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[Psyduck]

As the previews are finished, I think they have left most people excited and looking forward to actually playing with the new expansion. Like other expansions  have done before, Adventures will introduce a couple of new game mechanics. In fact, I believe no expansion before has had such a huge impact on gameplay as Adventures will have.

Let's have a look at the new mechanics:

• Exchangeable cards: So there are two lines of related cards, where you can only buy the cheapest. After playing one, you may exchange it for the next better one, which is not in the supply. This concept of levelling up may be familiar from many computer and card games. What I like about it is that it adds variety. If you go for the cards in one line, you don't play one type of card again and again, but rather different cards belonging to the same line. You'll need to prepare your deck accordingly to get the most of the different cards at different times during the game. On the other hand, getting to the final cards, Champion and Teacher, will take some time, so the whole concept seems to be rather slow.
  
  
• Reserves: I love reserves! At least that's what I expect when actually playing with them. Setting cards aside for usage in the right moment adds a whole level of complexity, both in a strategical and a tactical context. You may prepare to attacks your opponent may play, or prepare some kind of strong turn. When assessing what your deck and - even more difficult -  your opponent's deck can do, you'll have to consider the possibilities the reserves offer. I guess there'll be even more reserve cards and I'm definitely looking forward to them. This is my favourite new mechanic by quite a margin.
  
  
• Duration attacks: Well, this isn't the most game-warping mechanic ever. I like to think of it as playing a Wharf that has a built-in Militia effect. So that's two existing things combined, nothing that makes my brain hurt. I like the actual cards (Swamp Hag, Haunted Woods), though.
  
  
• Events: Just wow. We knew there would be something we could buy that isn't a card. But events change everything. It very much feels like using actions during the buy phase. The only thing we could do in the buy phase before was: buying cards (to be fair, some cards allowed some interesting stuff like gaining other cards, trashing cards, messing up the draw pile, or even dealing out curses). But events go much further. They let you do awesome things like adding an additional turn. I guess they will play an important role on many boards they are present. There are, however, two rules which lower the complexity: The number of events is limited, so you won't use all of them all of the time. And, even more important, events aren't cards. This means they don't conflict with any existing cards that refer to other cards.
  
  
• Card tokens: Prosperity introduced VP tokens, Guilds brought us Coin tokens, and Adventures contains a new type of tokens, which are placed on cards. And there are even 10 of them! They allow to modify the kingdom cards for certain players only. This adds individualization and customization to the game. I'm quite happy that we won't play with all of the tokens all the time. Just imagine a game with four players, where everyone has 10 tokens in play. It would be impossible to track the game state and quite hard to reach a good decision. While I really like the vanilla tokens (also the negative ones), I'm not yet convinced by the traveller token. I guess there will be several cards interacting with it, so proper appreciation may appear later on.
  
  
  So, what do you think about the mechanics introduced by Adventures? Which one do you like or dislike in particular?

[GendoIkari]

I'm quite happy that we won't play with all of the tokens all the time. Just imagine a game with four players, where everyone has 10 tokens in play.

We don't know this, though. With 10 Kingdom cards, plus 2 events, you could definitely be using every token type at once. Though I doubt it would often be a good strategy to go for all the token cards in the same game (because it's rarely a good strategy to get so many different cards anyway).

And of course you can play with more than 2 events at once as well.

[TheOthin]

We know eight of the ten tokens: the four + tokens, the two - tokens, the Estate token, and the Journey token. It sounds like of those eight, the Journey token will be the only one used by regular cards rather than Events. So rather than depending on the cards in the Supply, token availability will likely depend more on the available Events, requiring at least seven Events for all the tokens from how things currently work and quite possibly requiring as many as nine.

[GendoIkari]

We know eight of the ten tokens: the four + tokens, the two - tokens, the Estate token, and the Journey token. It sounds like of those eight, the Journey token will be the only one used by regular cards rather than Events. So rather than depending on the cards in the Supply, token availability will likely depend more on the available Events, requiring at least seven Events for all the tokens from how things currently work and quite possibly requiring as many as nine.

I just don't see why you would assume that. We've only seen 14 out of 30 (I think) Kingdom cards. Plenty of room for cards to refer to tokens. At least, I think it's reasonable to think that tokens would be referred to by more than 1 thing. Or cards could refer to more than 1 token type. Not the Estate token I'd assume. Having another card refer to that one would be plain weird.

[Archetype]

I'm a huge fan of the Exchangeable Cards. It's what I assumed Hermit/Urchin would be when Dark Ages was previewed, so I'm excited to see the idea of upgradable cards used in this set. I was hoping that each level would be a strictly better version of the previous one, but apparently they won't be (please correct me if I'm wrong).  That'd be a cool mechanic for another deck builder, though.

[GendoIkari]

I'm a huge fan of the Exchangeable Cards. It's what I assumed Hermit/Urchin would be when Dark Ages was previewed, so I'm excited to see the idea of upgradable cards used in this set. I was hoping that each level would be a strictly better version of the previous one, but apparently they won't be (please correct me if I'm wrong).  That'd be a cool mechanic for another deck builder, though.

As far as I know, nothing has been specifically said about each version being (or not being) strictly better than the previous. But we do know that Hero is the 4th card in the line, so you'd need to find 3 other effects that are each strictly worse than "+$2, Gain a treasure". Seems quite unlikely. Possible, but probably redundant and boring.

[dondon151]

As far as I know, nothing has been specifically said about each version being (or not being) strictly better than the previous. But we do know that Hero is the 4th card in the line, so you'd need to find 3 other effects that are each strictly worse than "+$2, Gain a treasure". Seems quite unlikely. Possible, but probably redundant and boring.

The lowest one could just be a cantrip or something. But Hero does seem pretty weak for a card that has to be upgraded from Page, Treasure Hunter, and Warrior.

[Jimmmmm]

As far as I know, nothing has been specifically said about each version being (or not being) strictly better than the previous. But we do know that Hero is the 4th card in the line, so you'd need to find 3 other effects that are each strictly worse than "+$2, Gain a treasure". Seems quite unlikely. Possible, but probably redundant and boring.

The lowest one could just be a cantrip or something. But Hero does seem pretty weak for a card that has to be upgraded from Page, Treasure Hunter, and Warrior.

Of course, each one may not be better than the previous. Warrior sounds like it should have a pretty strong attack. Maybe in some games you keep your Warriors as Warriors, and sometimes you exchange for a Hero just so you can get a Champion.

[enfynet]

Even more so, perhaps they evolve with the game based on early-mid-late needs?

[shmeur]

As far as I know, nothing has been specifically said about each version being (or not being) strictly better than the previous. But we do know that Hero is the 4th card in the line, so you'd need to find 3 other effects that are each strictly worse than "+$2, Gain a treasure". Seems quite unlikely. Possible, but probably redundant and boring.

The lowest one could just be a cantrip or something. But Hero does seem pretty weak for a card that has to be upgraded from Page, Treasure Hunter, and Warrior.

Donald said that they gradually get better.

Of course, each one may not be better than the previous. Warrior sounds like it should have a pretty strong attack. Maybe in some games you keep your Warriors as Warriors, and sometimes you exchange for a Hero just so you can get a Champion.

[pacovf]

As far as I know, nothing has been specifically said about each version being (or not being) strictly better than the previous. But we do know that Hero is the 4th card in the line, so you'd need to find 3 other effects that are each strictly worse than "+$2, Gain a treasure". Seems quite unlikely. Possible, but probably redundant and boring.

The lowest one could just be a cantrip or something. But Hero does seem pretty weak for a card that has to be upgraded from Page, Treasure Hunter, and Warrior.

Of course, each one may not be better than the previous. Warrior sounds like it should have a pretty strong attack. Maybe in some games you keep your Warriors as Warriors, and sometimes you exchange for a Hero just so you can get a Champion.

Donald said that they gradually get better.

It's also been said that they weren't straight upgrades of each other. We don't know how different they are from each other though.

On tokens: more than one card/event might use the same token. We already sorta know that some other card than Giant will use the journey token, and someone mentioned using the -1 card token as some sort of attack.

[swedenman]

So far I'm not a big fan of the new tokens. Inheritance in particular feels overly convoluted. The other token stuff looks alright but none of it seems exciting enough to me to warrant introducing a completely new mechanic. But I have no idea how any of this stuff is actually going to work in practice, so hopefully I'm completely wrong.

I really love the Reserves. They have a neat design and I imagine they'll really enhance the gameplay. Events look cool, and I think the exchangeable cards could be really sweet (though I imagine they'll be really hard to play).

Overall I'd say I like the new mechanics. This feels like the most game-breaking expansion so far, but I don't mean that in a bad way. I just expect it to be a while before the community really knows what they're doing with some of these cards. And I think that's a good thing.

[Seprix]

There will be a reserve moat

[werothegreat]

There will be a reserve moat

"I play Torturer."
"Huzzah!  My ReserveMoat protects me!  I call it!"
"I play another Torturer."
"Shit."

[Seprix]

There will be a reserve moat

"I play Torturer."
"Huzzah!  My ReserveMoat protects me!  I call it!"
"I play another Torturer."
"Shit."

But then you reveal nothing, you insufferable fool. You thought I'd say moat?

[Throwaway_bicycling]

There will be a reserve moat

"I play Torturer."
"Huzzah!  My ReserveMoat protects me!  I call it!"
"I play another Torturer."
"Shit."

Yet another situation where you should just have avoided all of the heartache by having Watchtower in hand.

[sudgy]

There will be a reserve moat

"I play Torturer."
"Huzzah!  My ReserveMoat protects me!  I call it!"
"I play another Torturer."
"S***."

Actually, ReserveMoat would be a cool card.

[Mr Anderson]

I think a Moat Reserve would be more like a Lighthouse Reserve protecting you when it is in play after you called it. The first version of Moat only protected you for one attack if I recall correctly, and obviously it was just much weaker and really made you cry if you were attacked multiple times just as werothegreat said. Just imagine playing that one time Moat Reserve on Goko: JUST STOP ASKING ME TO CALL THE RESERVE MOAT ON SPIES, OK, I CALL IT. DAMN, HIS MOUNTEBANK.

[TheOthin]

The thing about standard Reserves is that they get called on your own turn, when they can go into play as usual. A Reserve you could call on opponents' turns would probably have to be classified as an Action-Reserve-Duration or Action-Reserve-Reaction.

[Squidd]

Reserves get called when they say they can. A Reserve that could be called on an opponent's turn wouldn't necessarily be any stranger than setting aside Horse Traders.

[Mic Qsenoch]

The thing about standard Reserves is that they get called on your own turn, when they can go into play as usual. A Reserve you could call on opponents' turns would probably have to be classified as an Action-Reserve-Duration or Action-Reserve-Reaction.

Duplicate is a Reserve you can call on your opponent's turn.

[AJD]

The thing about standard Reserves is that they get called on your own turn, when they can go into play as usual. A Reserve you could call on opponents' turns would probably have to be classified as an Action-Reserve-Duration or Action-Reserve-Reaction.

Duplicate is a Reserve you can call on your opponent's turn.

Oh, I guess it is. So in this situation, you discard it from play during your opponent's cleanup phase?

[werothegreat]

Also, a Moat Reserve would only be called when an opponent played an Attack, so there would be some games where it just sit sadly on your Tavern mat, or not be bought at all.  At least Moat can draw you cards.

[Awaclus]

Also, a Moat Reserve would only be called when an opponent played an Attack, so there would be some games where it just sit sadly on your Tavern mat, or not be bought at all.  At least Moat can draw you cards.

It could be a Victory card.

[LastFootnote]

Also, a Moat Reserve would only be called when an opponent played an Attack, so there would be some games where it just sit sadly on your Tavern mat, or not be bought at all.  At least Moat can draw you cards.

It could be a Victory card.

But then how would it get onto your mat?