Arnok…

I think association seems like it should probably be an atomic action. I find it a little hard to understand “Only one wizard may have a court ally with any given identity at a time.” Also, does this rule as written mean that one person could immediately claim five allies upon enactment of the rule? Or all allies?

Yes, it should probably be written as an atomic action.

“Only one wizard may have a court ally with any given identity at a time” is a little awkward. It makes identities unique, and probably is redundant with the method provided for getting a new court ally.

Yes, someone could snap up all 8 court allies immediately. And then someone could steal 5 of those from the person with 0. And it won’t be terribly difficult to steal allies from them.

What if we added two more Court Allies (to make one for each player) then randomly assigned one to each Wizard, so that everyone begins with one ally? But I do like where this is going. 

I think it has good balance as is, once we fix the atomic action business. Hard to say what the best strat is, especially because it doesn’t allow everyone to have a noble at once. Politics ought to be a little messy, no? I expect to see interesting attempts to “rebalance” things, down the line.

What’s the hack right now, taking the actions overly slowly, so as to wipe others’ later purchases? Also, can you even pay a sum “greater than” an initially non-existent value?

Yeah, we should probably define a starting value.

I like this idea, though. 

for the time being.