Sorry, that is a confusing statement there.
The Asymmetry being more severe than a COIN series game didnt bother me. I was meaning to state that the somewhat steeper curve wasn’t a hit against the game.
I did like the game. My group did to but I could see the shift in their expressions when we got into the game and it went from “look at these cute animal pieces,” to, “dear God what is going on in this game?”
The rulebook is, I think, very bad for learning the game. The Woodland Alliance in particular is written very confusingly.
Have all the rules queries been clarified yet? I really enjoyed playing it one time, but we had to guess the intention of so much of that game.
There is a pretty robust Q&A on BGG. None of it is official, but it seems reasonable.
I agree that the rules are an abomination.
I’m pleased with Lincoln, after fearing it was going to be a mess. I can’t speak to balance, but they fixed the Manassas Mace, or whatever you want to call it. Very tense. The rules are typical Wallace, which is to say full of holes. The game is straightforward enough that you can soldier through.
Thanks, I’ll give it a read.
I’m seeing Root quite a bit in this thread and wondered if people here agree with some criticism I’ve heard about the game that has ultimately pushed me into the not-buy side, even if I liked the asymetric mechanics and production value.
Apparently, once one of the players can jump ahead of the rest in the victory track (if two other players just fight each other for instance) it will be very easy for him/her to get away with the game.
Have any of you guys noticed this?
I have only played it 2-player so far, sadly.
There’s a learning guide that’s not the rulebook, seemed to work for me playing woodland as the first time.
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/160774/learning-play-guide
One easily missed rule, you can’t place influence tokens in the cat keep. You can, however, move pieces INTO it (such as armies) I believe.
Sort of? There’s a lot of momentum in the game and if someone establishes their momentum enough, other players will have a lot of trouble stopping them. But once you get a hang of the game, you can absolutely see it coming and take down players before they build up that momentum towards victory. Mostly, this isn’t true in my experience. If players gang up on a player, they can deal with a runaway leader unless you’re 3/4th of the way through the score track.
Now I’ve only played it once, and it was a game where four new players were involved so we likely screwed up multiple rules.
But the net effect was that the alternate victory conditions do provide an outlet. Players who fall behind on the score track can make a play for one of the zone control options. It’s how our game ended. Though ultimately two factions both opted for the zone control method towards the end due to scoring.
I’m not sure how easy it would be to stop either. A player winning the points game may be able to prevent one player, but I doubt they could stop two.
But only one game. So maybe I’m missing things.
I played again and had the same experience. Not definitive, but the birds won again which (I think) was the result of our game, also?
Nope! The cats won our game on the four corners strategy.
The birds were a legitimate close shot though, had I not won on my turn, they would have on theirs with the rabbit(?) spaces alternate victory.
Well, at least the cats won, then. Historically accurate.