I'm not really pushing to change anything, just kinda throwing ideas around, but I was thinking this might be a way to potentially re-balance/overhaul alliances:<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">block of text</div><div class="spoiler_body"><strong>1.</strong> While anyone is free to make shady deals or mutual agreements to not attack each other or group up on someone and what not, alliances that have actual mechanical benefits can only be made between two people at a time. <br/><br/><strong>2.</strong> While influence is shared as far as establishing control in a district, obtaining mechanical bonuses is still tracked separately. For example if both players have 50 influence in the same district they are counted as having 100 for the sake of the win condition for controlling the district, but they wouldn't both get the +4 to all their rolls as if they each individually reached 100<br/><br/><strong>3.</strong> To compensate for this, in addition to pooling influence for control, they also get to share district bonuses across all minions. Example: Freya is established in the Slums, and so gets +1 on all her minion rolls in that district. Valerian has no influence in the Slums at all, but if he's allied to her, and so the public knows that he and his minions are affiliated with her, he also gets the same +1 roll on all minion rolls in the Slums. <br/><br/>In addition if the allied people have high influence in the same district their bonuses are added up, so two Aspirants with 50 influence in the Slums would get +4 to all their rolls instead of +2. This would add extra strategy to the game as there are more distinct advantages and disadvantages to whether you team up with someone with high influence in a separate district or double up in your same district. This also doubles the maximum district bonus possible from +4 to +8, meaning you can be super dangerous if you specialize in one or two areas, but sacrifice versatility and range. <br/><br/><strong>4.</strong> Alliances always start out secret, and don't have to be revealed immediately, however in order to actually get access to any of the benefits of an alliance it has to be publicly announced. The IC reasoning for this is that even if two aspirants are working together, if the public isn't aware of it then they have no reason to regard their minions with the same influence. Example: if Kieri's minions just started suddenly operating in Morticia's district, the people wouldn't just magically know that they're officially affiliated, but if it's announced ahead of time then the public knows they should treat Kieri's minions the same way they treat Morticia's. <br/><br/>Publicly declaring your alliance would count as an action that one of the Aspirants have to use. Only one of the allies have to do this, but they have to use up whatever non-minion action they would have taken that turn (gaining extra influence, engaging in the story mission, etc.) to do so. Again this adds strategy as allies have to consider holding off their public reveal for a turn where it would be less of a hit to do so, or debate which of them has to sacrifice their action to do it. An optional addition could be that the aspirant chooses which district they announce the alliance in, and gets some personal bonus influence in that area as a result (either a flat bonus or an additional support roll). Again added strategy as you're giving up your turn to reveal the alliance, but also get some personal gain out of it that might be useful later. <br/><br/><strong>5.</strong> If you're in an alliance and want to team up with someone else, or just go solo again, you have to first break up your current alliance. If both aspirants mutually agree to end their alliance they can do so and split amicably as a free action. However someone can also choose to use their turn action to forcefully break their alliance by betraying their ally. If they do this they can roll on a table, similar to when gaining minion traits, that messes with their ally in various ways depending on their result: lowering their influence in a given district, stealing a chunk of influence from them, debuffing their rolls for a few turns, buffing your own rolls against them, stealing control of a plot item, etc. etc. <br/><br/>Additional rules could include a bonus for waiting longer to betray some one. Waiting X amount of turns gives you an increasing bonus on your betrayal roll. Example: After a 10 turn alliance you get a 2 bonus when betraying them, meaning you can increase or decrease the result of your roll by up to 2 places. This effectively would allow you to pick a specific effect from the table within a certain range of what you rolled instead of just being random. You could also add the ability for the betrayed partner to get revenge on their betrayer, giving them their own betrayal roll that they can cash in on a later turn. Similarly the longer you wait to get your revenge the higher your bonus, or alternatively access to stronger effects. <br/><br/><strong>6. </strong>Another optional rule could be allowing the addition of another member to the alliance, but only when all involved have a certain level of influence. For example both the allied duo and the third individual both need to have full control of their own district before they can team up into a threesome. So if Morticia and Kieri combined have control over the University district, and Freya has sole control over the Slums, they would then get to team up into a mega alliance that holds both districts together. Then you could have an additional threshold to add another member, like the trio alliance now needs to control 3 districts before getting to add a fourth member. Only individuals can be added to an alliance this way, and two separate alliances would never be allowed to officially team up this way. <br/><br/>I figured with this added rule you could still eventually work up to having a larger, dominating alliance, but it would get pushed back towards the endgame rather than having everyone gang up in the first few turns and completely shut out everyone else right out of the gate. Again this adds strategy and would give people who remain solo a means of eventually getting back in the running if/when alliances start to over power them. <br/><hr/><br/>These are just a few ideas really. While it does make alliances more complex, and potentially confusing, I think it would encourage more strategy and adds to the sort of Game of Thrones feeling of having to carefully consider how you use your actions and alliances, not to mention opens up the possibility for betrayals and secret plots that have a distinct mechanical benefit. I think the added complexity would also help balance out the power of alliances, since it becomes a mechanic you have to use strategically instead of just mindlessly ganging up and dog piling influence for an easy win. </div></div>