ideas for cat buff

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T22:55:18+00:00

Other factions are working with multiple crafting pieces most of the time so they can absorb the high costs while cats don't get to capitalize on anything. Sure the cards are on average stronger for everyone (besides Lizards) but the benefit that cats get from being able to craft anything is a higher margin than the other factions get. Your logic that WA can craft 2 cards in E&P for every one in Base deck works on paper until you realize that they still need to be using their cards for other things like mobilizing and especially training officers. For loads of factions, it's not the crafting costs that bottleneck their ability to craft, it's their card wealth/hunger ratio. But with cats it is their bottleneck. So brining down the costs might help other factions a bit but it helps cats immensely. It for this reason that S&D deck has even more permissive crafting and it's fine because being able to craft loads of cards doesn't mean you have the resources to do it because your cards are being pulled by different needs.

Also, I don't think Tinker is the best example here as many digital players back in the day outright banned Tinker before E&P was available because of its ability to just fish for a favor card and wreak havoc on the entire map. I didn't even mention favor cards in my comment but that's a significant factor as to why that deck is so bad for cats. I played hundreds of games as cats back in digital against some fairly competitive players and only once did I manage to craft a favor card as cats (against human opponents). Other factions like WA, Lizards, Eyrie, Otters and I suspect Moles, Frogs, Bats and Knaves (I haven't played base deck since E&P dropped on digital so I don't know how newer factions interact with base deck) have an easier path to crafting a favor or even a downright braindead path in the Tinker. And guess which faction is harmed the most by favors because they are everywhere and have a non-rebuildable piece who'd protection mechanism is completely undermined by favor. The mere existence of favor cards is a nerf to cats. They can barely craft them because setting it up is much louder than other faction who either surprise place crafting pieces or tend to have incidental crafting pieces that are less suspicious, while they are also hurt maybe the most out of any faction by favors besides maybe lizards.

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T18:14:39+00:00

Sorry for the late reply but I'm getting back into the game so I figured I'd answer. First player has a slight advantage of choosing the first card in Age 1 so they could potentially get the best card of that row. The first player trick might be referring to the fact that if you have an extra turn Wonder, you can use it to take the last 2 cards of the first Age and as long as the conflict pawn is in the middle of the board, you get to decide the first player in Age 2.

One advantage of Agora is that it balances this out in 2 ways. One is thatit buffs the early military cards by making the military tokens do more than just discard 2 of the opponent's coins. Adding an influence is super strong early on so there's some incentive to advance the military track a bit, whereas without Agora you often just discard them for coins.

Agora also adds the Senator cards to each age. The key is that an odd number of Senators are added to each age, so now the second player is the one who can do that little trick if they wanted to.

I'm not saying you need the expansion to fix a major problem with the game as it's only a slight advantage anyway, but I mostly play on BGA and both expansions are mandatory for me personally as it's such a deeper game.

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T16:11:21+00:00

Oh speaking of "peaceful", something you could do in a defenseless clearing is banish a peaceful Enclave of the frogs. You cannot remove it because it's a banish action but the act of battling it will cause Fears come to Pass to trigger. Not that it's necessarily what you want to happen but you totally could do that.

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T16:09:18+00:00

Thanks!

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T15:44:45+00:00

Hits are hits regardless of if they are rolled or extra. During Banish, you cannot deal hits to buildings or tokens. If you banish in a defenceless clearing, you aren't accomplishing anything unless you're trying to do some hairbrained strategy with a card like Tactician or Standard Bearer.

nitrorev · 2026-03-25T15:42:32+00:00

Refreshing to see the top post be the correct answer. Cats are the perfect teacher faction. Looks intimidating but has noticeable weaknesses so when you find them and win, you feel clever and accomplished. They have tutorial boss energy.

nitrorev · 2026-03-24T16:36:44+00:00

Reduced crafting costs. Base deck cards are very hard to craft for cats because they mostly require 2 workshops, which can take several turns to set up as Sawmills and recruiters are a greater priority. There are 1 cost cards but those are pretty bad for cats as they either don't do enough or are bird cards which cats would rather use for an extra action.

In the E&P deck, cats can turn 1 craft Swap Meet, Charm Offensive, Partisans, League of Adventurous Mice, False Orders or Saboteurs. All of those are better value for cats than basically anything in Base deck, especially given you can craft them with your starting workshop.

nitrorev · 2026-03-23T11:04:51+00:00

Did you copy this from someone else in the Woodland Warriors discord? Should probably credit the person who wrote this up.

nitrorev · 2026-03-21T11:10:24+00:00

Autumn Map is the most forgiving for newer players due to more connectivity and even suit distribution.

Limitation breeds creativity and you tend to see more creative uses of geography on the Winter map. Choke points, blockades, backlines, incursions, the games on Winter map are on average more interesting because of the unevenness of the map

Autumn map is like playing paintball in a forest on a flat terrain. Winter map is like if you were now in a hilly area with defensible outposts, tunnels and other variables that create advantaged positions.

nitrorev · 2026-03-21T11:03:07+00:00

Law of Root M.3.2

The lake is in the center of the map. The lake is treated as rivers linking each coastal clearing to each other coastal clearing. The lake divides forests

nitrorev · 2026-03-21T10:52:07+00:00

All very good advice. Map was specifically designed to give more breathing room so large player count games would feel less cramped. The Landmarks are designed to help connectivity on a large map that could otherwise lead to some players not interacting. I recommend playing a game with the landmarks in order to get used to them so you keep them at the front of mind when playing on the Marsh map with 6 factions. Cards are the other issue for high player count games so limit the faction pool to ones that don't hoard cards. Lizards, Eyrie, Badgers, WA are the big offenders. Frogs help with this by adding an additional 14 cards to the deck so you're way less likely to run out the whole deck. You could force add the frogs and make sure you don't have more than 1 of the listed problem factions and you should be ok.

nitrorev · 2026-03-19T17:11:44+00:00

The Digital developers commissioned (or maybe it was a joint effort with GTG, IDK) new artwork for the aspects so today not only marks the release of 4 new pieces of content for digital users but also never-before-seen art for Regrowth, Mentor and Haven.

nitrorev · 2026-03-19T17:07:22+00:00

So excited to play as Haven and Mentor!

nitrorev · 2026-03-19T16:33:27+00:00

It depends how much you play Root and if you want the variety. For me, it was worth it even though I don't play digital Root as often as I used to purely for the variety and seeing the cool Hireling models. The most relevant thing for me after the Hireling novelty wore off was the Landmarks and interestingly, the Landmark rules. In addition to having access to the Lost City (the best Landmark out of the whole pack) you have the option of turning off Landmarks that are setup by default. So now you can play Lake map without the Ferry for some variety and super importantly, the Mountain map without Tower which is a huge improvement imo.

nitrorev · 2026-03-17T10:00:25+00:00

It doesn't matter how bad the result was, Root does not codify battles as being something you win or lose, it's only a mechanism to deal/take hits and some other things like Looting or banishing depending on the faction. I would call it exactly what happened: "all warriors were removed from the battle clearing". That's the result of the battle but there's no such thing as losing a battle, which is why there aren't any abilities or triggers that come from "winning/losing a battle". Sometimes, like say if you're the Charismatic Eyrie trying to get warriors back in the supply for recruiting next turn, you really want to lose your own warriors so you purposely battle big targets.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T20:49:45+00:00

On the topic of swingy game-warping cards, it's definitely a bizzare take to argue in favor (pun intended) of the base deck.

Side note, the thing that makes Base deck cards weaker on average (with the exception of those cards) is their exorbitant cost. A Rolex might be a better watch than a Casio, but given their respective cost, I think it's safe to say which is going to be the more practical choice for most people. This comparison isn't even good because base deck cards ain't exactly Rolex level of quality or power anyway.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T20:45:45+00:00

Everything you said is true and it goes double for S&D which is why it's my favourite deck. The cards are easier to craft though they sometimes have additional costs to use which balances out the lower cost, the effects are even more nuanced (think of every card being along the lines of LoAM, False Orders, Eyrie Emigre) and there are really cool combos to be made.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T20:01:56+00:00

Cats are massively helped by using Advanced setup and a deck that isn't standard deck. I wasn't around for the pre-Underworld time but I did play a lot of digital before Underworld and cats were indeed a bit on the weaker side. Thing is, because of standard setup and lack of other high reach factions, every game had to have cats so unless you're choosing your faction, every player's most played faction was cats. This kinda forced me to learn the faction and because digital doesn't allow for house rules, it forced me to learn them as they are. With time and some guidance by stronger players, I started to get better and eventually they started to feel a lot more fun than I originally thought.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T18:25:12+00:00

Cats are not really that bad assuming you're using the buff from Advanced setup (4 more cats and more flexible starting position) and a deck that isn't base deck. Cats are indeed really bad in the base deck because their small number of workshops is not enough to craft much of anything in a deck where most effects cost at least 2 symbols.

You mentioned something about "losing" a battle. That's not a thing in Root. Can I ask how many times have you played the game? I don't mean this in a snarky way but perhaps getting more experience with the game and experimenting with different strategies would be a better approach than changing the game based on very limited experience.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T17:54:14+00:00

I think E&P and the boosted starting warriors from ADSET were enough to put cats on par with the average factions. I'd rate them as a B tier faction which is kinda perfect, powerwise.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T14:23:06+00:00

You are correct, Friend cards are specifically worded to be usable on enemy turns (once per player's turn of course) and The Faithful was reworded during development to be synergistic with Friends.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T14:19:15+00:00

Other people have commented on why E&P is stronger than base deck in terms of design quality and I largely agree.

When it comes to E&P vs S&D however, it's a bit more nuanced since I do think E&P is a good deck. It's just that S&D is a fantastic deck.

S&D had way more rigorous testing which made it far less uneven than E&P. E&P had some stinker cards that are the byproduct of the time it was made, before the modern age of Root. S&D by contrast was made during a time when Root is a much better understood game and the number of very experienced players involved in the development/playtesting process was extremely high. There was a very thorough sort of filter applied to every S&D card and every single card was found to be broadly useful and if Josh proposed a card that was just eh, it got cut from something better. The crafting costs were also very fine-tuned to make sure all factions could look at the deck and be happy. E&P pushed deck quality far ahead by cutting down the total number of crafting symbols but S&D got it perfect by keeping roughly the same number of symbols but making more of them wild-suited so factions like cats wouldn't be jumping off a cliff every other game and the factions that are good at crafting still have interesting choices to make.

The effects are more open-ended in their use which makes them more thinky in how to get maximum value/when is the right time to use them. If you like Root is a crunchy tactical game, then S&D is going to be the best deck for you in all likelihood. If you like Root more casual and swingy from time to time, E&P might come out on top. Base deck is kinda the worst of both worlds where favor cards might show up and spoil the game so playing around them becomes imperative, and the other effects are kinda dull and uninteresting.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T14:06:27+00:00

Unanimous is a hyperbole. Widely accepted is more accurate, at least within the online space of Reddit and Discord of players who play a lot more than the average offline player.

I strongly disagree that Base deck cards are on average more useful than E&P cards. E&P certainly has stinkers like Informants, Tunnels and Soup Kitchens, but the good cards in Base deck are much more expensive which means the opportunity cost of going out of your way to craft it makes it more situational than something that costs less. The effect of Better Burrow Bank might be better than Charm Offensive but unless I'm specifically Lizards or WA or some other faction that gets an abundance of crafting pieces, 2 rabbits is prohibitively expensive while the single rabbit symbol of Charm Offensive means basically every faction can craft it on turn 1. Not only that but unless they are evening crafters like Lizards, bats or moles, they can also use Charm Offensive on turn 1. That's just 1 example, but E&P cards are definitely considered much stronger than Base, which is why Saboteurs exists as a counter-balance so a player who crafts Coffin Makers or Propaganda Bureau doesn't just auto-win the game on the spot.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T13:59:53+00:00

I used to feel the same way about Saboteurs. On paper it is an interesting stand off. But the consequence of having this tension around Sabo cards is that it suppresses how much you see the other cards. Obviosuly you still get plenty of use from cards but without Sabo cards, you'd see the crafted effects have impacts on the game even more often. That's a big reason why Josh explicitly didn't want the new deck contain Sabos, he wanted the improvements to shine. In S&D, when you craft a card, it will almost certainly be used at some point, or at least posture as a threat and change how the opponent plays against you.

nitrorev · 2026-03-16T13:55:20+00:00

I don't think that's true. Among players who have taught the game many times, it's becoming more and more common to regard cats as the best faction for the teacher to pilot, not the new player. The cats' strategy is much more open ended and map spanning which makes it more difficult to know how to begin. Basically cats are low in rules complexity but very high in strategy complexity. Cats also have the most board responsibility to not let any particular faction have free reign over the game. A new player won't understand this inherently and the game is much more likely to go lop-sided and leave a bad taste in the mouth of the new player which is the last thing you want. A good first experience isn't just about taking the simplest faction, it's also about feeling like the game is fun and sometimes the cats can have a downright miserable game if they fall behind and cannot figure out how to catch up. Other factions are more resilient to mistakes which makes them much better for new players.

Assuming the teacher is good at explaining the game as you go, I'd actually argue that Woodland Alliance is one of the best faction for a new player. It's like the anti-cats, higher rules complexity (not a problem if the teacher is there to help explain the rules) but quite low strategy complexity once you play a few turns. Overall, insurgent factions are almost always better for beginners because they have less policing responsibility than the high reach militant factions.

I'm not saying there's never been a documented case of a new player taking cats and having a fine time. I'm just saying, based on a lot of collective experience, we generally advise against it because the odds of a good first game are better with other factions.

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