I'm a high school teacher, and I love games. I'd like to bring in more games into my classroom this year, and so I challenged myself over the summer to make one for our unit on Rome. I had the basic idea - simulate the Cursus Honorum, showing students what the Roman Republic was like and why it fell. What I didn't have was the mechanics, and I've been hitting my head against the wall all summer long trying to come up with something that works.

I'd like it to be playable in one class period (76 minutes) including time for instructions, so it has to be simple. I also want it to teach the students lessons, and finally, I'd like it to be at least somewhat fun!

Here's the bare bones of what I have:

• Students are divided into groups of 5-6. Each student represents a 30-year-old patrician ready to start a career in politics in Rome.
• There is a simple board that shows the elected positions at each stage of the cursus honorum (6 quaestors, 4 aediles, 2 praetors, 2 consuls, 1 dictator). This is where players would place their game piece. It also explains the powers of each rank (e.g. a consul can command 2 legions and make laws, an aedile controls the grain supplies, etc).
• Players can only go UP on the ladder, never down. That is, they can go from quaestor to aedile, but not aedile back to quaestor. If they can't win election to a higher office, they'll have to hope they get appointed as propraetor or proconsul. The exception is consul - you can be consul as many times as you like, just not twice in a row. Where you can go will be indicated on the board with arrows.
• The board would also have 4 provinces which players can be proconsul or propraetor of (Gallia/4 - maybe limited to proconsuls?, Macedonia/3, Sicilia/2, Illyricum/1). Each is meant to be better than a praetor but worse than a consul, with players getting one if they are a former praetor or consul but did not get a job this round. If there's a human consul, they get to decide the order players can choose provinces, otherwise it's done by dice.
• Every turn each player can pull an event card from a deck. Each card has a challenge of some kind and a reward (opposite sides).
• Challenges include events like barbarian invasions, war with Carthage, slave revolts, plague, grain shortages, etc. Each challenge would have a way to overcome it based on their job/province's powers, but players could also choose to borrow 1 or more favors from a patron (depending on their job and the crisis?).
• Rewards are either bonuses (pay off a favor, money for bribes, become popular with the masses, victory points, etc) or a way to stab someone in the back (not sure exactly how to handle this one).
  

Here's where I'm struggling:

1. I need a way for elections to be decided. Part of the point of the game is that not everybody can climb the cursus honorum equally fast - there was always too many candidates for too few positions. Some would end up climbing quickly while others stayed low. But this also has to be fun for the people who lose - they have to have a way to catch up or bother the people who are winning. I also want elections to be decided in large part by your willingness to borrow money and favors, and make deals with other players.
2. I would like to encourage players to form coalitions to work together to take office (since there are 2 of each position, including consul).
3. I need to make the favor system meaningful - players should have a good reason to want to pay back their favors. Maybe your victory points at the end are heavily affected by this?
4. I need to make it so that higher ranks get more money and fame than lower ranks, so they can build a legacy and win victory points.
5. I want there to be a way for a player to seize control and become an emperor. They'd need to have control of legions, of course.

Any suggestions?