Root: Game Tracker
Hello! Thank you for opening this article and being one of the very very few people in the world who have a curiosity about board game performance tracking.
TLDR: The article covers quick thoughts on why and how to quantify game performance, and at the end is a link to my tracker for Root.
Why should we want to track game stats?
You should not track game stats of every game you play! That is a ton of work and many games you will only play once or twice, but for the game that has infinite replay-ability and depth then I encourage you to track performance. It will help you think about deeper strategies and explore the edges of the game. Just like a really good book that you can read over and over and still get something new out of - a great game can be replayed and still teach you some new trick.
As a designer, tracking stats can help keep the game balanced and fair, especially in asymmetric games or heavy rule-set games. No one wants one faction to be the de-facto powerhouse that will roll over all the rest, and nobody wants to be stuck with the faction that feels like you can only watch everyone else play.
As a player, if you are like me, you will have an innate urge to be atop any leaderboard that is put out and to beat your friends into recognizing you as the all-time champion of the game. However, it is also good encouragement to learn from people who have identified strong strategies and then think how to remove their advantage(s) or counter their strategy.
How to track like a boss?
Gather data with an explicit purpose. Treat this like a scientific study where you want to learn something about important game elements. Not everything needs to be recorded and it’ll be easier to track the data if you don’t have to log 100 columns of data every time. Tracking each move and player action would yield oceans of data, but too much information to be worthwhile for analysis; whereas only tracking players and wins will not yield useful insights into their strategies.
Use metrics that lead to insights. Average win rates and points scored by factions can be very useful in asymmetric strategy games where you want to balance relative strength and ensure level playing fields. Through win rates, you can see whether a faction needs to have rule changes to bolster or weaken its performance. You could even categorize particular strategies and play styles (e.g., “aggressive attacker”, “many trades”, “Longest Road” in Catan) that different player types may deploy to see if there is one that outperforms. Through these metrics, you could then alter rules sets that govern attacking, trading, building, card selection, dice odds, or many others to make them feel “fairer. Oftentimes, you can identify what metrics are useful by playing the game and considering what actions or choices carried the greatest weight.
Categorize the data, simply. Make your database easy-to-use and easy-to-update. This can be done with well-defined game states and outcomes that are limited in selection and independent. For example, in Catan you may want to capture everything about the starting board and initial settlement placements, but that would be a lot of work and it’d be simpler to perhaps start with what resources and numbers did each player have at the beginning. Simpler even, would be to just track what VPs each player ended with and maybe where each of them came from (cities, settlements, cards, etc.). Inevitably there may be future variables you want to add to your database, and you won’t want to have to rebuild the full thing for one additional edit.
Why did I choose “Root”?
First and foremost, Root is my favorite board game of all time. Root is beautiful chaos of woodland warfare, where vagabonds, cats, birds, and all sorts of factions duke it out in wildly different ways. There are layers and layers to the strategic decisions and enough combinations it is hard to have perfect dominant strategies, especially in 3-4 player games where meta strategies can develop. This is a game I always feel like I can return to, experience something new, and learn from. Also, my friends and I are locked in a vicious fight over who is actually the best.
It’s the perfect candidate for stat tracking since each faction plays uniquely and it is hard to tell whether someone had a strong strategy or a lucky break, but patterns emerge over time. Plus, I’m a big fan of leveraging Root’s vibrant community and complexity to learn what works best.
Ready to dive in?
Please check out the Root board game tracker I built — it’s open for anyone who wants to analyze their games or build one of their own. Use it, modify it, or just peer into the madness of your match history with friends. I’m always excited to get feedback and hear how I can improve this resource further! May the best critter reach the top.
LINK: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tvK_rpyHPdESbkTFb9xuRrGyXqTSjioEM0_Y7lCC0ek/edit?usp=sharing