Root Board Game | How to Play and Win

Root is a 2 to 4 player asymmetric war game where the first player to score 30 victory points, or to complete a dominance card, wins, and each of the four factions scores its points in a completely different way.

That last part is the whole selling point and the part most summaries skip. Root is not one game with four player colors. It is closer to four small games sharing one board, because the cats score by building, the birds score from roosts, the alliance scores by spreading sympathy, and the vagabond scores by questing and picking sides. If you learn one faction you have learned one faction, not Root.

The turn is always the same three phases, Birdsong, Daylight, then Evening, and then play passes to the left. Almost everything a faction does happens inside its own Daylight block printed on its board. Run those three phases in order and you are playing Root correctly even when you have no idea what anyone else is doing, which is exactly how your first game goes.

Affiliate disclosure: this page contains Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes the verdict above.

How you win

The old version of this page never said how to win, which is the single most useful thing on any rules page. Root has two winning conditions and the first one covers almost every game.

Reach 30 victory points. The moment a player hits 30, that player wins immediately. If two players would reach 30 at the same time, the player taking the current turn wins.

Or complete a dominance card. There are four dominance cards shuffled into the shared deck, one per suit. On your Daylight, if you have at least 10 victory points, you may play a dominance card to activate it. You take your score marker off the track, and for the rest of the game you can only win by meeting the victory condition printed on that card. It is a switch you flip once you are ahead, and it is how a leader protects a lead or how a player invents a second way home when someone else is racing to 30.

One special case: the Vagabond can play a dominance card to form a coalition with whichever other player has the lowest score, and then share the win if that player wins.

How a turn works

Every turn is three phases, in order, no matter your faction.

• Birdsong. A short automatic upkeep step. The cats place wood at their sawmills; the Eyrie add cards to their Decree; the alliance may revolt and spread sympathy; the Vagabond flips items face up.
• Daylight. The main step, and it is different for every faction. This is where you take your listed actions, battle, craft, build and score.
• Evening. Cleanup. Everyone draws up, discards down to a hand of five, and factions do their scored upkeep, such as the Eyrie scoring from their roosts and the alliance taking military operations.

You pass play clockwise after Evening. A full game runs about 60 to 90 minutes once everyone knows a faction, and closer to two hours on a first play, with a chunk of that being sorting each side’s tokens.

The three rules every faction shares

Underneath the asymmetry, Root has one ruleset and these are the parts nobody can skip.

Ruling a clearing. Each clearing has a suit, fox, rabbit or mouse. You rule a clearing if you have the most combined warriors and buildings there, and on a tie nobody rules it, with one exception: the Eyrie are the Lords of the Forest and rule even on a tie. Many actions require you to rule the clearing you are acting in.

Cards and bird matching. You draw from a shared 54 card deck. Every card has a suit, and the three clearing suits plus a bird suit. A bird card is wild, it can match any suit, but if a card forces you to spend a bird you cannot substitute another suit for that spend. Crafting a card activates its effect; an immediate effect resolves and the card is discarded, a persistent effect tucks under your board.

Battling. This is the one thing every faction does the same way, and it is short:

Step	Rule
Roll	Roll two twelve sided dice
Hits	Attacker deals the higher roll, defender deals the lower roll
Cap	You cannot deal more hits than you have warriors in the clearing
Extra hit	The attacker gets one extra hit if the defender has no warriors there
Ambush	Before the roll, the defender may play a matching suit ambush card for 2 hits
Foil	The attacker may cancel that ambush by playing a matching ambush card

Two scoring rules come out of battle and they are easy to miss. Whenever you remove an enemy building or token, you score 1 victory point, even outside battle. And whenever you craft an item, you score the VP printed on the card. Those two rules are the quiet reason Root moves so fast.

The four factions and how each one scores

This is the heart of the game. All four are in the base box, and each scores on its own axis.

Faction	How it scores	What it is doing
Marquise de Cat	By building workshops, sawmills and recruiters; more of the same building is worth more	Runs a wood economy and industrializes the map, and is everyone’s default enemy
Eyrie Dynasties	At Evening, from the number of roosts on the map	Follows a growing Decree of forced actions, and falls into turmoil if it cannot
Woodland Alliance	By spreading sympathy, scoring more as more sympathy sits on the map	Builds supporters and officers off screen, then revolts to place a base
Vagabond	By completing quests and by aiding and harming factions	A lone pawn that toys with items, quests and relationships between everyone else

The thing worth knowing before you teach anyone: these are not cosmetic. The cats care about buildings and wood, the birds score from a track at Evening and are punished hard for a mistake, the alliance hides most of its engine off the board in supporters and officers before it ever places a base, and the vagabond cannot rule anything at all and wins by floating between the other three.

Player count and setup

Root is built for 2 to 4 players, and the setup changes with the count so the board is never too crowded or too empty.

• At four players, all four base factions are in play, and that is the count the game is best at.
• At three players, remove the Vagabond.
• At two players, also remove the Woodland Alliance, which leaves cats against birds in a tight map.

The base box is complete on its own. The Riverfolk and Underworld expansions add factions, and only with both of them do you reach a full six player table, so if four players is your ceiling you do not need an expansion to enjoy Root. The box holds a two sided board, 4 faction mats, 2 custom twelve sided dice, 56 wooden meeples, 98 cards and 93 tokens across 12 forest clearings. Setup is genuinely a chunk of the playtime, roughly 15 to 25 minutes to sort each side’s tokens, which is the main practical complaint about the game.

Comparing Root to what else is on the shelf

If you want the same “everyone plays by different rules” satisfaction, these are the closest things we cover.

• Similarities: Root, Dune: Imperium and Food Chain Magnate are all thinky, high interaction strategy games where the table reacts to you and you to it, with no dice deciding your fate.
• Differences: Dune: Imperium tightens that into a clean deck building and worker placement package, Food Chain Magnate is a cutthroat economic brawl, and Root gives every player an almost entirely separate ruleset.
• Why this game fans will enjoy it: If Root is the cardboard animal war you want, Dune is the lighter bridge into the same feeling and Food Chain Magnate is the heavier one.

Root also sits closer to Risk as a fight over a map, except Root runs on almost no luck, only two dice for battle, so the win is earned on your own board rather than rolled. If you want the lighter and heavier ends of the same thinky, high interaction feeling, Dune: Imperium is the bridge in and Food Chain Magnate is the heavier destination. If you want another story heavy box to graduate toward after Root, Sleeping Gods is the usual next shelf. And if you are curious how much randomness decides a game like this, Root is one of the lowest ratios in the heavy strategy tier, which is exactly why it rewards planning.

Which Root to buy

Version	What it adds	Best for
Root	The complete base game, four factions, the real thing	Anyone buying in, this is all you need at two to four players
Root: The Riverfolk Expansion	A trading faction that sells services to everyone	Groups that want negotiation and a fifth or sixth seat
Root: The Underworld Expansion	A second new faction and a mole faction that hides among others	Groups chasing the deepest, meanest version of the game

The collector question is whether to buy expansions first. Do not. Learn the base four factions, because the expansions assume you already know how Root teaches a faction, and adding a trade faction before anyone can name how the Eyrie score just makes the table slower.

Frequently asked questions

How many players is Root?

Root is a 2 to 4 player game in the base box, and only reaches 5 and 6 players with the Riverfolk and Underworld expansions. Four is the number it is best at, because all four base factions are in play. At three players you remove the Vagabond, and at two you also remove the Woodland Alliance so the cats and birds share a tighter map.

How do you win Root?

You win by reaching 30 victory points first, or by activating and completing a dominance card once you have at least 10 points. Hitting 30 is an instant win, and if two players reach it at once the player taking the current turn wins. A dominance card swaps your win condition to the card text for the rest of the game.

How does a turn work in Root?

Every turn runs three phases in order: Birdsong, Daylight, then Evening, before play passes to the left. Birdsong is a short automatic upkeep, Daylight is where your faction takes all its real actions, and Evening is cleanup where the Eyrie score roosts, the alliance takes military operations, and everyone draws and discards down to five.

How does battle work in Root?

In battle the attacker rolls the higher of two twelve sided dice and the defender rolls the lower, with each side capped at the number of warriors it has in the clearing. The defender may play a matching suit ambush card before the roll for two hits, which the attacker can cancel with a matching ambush. If the defender has no warriors in the clearing, the attacker gets one extra hit.

Is Root good for kids?

Root is rated 10 and up and is about 3.8 weight, so it is a teens and adults strategy game rather than a young kids game, even though it looks like one. A mature 10 year old can pilot the simpler factions, such as the Marquise, with a patient adult beside them. A 7 year old is usually not ready for the full asymmetry, and forcing it turns a great game into a frustrating evening.

What makes Root asymmetric?

Each of the four factions has its own rules, its own pieces and its own way to score, so they are closer to four small games sharing one board than four colors of the same game. The cats score by building, the birds score roosts at Evening and obey a forced Decree, the alliance scores by spreading sympathy and revolting, and the vagabond scores by questing and by helping or hurting the other factions.

Do you need the Root expansions?

No, the base game is complete at 2 to 4 players, and the Riverfolk and Underworld expansions only matter if you want a fifth and sixth player or deeper factions. Learn the four base factions before buying anything, because the expansions assume you already know how a faction teaches itself, and adding one early just slows the table down for a group that is still learning.