Practicing Root Online: Digital Play and Bots

A full four-player game of Root at the table takes an evening. Getting good at every faction, on every map, with an unfamiliar deck, takes many evenings. That is why many competitive players do much of their practice online, where the game handles the setup, the upkeep, and the rules checks, and you can play far more games in a month.

This lesson covers what the digital edition offers, how to use bots at the table, and how to make online games count.

Root digital

Root digital, by Dire Wolf, is the official digital adaptation. It came out on Steam in September 2020 and runs on PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android, with cross-platform online multiplayer. Its Steam page lists single-player, online play, and turn notifications.

Expansions are sold as add-ons, and Dire Wolf’s page lists:

• Riverfolk: the Riverfolk Company, the Lizard Cult, and three Vagabond characters.
• Underworld: the Underground Duchy, the Corvid Conspiracy, and the Mountain and Lake maps.
• Marauder: the Lord of the Hundreds and the Keepers in Iron, plus challenges with Normal and Heroic modes.
• Exiles and Partisans and Vagabonds: the Exiles and Partisans deck and three more Vagabond characters.
• Clockwork: four automated bot factions, with co-op play against them.
• Hirelings and Landmarks: hirelings and the Black Market, Lost City, Legendary Forge, and Elder Treetop landmarks.

What digital practice is good for

• Faction reps. Play every faction many times. Tournament drafts will hand you one you did not choose.
• Rules certainty. The game will not let you make an illegal move, which quietly fixes rules you have been playing wrong.
• The tournament deck. If you own the Exiles and Partisans add-on, you can learn its cards in play rather than from a list.
• Maps. Play the Lake and Mountain maps until you know their special rules without thinking.

What it is not good for

• Table talk. Online games often have less conversation than a real table. Practice your reads and deals at home games too, using the table talk lesson.
• The clock in your head. At the table, you track hand sizes, ambushes, and scores yourself. Online, the interface can do some of that work for you. Keep counting anyway.
• Physical setup. Tournament rounds start with a draft and a physical setup. Practice the Advanced Setup draft at a real table at least a few times.

Bots at the table

The Clockwork Expansion 2 brings automated factions to the physical game: bots that follow a set of priorities so you can fill a four-faction table with fewer people or play cooperatively. It needs the Riverfolk or Underworld expansion.

Bots are useful for drills: practicing a faction’s opening against the same opposition several times, or learning to police a runaway faction without a human to negotiate with.

Make every game count

Volume helps only if you learn from it. Give each practice game one focus, chosen before you start:

• Opening focus. Plan your first three turns before turn one, then check how the plan held up.
• Battle focus. Before every attack, say the cap and your expected hits, as in the battle odds lesson.
• Endgame focus. From 20 points on, count every player’s turns-to-30 each round, as in the endgame lesson.
• Tracking focus. Keep a written count of ambushes played, then compare it to the discard pile.

After each game, answer two questions in a note: when did the winner become impossible to stop, and what could you have done on the turn before that?

Finding opponents

Root digital supports online games with other players. For organized play, look to the community: Leder Games’ official Discord, Woodland Warriors, is where players gather, and the tournaments lesson covers in-person events. Local stores are worth asking too: Leder’s store locator lists shops that carry its games.