As soon as May 2nd passes, I'll be ready to launch my IOT. The test game seems to have gone well enough, but I have made a few rule changes:
Capitals:
*You start by claiming a single province, which will be your capital. This means the start will be slower, but this works in the advantage of your GM and new players.
*If you lose your capital, you lose all benefits from your current supply centers.
* Moving your capital costs 10 EP. Once you're capital is moved/relocated you can invest in four new supply centers at a cost of 5 EP each
General:
*Your first five claims will become your supply centers - They produce 3 EP instead of one in theory, but in the beginning this is automatically converted into XP*
*XP has more or less been removed: 3 EP : 1 XP. To balance this, there is a static limit on how many territories can be claimed per turn.
*Captured supply centers only produce 2 EP instead of 3; to get the full benefit you must capture the corresponding capital
* You can only take and use another nation's supply centers+capital once; after that all captured supply centers are treated as regular provinces
And the reason you start with a single province: The map may be edited at the beginning to allow two Frances of Japans to develop if two players settle in the region
I don't think those rules are that complicated. I'll post a tidier write-up of the rules closer to launch time.