Glad you enjoyed it! Root's a board game with cute art and some pretty satisfying strategic chops, so these videos let me share what I know of the game with people who are still learning it.
This is interesting to me as a beginner. It seems like the otters game can be broken down to three different phases. First it´s just about selling to get the actions while forming a bit of an otterball. After that it starts that you fokus a bit less on the increase of your orders and start to get board control with your otterball. In the end it seems to me that you try to craft the points missing to end the game by building. Thank you! You brought structure to my understanding of the otters
Thanks for providing annotation and analysis of your Otters play through, very enjoyable to watch. One thing I would note is that in more experienced tables, players will usually coordinate to boycott the Otters completely. You may only ever get 1-3 total excess funds (having more than 2 payments in the payments box when you start your turn), and extra battles are usually dedicated to killing Otters (if I was the Birds, I would have ignored Lizards completely). I think in this case the players bought too many cards and Otter victory seemed inevitable. I would have rushed out the Favor of Foxes instead of the more conservative play of searching for craftables. I would be interested in seeing an Otter victory against a stingy group of players where you may only ever get 1-2 purchases.
>players will usually coordinate to boycott the Otters [...] and extra battles are usually dedicated to killing Otters You're certainly not wrong. Especially as the combat-heavy marauder meta has developed, people are finding that Otters are far more fragile than we believed during the point-racing meta of Underworld. I suppose they're victim to one of the age-old tenets of PvP balancing: If your opponents get to control your abilities, then putting in 0 effort is the optimal counterplay. If there's one silver lining out there, it's that violence is always the answer. Could be that Otters need to start disrupting a stingy table earlier on, in the hopes of instilling a desire to catch up through purchases.
I like that the two new classes are designed around controlling territory. There's no way to just hide in a corner like the moles, or explode a million points without interacting like the woodland alliance.
Great video. Little side question. Why were you holding onto the dominance cards in your hand? To deny the lizards their dom-swap or to deny the dominance wins? Or were those reasons just better than the other stuff you had?
Mustve overlooked it while editing, but probably a bit of both. A cat fox dom would've been a huge problem for me, and as the next person in line to win, it was better that I didn't give lizards the ability to farm vp from the only suit they still had gardens on. I do discard them by 18:40, because I have my win condition in sight and they arent as big a liability anymore
Such an old video but there's clearly no Gittin Good guide for Otters, right? You referenced a previous video in the beginning of this one but not seeing it on the channel. Thanks for the kickass work
You actually could have won one turn earlier by placing 4 TPs, but anyway pretty well played. The game was a bit too digital for my taste 😜 Also good that you give some otter insights. I think the Winter Tournament showed, that people still don't really know how to handle this awesome faction.
In your Otter guide, you advised against using dividends-- have you had a change of heart since this video, or do you stand by the early-game dividends? I recently got the Riverfolk Expansion and I'm trying to master the Otters.
I couldn't really blame them; they were getting bullied pretty consistently and needed the leg-up. That being said, I have *definitely* seen games with more trade than this; digital gets wild sometimes.
In the vast majority of cases: No. It's strictly less reliable than despot. If you have a really hot starting hand or a table that won't be crafting anything though, you can do pretty well regardless.
I'm not opposed to it, and I've done at least one. The main problem tends to be that the games I lose make for a less satisfying story, because the loss rarely comes as a surprise.
The synchronization varies throughout, but the most common reason for it is when I need to explain a lot of boardstate rhetoric around decisions that only take a couple of seconds onscreen. That, or because I cut out several minutes of people thinking through their turns, but I still need to explain it. I suppose I should probably be using the future tense for these situations though, so that it's clearer to viewers.
I have no idea where I am, who you are, or what's going on. I missed RUclips Recommendations
>I have no idea where I am, who you are, or what's going on.
Story of my life, tbh
samee
Two rounds of dividends, and a point from using an ambush from your public hand? That is an otterly ridiculous otter game!
On boards that are not very interactive or combat heavy, I've got away with 3 rounds of Dividends at best.
Tbf, ive only been punished for dividends once
I have no clue what is going on here, but I loved every minute of it. You're commentary style earned a sub
Glad you enjoyed it! Root's a board game with cute art and some pretty satisfying strategic chops, so these videos let me share what I know of the game with people who are still learning it.
This is interesting to me as a beginner. It seems like the otters game can be broken down to three different phases. First it´s just about selling to get the actions while forming a bit of an otterball. After that it starts that you fokus a bit less on the increase of your orders and start to get board control with your otterball. In the end it seems to me that you try to craft the points missing to end the game by building.
Thank you! You brought structure to my understanding of the otters
Thanks for providing annotation and analysis of your Otters play through, very enjoyable to watch.
One thing I would note is that in more experienced tables, players will usually coordinate to boycott the Otters completely. You may only ever get 1-3 total excess funds (having more than 2 payments in the payments box when you start your turn), and extra battles are usually dedicated to killing Otters (if I was the Birds, I would have ignored Lizards completely). I think in this case the players bought too many cards and Otter victory seemed inevitable. I would have rushed out the Favor of Foxes instead of the more conservative play of searching for craftables.
I would be interested in seeing an Otter victory against a stingy group of players where you may only ever get 1-2 purchases.
>players will usually coordinate to boycott the Otters [...] and extra battles are usually dedicated to killing Otters
You're certainly not wrong. Especially as the combat-heavy marauder meta has developed, people are finding that Otters are far more fragile than we believed during the point-racing meta of Underworld.
I suppose they're victim to one of the age-old tenets of PvP balancing: If your opponents get to control your abilities, then putting in 0 effort is the optimal counterplay.
If there's one silver lining out there, it's that violence is always the answer.
Could be that Otters need to start disrupting a stingy table earlier on, in the hopes of instilling a desire to catch up through purchases.
LOL well played! I was the 🐱 It hurt but I had a lot of fun
You played a very admirable game! Props for toughing it out, too
I know that this is an Otter video, but I love seeing an active Lizard Cult.
Its a shame that it isnt a competitive approach, cause it's so much more interesting than their usual gameplan
I like that the two new classes are designed around controlling territory. There's no way to just hide in a corner like the moles, or explode a million points without interacting like the woodland alliance.
I can’t deal with these otter puns
Ive been called otterly insufferable
Great video. Little side question. Why were you holding onto the dominance cards in your hand? To deny the lizards their dom-swap or to deny the dominance wins? Or were those reasons just better than the other stuff you had?
Mustve overlooked it while editing, but probably a bit of both. A cat fox dom would've been a huge problem for me, and as the next person in line to win, it was better that I didn't give lizards the ability to farm vp from the only suit they still had gardens on.
I do discard them by 18:40, because I have my win condition in sight and they arent as big a liability anymore
Such an old video but there's clearly no Gittin Good guide for Otters, right? You referenced a previous video in the beginning of this one but not seeing it on the channel. Thanks for the kickass work
Sadly no, and I also blueballed the otter players with my crow vid. Had some other stuff to work on recently, but I do intend to get back to it.
There is now a gittin gud guide for otters.
@@Nevakanezah_ I saw that, thank you!!!
You actually could have won one turn earlier by placing 4 TPs, but anyway pretty well played. The game was a bit too digital for my taste 😜
Also good that you give some otter insights. I think the Winter Tournament showed, that people still don't really know how to handle this awesome faction.
In your Otter guide, you advised against using dividends-- have you had a change of heart since this video, or do you stand by the early-game dividends? I recently got the Riverfolk Expansion and I'm trying to master the Otters.
In his guide he recommend dividens only in the early phase of the game, as you said.
Some friends managed to convince me that losing all that potential card advantage did matter after all.
@@Nevakanezah_ that's what I was thinking-- three points just didn't seem worth losing six actions. Thanks for the advice!
I never saw a game where there was so much trade. Cats purchased a lot.
I couldn't really blame them; they were getting bullied pretty consistently and needed the leg-up.
That being said, I have *definitely* seen games with more trade than this; digital gets wild sometimes.
Love me some ROOT content!
Thanks for the video
Outstanding commentary
Is builder start for Birds ever anything other than troll?
In the vast majority of cases: No. It's strictly less reliable than despot.
If you have a really hot starting hand or a table that won't be crafting anything though, you can do pretty well regardless.
Yaya otters
do you ever submit games where you lose, even if its close?
I'm not opposed to it, and I've done at least one. The main problem tends to be that the games I lose make for a less satisfying story, because the loss rarely comes as a surprise.
I think the voice track is a few seconds off from the video material, you narrate something is happing while it only happens around 3seconds later
The synchronization varies throughout, but the most common reason for it is when I need to explain a lot of boardstate rhetoric around decisions that only take a couple of seconds onscreen.
That, or because I cut out several minutes of people thinking through their turns, but I still need to explain it.
I suppose I should probably be using the future tense for these situations though, so that it's clearer to viewers.
You just got hitched by the algorithm, let's get some views!