How to stop Cat?

[Ghostlight]

Last 2 games, I had a runaway Cat leader. How do you stop that? I was VB and attacked his stuff, even managed to destroy his Keep and many of his buildings, but doing this just puts his buildings back on his mat so they become cheap again and score all over again....i.e. it basically HELPS him.

[Destrucity]

Vagabond can't do much by themselves. The way I see it, the cats and Eyrie are suppose to compete for building space while the Vagabond and WA makes sure that neither side gains too big of an advantage. Because either of them will rule the board if the other is crushed.

[Anolise]

Any faction can run away with the game if the other players leave them unchecked for too long. I've seen a similar complaint about every other faction too. Root is designed to be balanced by the players themselves, and if the others aren't beating up the leader enough, try doing some negotiation in the chat box to make them see things your way.

As for how to stop the Marquise, remember that her whole building operation relies on a steady supply of WOOD. Prioritize destroying her sawmills and ensuring that she cannot connect wood tokens to the clearings she wants to build in. Do this enough and she will be resource starved and forced to rely on combat and crafting to gain points instead.

[Anolise]

I forgot to mention. Every wood token is worth +1 VP for destroying it, possibly more if you are Vagabond. If the Marquise leaves any wood out, go ravage it and you will earn great rewards.

[Inthebookoflife]

The Eyrie NEED to be the ones checking the cats. Also a lot of Vagabonds fail to realize that opening the ruins heavily helps the Marquise. Out of all factions the cats need building space so if you can keep these limited throughout the game you can slow a lot of their progression.

Although it doesn't look like it ROOT is a wargame. It is essential to communicate with the other players about how a game is progressing because many times once a player has already gotten big it is already too late.

I find that the Vagabond runs away with the game because he doesn't really stand out, if you don't know how bursty his VP gain can be.

IMO cats are the hardest to win with. Their Daylight actions being limited and not getting bird cards make them very difficult to manage and make them unable to deal with multiple factions during a single turn.

Ultimately the Marquise are the clock for the game. If you were to play a game without them you will notice that all the other factions have a very easy time employing their strategies if the board presence the Marquise establish isn't present within the game. They are the necessary evil that actually makes the game extremely interactive. Unfortunately someone has to play them... I personally find them lame

[Sgt_Pengoo]

Your basically explaining Root. In this game, all the factions snowball crazily out of control, you need to communicate with your fellow players to keep everyone in check. This game really needs all players to have good situational awareness!

[[FAUCᴇT] Psychopath]

The best way to kneecap the cats is to cut off a couple critical clearings either via destruction of the buildings themselves or cutting off access to wood since they require an uninterrupted chain of ruled clearings to transport to the build site.
They have so few actions during daylight that they cant realistically keep the WA from revolting eventually, the eyrie will naturally oppose them for board presence, and the vagabond will generally avoid going hostile early on due to the high cost of moving when the entire board has hostile warriors (as well as a cheeky strategy once you become allied to march warriors away from a clearing and then doubling back to attack the defenseless structures/tokens.
The cats are really efficient at getting warriors onto the board, so if you prevent them from getting holed up with recruitment buildings, you'll generally be shoving them back into the keep's corner since they need to venture out if they want building spaces and they will usually give up the frontline to the eyrie since it's very unlikely that their 1 warrior will stand a chance to the eyrie's opening moves (generally just build roosts but if they take an aggressive leader to start, taking on 4 birds isnt happening).

[Geffalrus]

Remember that building VPs increase the more buildings they have, so destroying buildings hinders the VPs they can get per building. Tho, yes, if they run out of spaces available, destroying buildings can allow them the chance to get a few more VPs, which could let them win in a pinch.

Each other faction has a unique way to get at Cat's buildings:

- The Alliance can use the Revolt to overcome any number of defending warriors and buildings if they haven't used it already for that type of clearing. And you can bypass the Warrior-Supporter cost if you use your own warriors to create sympathy on one turn, have warriors to defend during Cat turn, and then 2 supporters to cause the revolt next turn.

- Vagabond can use crossbows and swords together to whittle down Cat warriors and then attack the buildings. Vagabond also has the movement to easily get behind Cat lines.

- The Eyrie has the best chance to bring a big enough army to overcome any Cat opposition of any non-Cat faction so far. And remember, Cats can't build in an open clearing if there are more Birds present to hold ownership. You can also use mass Birds to cut off a defended clearing from the rest of the Cat Empire, meaning they can't use wood outside of that clearing for building.

[Arasa]

The natural symbiosis of the game is that early game:
- cats keep rebels in check.
- Eyrie keep vagabond in check if the vagabond is dumb enough to share a space with them.
- Eyrie naturally fill half the map

Midgame:
- cats position for dominance win, ignoring rebels since they're not playing for late game
- Eyrie keep rebels in check on their half if needed, and spam troops to prevent dominance
- Vagabond hides in and destroys rebel bases

Lategame:
- Cats just pitter out and die.
- Eyrie annihilates the vagabond and cruises to 30pts (or dominance if rebels are up)
- Rebels expand aggressively and try to burst past the Eyrie to 30pts
- Vagabond hides in and destroys rebel bases as rebels can win much faster than Eyrie

Just about anything outside this natural order of things tilts the game out of balance. Vagabond has to be careful because they posess the greatest ability to tilt the game out of balance, and the Vagabond only wins as long as the game remains balanced until lategame.