Root (Board Game) - The Riverfolk Expansion Quiz

Answer: Warriors

When a player buys a service from the Riverfolk Company, they pass over warrior meeples from their supply to the otters' payments box. The Riverfolk player can set the price for each of their services between one and four warriors. Purchasing services can lead to future challenges if the Riverfolk Company never releases those warriors back to the original player.

Vagabonds pay for services by exhausting their own items, and then the Riverfolk player moves warriors from their own supply into the payments box.

Answer: False

The Riverfolk Company starts the game by placing four warriors on clearings on the river, and can only recruit warriors to clearings on the river. However, when placing a trade post, they only need to spend warriors from the funds box belonging to the player who controls the target clearing, regardless of where it is on the board.

When placing a trade post, the Riverfolk player also places one of their own warriors from their supply, even if the clearing is not on the river.

Answer: Mercenaries

The "Law of Root" is the long-form, explicit version of the rules of "Root," covering all possible situations. It is often used as a rules reference when players encounter an edge case not covered by the simpler "Learn to Play" manual. 12.2.7.III.b of the "Law of Root" states "Vagabond Mercenaries. The Vagabond cannot buy Riverfolk mercenaries."

The Vagabond usually wants to use their items for their own actions, so are less likely to purchase services, unlike the other factions that usually don't need their reserve warriors on any particular turn.

Answer: They have a trade post on the board

The Riverfolk Company can build up to nine trade posts, three in each suit. They only need one on the board at the beginning of their turn to score dividends. By holding onto funds, the otters can score more dividends, but it also means the don't perform as many actions on their turn. Having just a few trade posts with some warriors defending them can be an inviting target.

When the otters use their funds instead to perform actions, they reduce the incentive to attack them, and can set up a stronger board position for themselves.

Answer: Destroy the trade post tokens

Each time a trade post token is destroyed, the Riverfolk Company loses half of its funds (the payments and commitments boxes are untouched). The Riverfolk Company chooses which warriors it returns, so if one player attacks a trade post, the Riverfolk player may return the warriors of other players first.

Not only will removing funds reduce the amount of points the Riverfolk Company scores for dividends, but if the last trade post is removed from the board, then the company won't score any points for dividends.

Answer: Crafting items and performing military actions

The Lizard Cult is one of the trickiest factions to play. During birdsong, the lizards can perform military actions (battle, convert, move (from), or sanctify) in clearings matching the outcast suit. During the evening they can craft items that require the outcast suit (they can never craft items that require multiple suits).

Recruiting warriors, placing buildings, recruiting acolytes, and scoring points are all governed by the cards in the Lizard Cult's hand, and are not limited by the outcast suit.

Answer: Discarded and played cards

When the Lizard Cult is in the game, all players discard cards into the Lost Souls box on the lizards' player board instead of the discard pile. At the beginning of the lizards' turn, whichever non-bird suit has the most cards in the Lost Souls box becomes the exile suit, and then the cards are moved to the discard pile. If there's a tie, then the outcast suit does not change. If the outcast suit stays the same as the previous turn, it becomes the "hated outcast," which makes military actions cost one fewer acolyte.

All players can try to influence the Lost Souls pile to guide where the Lizards are able to perform military actions (e.g. Sanctify to remove buildings and replace them with lizard gardens) or craft cards (e.g. Favour cards that remove large numbers of pieces).

Answer: The Lizard Cult rules clearings with a garden

Usually whoever has the most warriors and buildings in a clearing rules it. The Lizard Cult's Pilgrims ability trumps this, meaning they can rule clearings even when they have fewer pieces. This can be a good way to disrupt the lumber supply lines for the Marquise de Cat, or to throw the Eyrie Dynasties into turmoil by reducing their movement options.

It also makes it slightly easier for the lizards to pursue a dominance victory (rule three clearings of a particular suit) instead of the classic 30 victory point victory.

Answer: Friendly warriors lost in defensive battles

The Lizard Cult is strongly incentivized to play a defensive game. Warriors are only turned into acolytes when they are lost as the defender; not when the lizards attack. The lizards can then spend any acolytes to convert the warriors of other players into their own warriors, or even replace buildings with their own gardens.

This is similar to the Woodland Alliance that gain a supporter card (used to place sympathy tokens) whenever they lose a sympathy token.

Answer: Discard the torch

The Scoundrel is a cute cat with a jack-o-lantern mask. The Scorched Earth ability removes all pieces in a clearing (which can score a lot of points if there are a lot of tokens and buildings), and then renders that clearing impassible for the remainder of the game. Such an ability is too powerful to be used more than once in a game, so the Scoundrel discards its torch onto the clearing to indicate it has been burned.

The Vagabond only ever has one torch, used for exploring ruins, completing some quests, and performing its special ability. All of these are no longer available to the Scoundrel after performing Scorched Earth.

The torch still needs to be ready (not exhausted or damaged) for the Scoundrel to use its ability, so it cannot explore a ruin and scorch a clearing in a single turn.