Dang? That sounds like a whole new game! Yeah if even half of that is possible... wow!

You're right about the need for the game to be fought over a more boardgamey style map. The battles were less for land and conquest as they were for political power.

Was thinking for the minor nobles/leaders you could make specially recruitable retinues that would only be available in that leader's particular area like Bonville, Roos, Scrope, Devreaux.

If you can find a way to make factions more loyal and not have them change sides every two turns you could take advantage of more factions probably. Then again it will be easier, office and title wise to have just two factions and regional-recruitable nobility.

If you know enough about scripting you got it all over the rest of us. I'm limited to thinking 'within the box'.

Was thinking of having a 'Parliament section' - you create a landmass surrounded by mountains or other impassable terrain and within you have nothing but diplomats of the various factions. Thus you always have diplomatic channels open because they can't kill each other and wheeling and dealing becomes more important than battlefield victories.

Thinking of factions based on BI:

Lancaster - WRE
Tudor - WRR (the rebel factions would function not as rebels but as a sort of emergent faction that comes into play on the faction's demise or plays second fiddle to the main faction and takes over the rights of the faction when it disappears)

York - ERE
de la Pole - ERR

Mowbray/Howard of Norfolk (Earl Marshal who would start out neutral and is courted by both sides for his potential power)
Stafford of Buckingham (could head the 'moderate' Lancs w/c can come to an accomodation with the Yorkists)
Beaufort of Somerset (alternately he could be in command of the diehard Lancs and the Lanc party, dudes like Clifford, de Vere and Holland)
Neville of Warwick (this faction would technically be split up into something like three - old Neville of Salisbury should be Richard Duke of York's loyal compatriot, young Neville of Warwick should be the leader of the main Neville faction with his brothers as 'heirs' and ancient Neville of Westmorland would be a pretty weak but present rival)
Percy of Northumberland (leader of the northern Lancs)
Talbot of Shrewsbury (leader of the Welsh Lancs)
Courtenay of Devon (leader of the West Country Lancs)
Fitzalan of Arundel (leader of the moderates and minor nobility)
Stanley
Herbert (along with Devreaux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, leader of the Yorkist Welsh)
Hastings
Audley/Touchet (leader of the north midland lords)

Foreigners and Irish
Scotland - under king James
Douglas - his main rival
France - under king Louis. Burgundy could be abstracted.
Butler of Ormonde - chief Lanc lord in Ireland
Fitzgerald of Desmond - chief York lord in Ireland

One model I can probably point to is the Paradox game Crusader Kings. It's got the best (to my knowledge) noble-vassal and inheritance and family relationship system in computer gaming today. I was trying to mod a War of the Roses game in it but the project was WAY over my head and no one was interested so I threw in the towel (I did get as far as modding in the Courtenay and Bonville families from the west country - which surprisingly are cousins!!) The lovely thing here was you DID NOT gain power by gaining land - you needed to break up your holdings and give away stuff to vassals to keep them happy and to maintain effective control cuz if you controlled too much territory you got a management penalty. So vassalage as well as granting titles (and I modded some titles into offices) was key to the game. Now if you can figure out a way to replicate this in RTW then I'll play Lord Stanley and crown you king at Bosworth!

Best of luck!
Clare