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[ackack]

I like the idea of King's Court, and I even liked the huge chains the first few times I saw them. Now I often find them aggravating - games seem to be too dominated by whoever gets the first turn of KC/KC/X, and it's relatively rare that there's an even faster approach that gets you out of that competition.

Since most of the mayhem starts when you KC a KC, it got me thinking: what would be the proper value for a KC Jr. that lacks this recursive property? I can imagine two different variants:

1) You may play any action card other than KC Jr. in your hand 3 times.

2) You may play any action card other than KC, KC Jr., or Throne Room in your hand 3 times.

Is the change significant enough to merit a price difference? (Probably not, in my opinion.) What would you pay for these variants?

[rrenaud]

Can you KC a Golem a KC?

mutual recursion for the win ;P

[Blaeu]

I understand what you are trying to do, but I do not think it is necessary.  Frankly, IMO, a KC Jr. is a Throne Room (even if that is backwards).  It is much harder to abuse the Throne Room due to it only playing it twice (maxing at four rather than nine) and it costs only $4, so its not hard to attempt to abuse it.

I think KC is just one of those cards that is powerful and trying to make it non-recursive isn't the way to "weaken" it.  That said, what if you tried something like this:

Succession -- Cost: $4 -- Action

You may choose an Action card in your hand. Play it three times.

If you do, trash that card.

Or, you could have the player trash Succession instead making it a one time KC.

[play2draw]

Ooh, even better! A card that plays a card four times, then trashes itself and the card it played! Exciting and totally balanced!

A King's Court Jr. (Prince's Court?) that can't be directly played upon itself would still be fairly strong if the right cards are available (Grand Markets or Wharves or Mountebanks)... Probably better and certainly more reliable than stringing 2-3 Throne Rooms together in most situations. With good trashing and easy +actions and +cards, I'd easily buy a few at $5.

[ackack]

I understand what you are trying to do, but I do not think it is necessary.  Frankly, IMO, a KC Jr. is a Throne Room (even if that is backwards).  It is much harder to abuse the Throne Room due to it only playing it twice (maxing at four rather than nine) and it costs only $4, so its not hard to attempt to abuse it.

I think KC is just one of those cards that is powerful and trying to make it non-recursive isn't the way to "weaken" it. 

A couple comments:

- The optionality of KC is a pretty huge advantage over Throne Room. I would be quite surprised if my variant (1) isn't substantially stronger than a Throne Room.

- The exercise is less trying to nerf KC - a pointless endeavor since it's not going to happen - and more just curiosity about how strong KC would be if you couldn't chain it to itself. My feeling is still pretty strong. I think my variant (1) might still be a $6 - I think it would be a quite strong, if situational, $5 and a hilariously unbalanced $4.

[Personman]

I would sometimes buy it at 8 or 9. I would often buy it as 7, almost as often as I buy KC. 6 would be a good cost for it (it would be a good cost for KC too - the additional coin in the cost serves less to make it more balanced, and more to make it randomly happen that one player gets one way before the other. Though it does make it nearly impossible to get on the first shuffle, which is a consideration.). At 5 I think it would be extremely degenerate, though maybe fun, and maybe even more balanced since everyone would have tons of them all the time, instead of having a few and hoping you get them in the hands with your good actions.