Pump & Dump Duchy: A case study on why moles are fundamentally broken.

Come take a look at an absolutely insane strategy you can play in "Root: A woodland game of might and right" By Leder Games inc.
Did you think the Underground Duchy followed rules? That they had weaknesses? Well you were badly mistaken.
For those of you who may be asking how to counter this strategy, we've found only one viable option: Attempt to boardwipe moles every turn of the game, starting on turn 1; and even then, they can still win.
This strategy is silly and overpowered, and the counter strat is no fun for anybody. Don't worry though, it's just another day for the Underground Duchy.
MUSIC USED
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"Scheming Weasel (faster version)" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"The Show Must Be Go" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

[@Nevakanezah_]

A COMMENTARY ON THE CONTEXT OF THIS VIDEO (Probably a long one.) -- It's been about two years since the release of this video, and as time passes, I'm forced to acknowledge that it's gradually making less and less sense to the people watching it. The video's always enjoyed a fair bit of controversy even since I first posted it, of course; this is both the intent and expectation when one is deliberately creating propaganda. However, as the video ages and the current Marauder meta continues to mature I see growing confusion around how the scenario in this video came to be, and the intended message becomes muddier. Thus, like any good propaganda, this video is transforming into a time capsule. This video was created during the late Underworld meta of Root; pre-marauder, pre-ADSET, and just as the community was first learning to master the art of a no-turmoil charismatic eyrie and realizing how effective that strategy could be. The competitive metagame at this time was to VP-race as hard as you could until you noticed you were losing the race, at which point you would abandon your engine to try and upset the leader in the hopes that your pace had been good enough to take their position. Early aggression meant spending less activity on scoring, and some other player would relish the opportunity to outrace the board while their opponents were crippling each other. This metagame was enforced largely by the remote starting positions of standard setup, the relative dearth of consistently-aggressive factions, and an unspoken social agreement that fights between the two table leaders were only good for the person in third. Only the vagabond, scourge of all tables, was treated differently; the common knowledge was that early battles were ultimately more harmful, and resulted in needing fewer battles overall to stop them. At this time, I was playing most of my games with a small circle of the most competitive players I knew. Bored of the tried-and-true approaches in the broader community, we often experimented with off-the-wall approaches to find out which stupid ideas could actually be made viable against informed, aggressive opponents. Several of us (myself especially) lamented how Eyrie-Duchy matchups created an incredibly frustrating board state for the other two players: Both of these militants had abundant actions each turn, but their scoring was so strong that neither one wanted to waste effort attacking the other until it was far too late for anyone to stop the winner. Instead, these two factions would just divide the board in half and spend each turn racing while decimating the other two players in their space as sources of extra points. The eyrie, from our perspective, had the benefit of actual board presence and an inbuilt Achilles heel; if a faction was somehow exploding ahead, you could rely on the birds to participate in slowing them down. Depending on the player, the moles were frequently the reverse: Virtually nonexistent board presence, save for one extremely well-defended clearing and a large cache of untouchable warriors in reserve. Whether they scored competitively felt random, but you could always rely on the moles refusing to police the table because digging would cost them a card. Moles also enjoyed a great deal of strategic obscurity, with their full capabilities hidden upon the burrow and their ministers and the reams of text they keep privately on their side of the map; most players acted like the moles barely existed, up until the point they emerged from the burrow to wipe you off the map. More frustrating still was the task of policing the moles in turn: Chewing through a dozen warriors just for two or three VP, only to find that all you managed to accomplish was the loss of a single card and an unused lord, while the reserve moles were now in your own backline destroying two clearings a turn. As an outlet for this frustration, our little group played a parody of mole strategy: Buildings galore, defenses be damned! Who cares about the losses when each market can be cashed out on the same turn it was built? What was intended to be a cathartic tantrum and a thrown game ended up being *frighteningly* effective at scoring points, and thus the idea for P&D moles was conceived. Under the passive meta of the time, with players starting as far apart as genders at a Jr. High dance, P&D reliably had enough time to build momentum while opponents approached. By the time people realized you were outracing both the WA and VB and intended to stop you, your moles were safely back in the burrow ready to reappear on the opposite side of the board in a very literal game of whack-a-mole. Leaving the buildings undefended was even advantageous, here: Having two buildings and a tunnel undefended meant that only two consecutive 0-0 rolls could trigger price of failure twice, and swaying lords was just another source of easy points. The frustration of bird-mole games was overshadowed by the frustration of stopping P&D. The correct counterplay was aggression on the earliest possible turn and nearly every turn thereafter, as a turn or two of recovery could allow moles enough room to find another 8vp burst, while still keeping pace in the meanwhile. Sprinting across the map on turn 1 meant badly over-extending right away, and your other opponents were already primed to capitalize upon your mutual tempo loss by the UW meta. If you were the only one taking on this task, you'd likely be doing it all game long for little reward. A well-rounded game against moles could only arise if all players at the table understood what moles were capable of, and feared the faction enough to treat them like the VB. For this reason (and my own personal biases against the faction,) I made this P&D guide video. It shows you that moles don't need to care about PoF. It shows you that moles gain greater rewards from their buildings than other factions. It shows you that moles are a major threat at almost any point in any game. And it tries to scare the shit out of you with that "24vp in four turns" line. Is this video hyperbole? Absolutely. In fact, it took us quite a few attempts before we'd recorded a game that made the strategy look appropriately intimidating. That hyperbole is half the entire point, though: If only one person (or godforbid, no one) is policing the moles, this strategy rolls on largely unabated. P&D is but one arm of what moles can achieve at any time, it just happens to be very loud and scary. Bending public perception so that people treated the moles as an appropriate threat was *the whole point.* In the time since this video, and with the advent of Marauders and ADSET, P&D as a standalone strategy has largely fallen by the wayside, and I'm glad for it. Not only does ADSET close off that ample board space where P&D could set up, but it also grants players the ability to make early aggressions without capsizing their own engine. In mole games i play nowadays, I see WA players setting all three of their starting tokens on mole clearings, knowing that the early card loss and revolt threat represent a significant tempo loss for the moles. I see crow players extorting moles on their first turn, and players committing regular battles to keep the duchy's warrior presence in check. The Marauder meta favors early aggression and interaction, and the game is far healthier as a whole. Would I honestly claim that the meta's shift against moles is due to my little P&D propaganda tabloid? No, I'm not so vain. Instead, I think I'll call it a reminder: A reminder to newer players that a faction's capabilities are not expressed solely on the map and VP track alone; and also, in the same way that "UNCLE SAM" once "WANT(ED) YOU!", the ideas that propaganda hopes to popularize reflect not only the context of their time, but the aspirations of their author. Thanks for reading, and fuck bird-mole games they still suck.

[@shyzunk]

there is surprisingly little in depth content on the duchy given how popular the game is, this was very insighful for originally more casual players like me who started to get tough only after marauders release and never realised there was a racing problem in history of the game!

[@Nevakanezah_]

@@shyzunk Duchy's a faction where their full capabilities werent very apparent without some pretty thorough optimisation, so they ended up having a really wide gap between typical games, and their full potential. Ill eventually make a proper guide for them, and i suspect it'll be a very easy one to write

[@arthursimsa9005]

@@Nevakanezah_ please do:P

[@Shaka14992]

@@Nevakanezah_ I’m still waiting for Moles guide ❤️

[@ekulio]

I did this strategy by accident the first time I played with the moles and thought it was the standard way to play them....two games and they've been banned from my table ever since.

[@Nevakanezah_]

Moles can be a truly magical experience like that

[@ekulio]

@@Nevakanezah_ I've been thinking about house rules to balance them. Moving the crafting step to birdsong is an obvious one. Maybe making them discard instead of reveal to build or sway. I wonder what your thoughts are

[@Nevakanezah_]

@@ekulio Advanced setup + violence solves 90% of the things that make moles insufferable. You just have to avoid leaving a good mole player unsupervised

[@ekulio]

@@Nevakanezah_ how does advanced setup change things?

[@Nevakanezah_]

@@ekulio The relevant change is that factions don't have to stick to opposite corners of the map for setup. You start closer together, and can start fighting each other sooner.

[@alvarocreator8784]

I used this strategy with my friend, I won in four turns 💀

[@mishael1339]

Recently I won turn 4 in a 6p game, then again in a 3p game with hirelingers. Those were my first games playing them but I remembered this video and noone was destroying buildings 💀Duchy is magical.

[@alvarocreator8784]

@@mishael1339 If you don't get stopped at the start of the game is almost a win

[@egozttb72]

How?????

[@jcurysimoes]

I believe the real problem here is crafting AFTER you build crafting pieces. Could the same be achieved with Woodland Alliance? I don't think so, because, they have to spend too many cards to get more crafting pieces. But what about The Lizard Cult? Just like the moles, they just reveal cards, so couldn't this strategy be used by the lizards as well? No, because of the outcast, just realized it while I was writing it...damn...anyway, crafting at night is BROKEN!

[@Nevakanezah_]

Evening crafting is definitely strong by a wide margin. The crux of why it's strong with moles is they can hit high card draw with fairly few pieces placed that turn, then squeeze action econ out of those cards in order to place the crafting pieces needed to craft them

[@dumbtastical]

God I wish I could read

[@dominicparker6124]

That example play was somewhat bolstered by using the otters to buy extra cards.

[@Nevakanezah_]

Correct; the strategy benefits highly from having Otters and/or master engravers. In retrospect, the lasting takeaway from this video might be knowledge of just how many points moles can find on their turn in spite of very limited preparation.

[@rambertoeco8930]

Degenrate it is... Awesome

[@DaCooGa]

So is there ANY counterplay to this??? Or is it really that OP?

[@Nevakanezah_]

As always: the answer is violence. Making moles struggle to remain on the board prevents this, and with adset, that work is much easier

[@tobiasnenseter8044]

@@Nevakanezah_ the fact that Otters had low prices (meaning not 4) for their cards and mercs was helping you a lot. Still a fun strategy, i will try it and compare it to my personal fovorites. I usualy play Small Moll or market, baron of dirt, banker -mayor strat.

[@tobiasnenseter8044]

@@Nevakanezah_ And yes, violence is indeed the answer

[@Nevakanezah_]

@@tobiasnenseter8044 Fair warning: ADSET really rebalanced how effective this approach can be. Having everyone start closer together makes it much less punishing for people to walk over and slap you for racing.