I am making a game set in Ancient Greece, and the whole crux of the game is dependent on the two players (Athens and Sparta) gaining the support of various city-states. The power who holds the support of the city-state gains their resources (i.e. men and ships), and Athens also demands tribute. The idea is that both powers have to keep their allies happy, otherwise they revolt.
My problem is I don't know what the best way to keep track of this would be. There's a few options I have thought of myself, but I'm sure there has to be a better way to do it.
The board is split into different regions (eg. Attica, Lacedaemonia, Corinthia, Thessaly, Macedonia, Lesbos, Naxos, Corcyra, etc.) that have their own resources for the allied power. At the start of the game, I'm not sure how to distribute them.
Some ideas:
AUTO ALLOCATED: The same regions are given to the same power at the start of every game. The bonus is it is easy, and allows for the greatest historical accuracy. The obvious disadvantage is the limiting effect it has on the game, as each one starts the same.
FIRST PAST THE POST: Whoever "occupies" the region first gains ownership. It is just as easy to implement as auto allocating, but it disadvantages Sparta (who's starting location is at the bottom of the board, while Athens is in a more central location).
RANDOM ALLOCATE: "Ownership cards" are shuffled and dealt out. Disadvantage is it doesn't allow for predetermined strategies as players have no idea/influence over what they get, and it also pushes up the "luck" factor in the game, which is something I would like to avoid.
ELECTION/BIDDING WAR: The two players start with a number of "bidding chips" (could simply be an amount of money) and then bid for the regions one at a time. Once a player spends their chips, they can't bid anymore. I've never tried this in a two player setting, and I'm not sure how well it would work in such circumstances.
Which one would you suggest, or even better is there another way to do it?
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My other difficulty is implementing how the powers keep their allies happy. Athens demands tribute from their allies. I want a system whereby the more they demand, the higher chance that the allies will revolt.
I'm thinking of having some sort of loyalty track for each region. Maybe you start with 5 points, and whenever you do something that negatively affects said region, you lose one or more points. When the counter reaches 0 points, the state revolts. I would also like to include a system where the player can crush a revolt. I don't really know how it would work, but maybe if they have hoplites in the city, there is a chance they will not revolt or something.
Also, some states are more likely to align themselves to one power than the other (eg. Corinth more likely to Side with Sparta, because they dislike Athens). If I go ahead with a loyalty track system, these regions get less than 5 for their counter, or something.
You can also "occupy" a region. When this happens, should the city's allegiance change to the occupying force? Or perhaps for each turn that the original owner doesn't send aid, they lose 1 to their counter? If they don't send support soon enough (reasons include they don't have enough resources to spare, it's too far away [a player can only move troops across one adjacent region per turn] or they simply don't need the city anymore) the region revolts and then aligns itself to whoever claims it (this case being the occupying force).
As you can probably tell, my system is EXTREMELY messy, and to be honest I'm not very happy with it, but I don't know how else to handle it. ANY suggestions would be fantastic, because I really want to get this game off the ground.
