Root — Steam Gift

Root — a war for the forest where everyone plays by different rules

Root is the digital version of one of the most talked-about board games of recent years: an asymmetric wargame about woodland creatures fighting over a forest realm. The original was designed by Cole Wehrle, illustrated by Kyle Ferrin, and published by Leder Games in 2018. The digital adaptation was built by Dire Wolf — the same team behind the best modern board-game ports — and launched on Steam on September 24, 2020. Behind the cute art hides a sharp, calculating strategy game: cats burn villages, birds build a bureaucratic empire, mice and foxes raise a rebellion, and a lone Vagabond slips between everyone, pulling the game its own way.

Buying from us, you get a Steam gift with the base game Root: our bot delivers the gift to your friends list, you accept it, and the game lands in your Steam library like any normal purchase — yours forever.

Four factions, none of them alike

The core idea of Root is that opponents are practically playing different games on the same board. The base version has four factions:

• Marquise de Cat — industrial cats. They clear the forest and build workshops, sawmills and recruiters, scoring from a developed economy. A strong start, but holding the whole map is hard.
• Eyrie Dynasties — the bird aristocracy. They build a Decree: the more orders you stack, the more you must carry out each turn. One slip and the dynasty collapses into turmoil.
• Woodland Alliance — rebels of mice, foxes and rabbits. They gather sympathy from the oppressed, spark revolts and wage guerrilla war where no one expects it.
• Vagabond — a lone wanderer with a backpack. Befriends or antagonizes the others, runs quests, trades, and scores through items. Plays entirely outside faction logic.

Victory means 30 points, but the road there is unique for each side — which is exactly why no two games of Root feel the same.

What you actually get in the gift

The gift is the base digital Root with all four factions, solo matches against AI, local and online multiplayer, and a tutorial that walks you carefully through the tricky rules. Extra factions and modes shipped as separate DLC, bought on Steam:

• Riverfolk — the otter traders and the Lizard Cult.
• Underworld — the Underground Duchy of moles and the Corvid Conspiracy, plus the Mountain and Lake maps.
• Marauder — the Lord of the Hundreds and the Keepers in Iron.
• Clockwork — automated bot factions and co-op against the AI.
• Exiles & Partisans — an alternative deck and new Vagabond variants.
• Hirelings & Landmarks — hirelings and map landmarks.

So the gift unlocks a complete base game, and you can keep expanding the world later if you want.

How the Steam gift is delivered

Delivery goes through a bot and it's nicely hands-off. You provide your Steam friend invite link and your account region. After payment the bot adds itself to your friends and sends the gift — usually within a couple of minutes. You don't need to accept the friend request, and the bot leaves your list once the gift is delivered. Steam Guard is not required, and the game does not need to be "already owned" — in fact the opposite matters.

Two conditions Steam needs to accept the gift

These are Steam's own rules, worth checking in advance:

• Region matches. Your Steam account region must match the gift region. If they differ, Steam simply won't let you accept it.
• Game not yet in your library. You can't receive a gift for a game your account already owns. Use an account without Root.

And one small thing people trip over most: friend requests must be allowed in your privacy settings, and the invite link must be fresh. If the bot couldn't add you, open your requests, refresh the link and send it to us — we'll resend.

Who Root is for

If you love strategy where the winner isn't the one with the biggest army but the one who reads opponents best, Root is your game. It works equally well for a thoughtful solo run against bots and for a vicious multi-hour brawl with friends, where the Vagabond's last-turn betrayal decides the match. The digital version removes the board game's main pain — long setup and scoring — and leaves pure strategy.

Into digital board games and heavy strategy? Check out Arcs from the same studio Dire Wolf, the space-bound Terraforming Mars, or the elegant bird-builder Wingspan — all three sit perfectly next to Root in a collection.