Congrats on video of the week on BGG!! Well deserved

I am one of the wierdos who does like Oath more than Root haha. Both are on my top 10 games of all time though so it's really not saying much that I like one over the other. In Root you have to think ahead strategically to have a chance at winning. There are 'the best' opening moves for each faction and a good player can know when a certain faction is getting dangerous and when it can be ignored. This in itself is a good thing, as when you do succeed, you feel very accomplished. Oath on the other hand rewards a completely different style of strategy. It is much more reliant on negotiation and chance. For example, there is no 'best opening' move for the Chancellor, Citizens, or the Exiles. Everything depends on the sites, the relics, and the cards that are in the game and most of those things are hidden/unknown on the first turn. This lends players to take more creative moves. Want to dig for a vision? Go for it! Want to compete for the Oathkeeper title? Sure! Want to just explore sites and relics? The world is your oyster. As the game goes on though, a good player will start to see what paths to victory are worth pursuing and which are not. Even at this stage though, you often have to negotiate with your fellow players to have any chance of coming out on top. Need to be a citizen to win? Try to create a gamestate where the Chancellor needs your help. Is someone asking you for one of the banners? Trade it to them for a high price and then reveal an advisor that takes it back! Lastly, in Oath, you are never truly out of the game (if you lose your last secret though, that's almost the same thing as being eliminated). I have seen players crushed and lose all their power to then come back with a sneaky win! This is not the case in Root. Often, in the endgame of Root, there will be one or two favourites that are close to 30 points and the other players need to do nothing or accidentally (or intentionally) kingmake which doesn't feel good. In Oath, if you don't think you can win, you can still influence who will and it might come down to how you were treated during the game and/or what sites you want to see in the next game. So the kingmaking has real consequences for everyone to feel influential and therefore satisfied.

Excellent comparative video, thanks. I very much appreciate how Cole has broadened the appeal of historical wargames to a broader audience. Yet, this isn’t to say that Cole just put a coat of appeal over wargames. Oath is particularly innovative in creating a unique. historiographic experience

Thanks for the video. I haven't played either, so this sets my expectations when I get to it.

Great video as always, guys! Would you consider Oath harder to teach than Feudum? I know that its in your top 10, and while I love it after discovering it from one of your videos, but it has a lot of the things that seemed to be negatives for you on Oath so I was curious. Root is complex, but fun nonetheless!