Have 3 players per city state, three factions whose loyalties from minor factions are constantly shifting, given one or the other "Lord" status. The Lord will be limited to, oh, say 20 clauses of actions so he must be brief. Maybe he will set a budget for a certain project, claim one of his rivals the sole controller of a adventure, and inituate new ones.
Then, you can split up the 20 events among the two Nobles, perhaps letting the Lord house pursue 5 actions for himself. The two nobles, unless specifically assigned one, will write up each action: which member in their house, how they will use budjeted or household money, and hoe they will try to benefit.
The Lord of the Citystate gets to do direct diplomacy, and must use a city-state action to affirm diplomatic agreements (and a Noble gets to say how they intend to seal the deal- will they send an obnoxious fellow who will cut it off, or someone to gain them points in a faction).
All Nobles and Lord households gets household actions. This will be any city-state actions with details, along with personal deviousness. The Lord will have fewer Household actions, as they will be busy.
Example with 10 city state orders, 2 Lord Household. 3 Household Each+any random Citystate orders
City State Orders for Sarkov
1. We shall invade the city of Thloryn
2. No more than one half of our army shall follow.
3. Our Casus Belli is the poisoning of crops near our common border
4. We shall hunt down the pirates of Saltholm Islands
5. House Skorpio (InsertPlayerNameHere) shall lead this fleet
6. We will crack down on Bandits
7. We will sign an alliance(linky) with the City of Umbar
8. We will sign an agreement with the Watchmaker's Guild
9. House Tatius(INSERTPLAYERNAMEHERE shall oversee this meeting
10. We will save X amount in the Bank of Sarkov
Lord Orders: House Blackfyre
1. We will plan to assassinate the Tatian diplomat on the way to the Watchmaker's Guild. then send our own some hours late and say that the Tatians feel that they are above workers like the Watchmakers, and refused to come.
2. We will continue to build our fortified villa.
Noble Orders: House Skorpio
Recieved:
1.3.4.7.
1. Our general shall be Skorpio Exellentus, blah blah tactics blah blah go gentle
3. We will only send a messanger, appologizing for our assignment, to declare war. We want to retain our friendship with Thloryn's Watchmaker's guild
4. Our Admiral shall be Skorpio Darius, blah blah tactics blah blah capture and make part of household fleet
7. We will send Skorpio Loquatious, who will also get us more merchant contacts in the south seas
House Orders
1. We will try to gain influence among the Black Powder Guild blah blah
2. We will try to assassinate whoever gets to gather the troops for the thloryn war, so that we can delay the march.
3. We will secretly marry Skorpio Heleniscus to the Lord of Thloryn. If we can get their army to invade Sarkov we might become the next lord!
Noble Orders: House Tatius
Recieved:
2. 6. 8.10.
2. We really want to take that fertile borderland, since ours got poisoned. Along with half of our troops, raise 200 Umbarian mercenaries to help. blah blah.
6. YES! We will make a tactic seemingly defeating them, but instead we will make a secret agreement. They will march on Thloryn according to X pm agreement.
8. Meh, don't really care about them. Let them visit in our villa, so we can at least be safe from traveling assassination! Oh, there's a war? Too bad, maybe they want to assassinate one of our high-ranking diplomats traveling through a WaR ZoNE!
10. Secretly store it in our high-interest fund in the Crusades, and shift our own bank account to match, which will allow us a lower balance than they want, but still get us interest.
House Orders
1. We seriously need to blow up the Black Powder Guild, or else my heavy cavalry will be useless
2. We will try to assassinate that Skorpio Loquatious, becaue he's so good at making allies for the House Skorpio
3. We will sign contract X to get 1000 Umbarian mercenaries, 200 to go to plan 2 and 500 to hunt the bandits.