Fictitious: an extralegal and unrecognized territory adjacent to the Dakota Territory.

Hey, here's an idea emerging from my recent alternative-fiction writing--as well as from a classroom simulation I developed and offered a few years ago. I'll appreciate your initial reactions as well as any questions as valuable feedback. Because this idea emerged from my writing and teaching, I realize I may be in love with something of little interest to others in a board game--or, perhaps I am really on to something. What do you think?

FICTITIOUS (working title)--would be a tile placement, worker placement, card game with immutable and mutable rules. Fictitious would be set in the alternative-historical 1880s, within a fictitious extralegal and unrecognized territory adjacent to the Dakota Territory. Players would play members of a family (perhaps two or more families--all beginning with the same letter--e.g. B for Bach, Bravo, Beetjes), belonging to a faction (perhaps two or more interdependent factions)--farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners, bankers, and merchants. Families and factions would need to compete and cooperate, and family members could join together to form a threshing or barn-raising crew, gang of outlaws, members of a posse, or a vigilante/vigilance committee. Expansions could include Native Americans and the U.S. Army. Each player’s family member with the highest “reputation” or “esteem” points would be automatically elected to the County’s Commissioners, who would vote once a month (a game turn would be equal to one week with seven actions possible--one for each day of the turn) on changes to the “laws”—all within nine “unchangeable” laws (“the charter”) established when the County was founded. Agencies would include buildings (houses, barns, depots, grain elevators, lumber yards, stores, churches, schools, hotels, water towers, etc.) crops, critters, varmints, livestock, steamboats, stagecoaches, trains, minerals, timber, gold, greenbacks, and so on. The game would include a few games within the game (various auctions based on game theory, gambling) available if two or more "actors" or "family members" show up at the same location (e.g. at the auction sale barn, or in a saloon, or on a river steam boat), as well as supply and demand economics involving competition (depending on the number of players) within and/or between factions. To win, players would be required to not only compete against each other to survive (e.g. food, shelter, and protection would be required); thrive (e.g. livestock would be required to include males--stallions, bulls, rams, roosters--and females to increase in number); negotiate (e.g. families could horde, share, sell, or buy assets from each other); and ultimately amass the largest amount of points one or more initial secretly self-selected categories ( a la the way-back game called CAREERS) (e.g. number of family / faction members; wealth (money, land), happiness, generosity (philanthropy), and/or reputation or esteem (accomplishments for the public good. In this way, players would need to determine the ultimate agendas and strategies for the other players and then attempt to "use" those agendas for their own purposes and/or thwart the other players as they attempt to meet their objective(s)--e.g. the motivations (objectives, agendas) could be determined by the players at the beginning of the game by dividing, say, 100 points over the motivations. *Perhaps* include some elements of steam punk (avoiding too much cliche and silliness)--in an expansion (Wild Fictitious, the Air War Over Fictitious, at the Edge of Fictitious, or the Uncle Remus Flim-Flam Show, etc.). There are other ideas bouncing around and drafted onto my game idea sheet, and I'm in the process of at home printing of prototype land tiles (scale 3 inches = a mile), as well as cards to go into decks representing actions, environmental interventions or factors (e.g. a calendar with holidays, days the Commissioners meet, etc.), a newspaper, weather (e.g. rain affects farming, lightning may cause cattle to stampede or a prairie fire on land not yet plowed from its virgin prairie state, etc.), critters (e.g. grasshoppers), and varmints (wolves). There's more, of course, but I'd appreciate getting your feedback on what I've presented so far. Does this sound tantalizing or does it sound too complicated? Personally, I like complex and I know some others do as well. Still, is this TOO complex? Is this something you might play? Yes, brain storming would be welcome.