A masochist's introduction to the Marquise de Cat

For those looking to gain an introduction into perhaps the most daunting faction in the current game, this guide is built for those seeking to understand the most painful quarter of the faction roster. Or perhaps you just love cats as much as I do.

Your role in the forest: Overall strengths and weaknesses

Your initial run of the Marquise has been or will most likely be a whiplash. While initial control of 11 of the 12 clearings gives you the impression of a formidable faction, the Eyrie will be quick to gobble up many of these clearings before you can properly react. A lack of warriors will quickly see your ability to access build slots dry up and leave you open to crippling attacks by the Vagabond. After the initial shell shock, it's time to truly start your journey to building a kingdom truly worthy of this woodland.



With that initial test drive and crash out of the way it's time to analyze what the problems for the Marquise are, and how to overcome them. The first issue is overall control of the woodland: the more clearings you can properly dominate, the more buildings you can deploy and keep safe to run up your victory track. The second issue is your dreaded daylight phase. Each action you take will chew up one third of your effective turn under normal circumstances. As such, we'll need to find ways to increase our actions per turn to keep our kitties proactive and not just sit there turning into chonkers. Which leads into the last key problem, that being card draw. The cats have a hard time racking up cards compared to the WA (woodland alliance) and VB (vagabond) who can rack up to 4 cards a turn if bases are mass deployed. The more cards you draw, the more opportunities you will have to deploy hawks for hire, craft action improving abilities, aggressively employ field hospitals, and squeak out the last home stretch of victory points with item crafts. In the following sections, we will delve into how we can solve this problems and tackle the various factions that seek to destroy your feline empire.

A kingdom worthy of your name: opening and developing

Following our three principles of gain cards, increase actions, and secure build slots. We'll need to pick an opening that sets us up to best accomplish all three. This map should display the key elements of how to start up a proper run.
Using this foundation, we can establish proper positions for our three building types. Starting with the sawmills, we should start by placing one as close to (if not on) our keep as possible. Then overworking to place a recruiter in one of the center tiles to attempting to mass warriors in the center of the board, making it easier to march them to wherever they need to be and thereby exert the control required to utilise the build slots of the woodland and deny them to our foes. Once you have 2 workshops and three recruiters on the board, a transition back to building sawmills to keep up with the growing wood cost of new buildings will be excellent in keeping your victory point gain from falling behind the other factions. A turn without a build action is often a turn you've fallen behind. So keep your CCC (Cat construction committee) running round the clock. Now onto the second building, workshops.


It is imperative to deploy you keep adjacent to the two slot bunny clearing at the top of the map. This way, if the command warren or cobbler cards ever enter your hand, you can craft them to help ease the burden of your 3 action daylight phase. Bunny item crafting can also come in handy. A boot from visit to friends or the protection racket, investments, and bake sale cards can all net serious point income. The +3 from crafting a coin may be a volatile boost to the VB, but if you craft it at the right time you may be able to barely cross the 30 point finish line. I also like to place one workshop on a mouse clearing, as there are a fair amount of crafting opportunities simply by having 1 mouse craft capacity. Grabbing a code breakers and some 1 point items is always a nice boost, and you'll want to craft multiple workshops for the victory points anyway. While these buildings are all tantalizing, they will need protection. Bringing us to the final building, the recruiter.


Take a nice look at this poster, and meet your new friend. This is the Muscateer, (Or Mousqechat if you want to be a French douchebag) and the primary means of keeping your buildings from turning into free +1 victory points for your enemies. Three warriors is the sweet spot for each clearing you have buildings on. Employing martial law to stop the spread of sympathy in your kingdom while also ensuring that it will take more than one battle action to crush your buildings. As the max roll of 3-0 will keep your structures intact. However, it is best to keep more t han 3 on your clearings directly adjacent to hostile forces. IE Eyrie roosts and alliance bases, so if they're going gung ho with multiple battles, you still have the firepower to hold the line. Be weary that the cost of a battle action is extreme for the cats, so get used to getting the lower die in combat and just sucking it up with reinforcement warriors to stem the bleeding. This is where field hospitals comes in. Unless a card is extremely valuable (IE bird: favor card you don't want to get crafted or command warren/cobbler you haven't crafted yet) you should be using it to activate field hospitals. Respawning fallen troops at your keep. If you're able to save warriors with field hospitals, you will eventually reach your population cap of 25 warriors through recruit actions, allowing you to then bypass the recruit action in favor of more buildings marches and even battles if you need them.

With insight into the balance of buildings of the Marquise, we will now delve into specific tactics to combat hostile factions. Starting with your main rival, the Eyrie dynasties.

Threat response 1: Eyrie Dynasties

The Eyrie dynasties are posed as the cat's main rival in the lore of the base game for root. Back before we decided to throw in two factions every few months for s**** and giggles. Their main goal is to get to 7 roosts while picking up extra VPs from crafting or building destruction along the way. They may only have 1 roost per clearing so both you and the eyrie will be competing for rule of clearings to get your buildings set up. Factions like the WA and VB do not need direct rule of clearings to score their points, and while highly dangerous are not a direct foil to you.


To counter the Eyrie, we need to exercise strong use of recruiters in the central clearings. Allowing exertion of superior warrior count in any clearing we need as it will be easy to march from the center to the edges. Battle actions however are still extremely expensive, and should be avoided at all costs. If you see an opening to collapse the Eyrie, perhaps with a suited recruit decree, then a gun ho march and battle may be worth it if the Eyrie are doing well. However, action economy is firmly their strength and overall warrior count and field hospitals are yours, so letting the enemy battle you and sucking up the lower roll will be necessary. That is unless.....


The general rule for creating a "safe" clearing is to have 3 warriors. They will protect you from at least one battle action and enact martial law. However, the Eyrie have a fun little ability that throws this all out the window. If the commander is in play as the first Eyrie leader, your chances of success drop significantly. As he can chew through your warriors like chocolate chip kitties. Extra caution and a dash of good luck will be needed to survive this anti cat opening. Otherwise, good luck!

Threat response 2: The Woodland Alliance

The woodland alliance is perhaps the most infuriating noob trap created in recorded history. Nelson in chess.com, the first level of G&G, Whitney's damn cow if you're an old enough weab to remember that one, NONE shall compare to the level of rage new players feel when fighting the WA. These sons of guns will spread their sympathy across the board like you're in pandemic, destroy your buildings at the worst times with revolt, and then steal your cards and wind up benefiting when you try to weed them out. Heaven forbid you battle them, because they will laugh in your face when you roll 3-0 and lose everything. Worse yet, if you let their sympathy spread too far they can get 12 points in 3 sympathy and swing a huge sum of points over to victory. As such, we need to find a "safe" way of handling this menace.


The best way to fight the alliance is not to do so. Instead, we shall opt for a strategy of containment. In the opening turns, it may be advisable to remove sympathy from crucial building clearings if it arises. However, we need to minimize the total outrage generated and accept that a revolt+base will happen. Make sure to adhere to the "safe clearing" rule by having 3 warriors on as many spots as you can. Increasing the supporter cost by one in these regions. Don't just form a martial law wall around the alliance though, as they may brute force through the first layer and then burst through non martial clearings. So keep layers of 3 warriors at and behind your front line. Finally, if the alliance sets up a base near you with an open build slot and enough warriors are available, it's time to ruin their day with occupation. Marching a solid stack of 4+ warriors into the base, building a recruiter on it, and recruiting each turn you fear the alliance is close to regaining control of the clearing. With their base not ruled by the alliance, their warriors can't march out and use the powerful organize ability. Unable to spread sympathy without supporters, which themselves will be hampered by use of martial law. As such, the only open option for the alliance warriors will be to try and battle their way to retaking the clearing. Taking up tons of actions battling and re-recruiting casualties. With continued recruitment from your recruiter(s) at the base, you can keep them tied down doing the battle actions for you. So sit back, load up your M60 and yell out a strong "GET SOME" while you nullify the alliance's most powerful ability

Threat response 3: The Vagabond

Now onto the last hostile faction of the woodland, the Vagabond. Sometimes argued as the most powerful of the original four, this little critter will either rip your throat out on turn one, or attempt to lay low until he's built up to become the plot armored protagonist of the game. The strategies for such will be divided into two sections for the two Vagabond types.


The most common Vagabond is the tinkerer. With a starting hammer in tow, they can quickly start crafting items for themselves to build a solid arsenal and eventually reach three hammers. At this point, they can spam the "day labor" ability with their torch to grab a favor card in the discard pile and crafting it to wipe out 4 clearings. As such, you'll want to hold onto any favor cards you draw and do everything in your power to keep them out of the discard pile or the VB's hand. ESPECIALLY the favor card that matches your keep clearing. As always, keep at least three warriors on your clearings, and if you ever have a spare action and can afford some casualties, attack the VB if it's in your territory. The command warren will aid immensely in this task, further displaying the power of bunny workshops. Now onto the second VB, the ranger.


While unable to acquire nuclear weapons, the ranger is still a one man wrecking crew. Having a theoretical yield of 14 hits in one turn from 4 swords and 2 crossbows. His starting arsenal of a crossbow and sword can pick off your 1 starting warrior per clearing then crash open your buildings in the opening turns. Make sure to always have an equal number of warriors on your keep to the VB's sword count, so that you can field hospital cycle to stave off keep attacks without his hits spilling over into your buildings. When planning each turn, take close eye at how many boots the VB has to see what buildings he can reach on his turn, furthermore his current arsenal to see how many warriors he can clear out in one turn.

The thief technically exists, but he's just a weaker ranger. The card steal can be annoying when he takes a bird card from you, but that's all I can say for him.

Conclusion (skippable)

We now end our journey through Marquise basic training, I hope you've enjoyed. It is important to remember you are still playing the faction with the lowest win rate in the game, and this guide will not change that. It is further true that I am not an immortal player, I'm sure there is some root grand master out there who can laugh this guide out of town. However, one who's inexperienced with the Marquise and root should hopefully be able to put up more of a fight and occasionally pull out the win.



This is just a personal anecdote. I can't describe enough how passionate I am for root. My heart has been utterly captured by our feline friends, and I made the horrible mistake of becoming a francophile. A better combination of my two strange interests could never be made. I thank leder games for their excellent work, and thank you for giving this guide a look. Have a great day everyone, and keep building sawmills.

[Buzz Lightyear]

The image of Neo with two crossbows sent me cackling xD

[Joaco]

This guide looks nice, but is it still viable? I feel like with the dlc factions in play, doing what the op suggests isn't possible anymore, since they will be ruling the central clearings.

[amicus77]

nice!

[nergalsmom]

Came for the guide, stayed for the memes.

[Guffin]

I'm a french douchebag and this is my favorite guide of the Root Citadel.

[Dreyfus0414]

Good luck man, hopefully I can still grab time to get a feel against the lizards. Think I've got an idea for the otters.

[Captain of the Watch]

I am someone who cannot resist a challenge and have decided to learn how best to play the Marquise de Cat. I may be machocistic but I am nothing if not determined, so I shall attempt to use your guide. God help me

[Alexi Valentine]

This was fun to read, and informative! Thanks a ton, guy!

[Dreyfus0414]

I haven’t had much time to play recently, but hopefully I’ll have the riverfolk update out by next week(ish)

[ThoughtsFrom3AM]

Hey, Nice guide! Thanks for the advice on what strategies Marquise players tend to find difficult to deal with :D