video btw :)
1:09:30 I believe Public Pity has been moved into Daylight, after Surprise Revolt; they should never both happen
Is this true? I was wondering why the bot kept spreading sympathy with public pity and then spreading sympathy again in the daylight phase. SO MUCH SYMPATHY
Officially-unofficially it is. This change is in the Better Bot Director's Cut (on BGG), but I don't know if it will ever get an actual printing
Those Vagabond bonus boosts for removing Hostile Sympathy tokens look a bit imbalanced.... I think they alone accounted for 50% of the Vagabond points. :)
1:22:31 😆
yes, thanks for this! i JUST introduced root to my partner and let's just say the only way I'll ever get her to play again is co-op lol
Every time they say "A boot" I keep hearing a Canadian saying "About" lol
We have just started playing our first game of Root in co-op mode and are struggling to understand the movement rules for the Electric Eyrie. My partner thinks that a clearing with no enemy pieces should not count as "fewest" enemy pieces. If it does, they just keep breeding more birds but cycling through the same 2 or 3 clearings and going into turmoil. Is it because they should be moving to the nearest adjacent clearing without a roost, and use enemy pieces as the tiebreaker if there are multiple such clearings?
The rules to me are so crazy, but super fun. I only played the basic game. Co-op seems awesome from what you showed! Is it possible to play 4 player 2 bots 2 human with no co-op?
Hi Mario! Yes, with the Clockwork Expansion you can play competitively with 2 humans and 2 bots =)
Thanks for the ROOT play through. I thought that the bots could battle each other. The E Eyre could have removed the Sympathy tokens. I have found the Auto Alliance to score so steadily they become a timer for the game that you must beat to win.
Normally, they could and should battle each other but since they are playing cooperative bots against humans, they don't consider each other's pieces as "enemies" :)
@@guilbo11 That makes sense. Thank you!
What in the world do you mean by "Klingon subtitles". I've heard you mention that a couple of times, and have no idea what you mean.
You can enable subtitles on the video, if you enable “Klingon subtitles” it will display corrections on screen for any rule errors that might have squeaked through.
Yes, it's less QAPLA!!!! and more like rule goofs and such.
@@NorthernCuts I do not see a "Klingon subtitles" option anywhere. I did see some on screen rules clarifications though, but I never turned any setting on to see it.
Exactly as everyone described. We only add subtitles on screen when we learn of rules corrections after the fact. It'll look like no subtitles during the times there are no errors.
Haven’t watched it yet... gonna be interesting to see if Monique’s gonna Alfa this Co-op. 😜😜😜
Does anybody tried to play solo with three bots? Any thoughts on gameplay, difficulty?
Wow, I've never tried the bots for those two factions - they're tough! Just starting here, but this doesn't look good.
If you all were to make another video showing off different combinations of bot factions and human factions, I know I would love to watch it. And since you have 3 videos at this point kind of walking the viewers though the rules, you could probably play a little more naturally to save some time and not feel like you need to explain every step. Just a thought!
Hi Ben, you're absolutely right! We're planning on future Root gameplays, especially now that we have the Riverfolk expansion. It'll be nice to not have to explain as much with the factions we've already covered. Thank you!
Hello guys. Thank you for this run. Root is very nice as a co-op versus two bots. I want to say that when Automated Alliance revolt, they remove all enemy's pieces. So in two circumstances you shouldn't remove Eyrie's birds. That would make Eyrie even more aggressive and dangerous. I think you left them too much to evolve. In addition, I don't know how do you resolve the action when the Alliance built a base in a clearing that had as result to destroy Eyrie's roost. Maybe they treat this clearing as unavailable due to their alliance?
Hmm. I wonder if anyone has ever tried a playerless version of root, using all the current bots? Sounds kind of pointless but it could still be interesting. :-)
Naveen is hot, especially when he's super passionate about something.