French Revolution - A Playing Card Game by me

Field of play for a game of French Revolution. Player's hands not pictured.

Rules

French Revolution is played from 2-4 players with a standard 52 deck of playing cards. (Playtesting needed for higher amounts). Each player has a hand of 5 cards. The field of play contains one deck of cards to draw from, a discard pile, a spot in the middle for a RULER card, and up to four BANDS per player.

To set up, deal each player a hand of five cards; place no BANDS before the game starts. Turn over the top card of the deck, this will be the first RULER.

Goal:

End your turn with a BAND with a total value of 21, and of a suit matching the current RULER.

Order of Play:

Play up to 2 cards from your hand into new or existing BANDS.
If you meet one of the requirements for OVERTHROWING the current RULER, may do so. You may OVERTHROW more than once per turn.
If you have a BAND whose cards values total exactly 21, and whose suit matches the current RULER, you win.
Shuffle discard pile into deck, then draw until you have 5 cards in your hand.
Then the next player begins their turn.

Bands:

A band is a collection of cards of the same suit, played face up on the field of play. A player may have only one band in play per suit. Each card's value in a band is equal to its face value. Aces have a value of 1, and face cards have a value of 10.

Ruler:

The ruler is a single card played face up in the center. Rulers can only be put in place by OVERTHROWING the previous one. Each ruler has a defense class, which is the value needed by a band to OVERTHROW that ruler.

For value cards, the defense class equals that card's face value.
Jacks have a defense class of 15.
Queens have a defense class of 20.
Kings have a defense class of 25.

Overthrow:

To change the current ruler, a player may overthrow that ruler using one of their bands, given that it meets one of the following conditions:

That band contains an Ace. Aces used in this manner are assassins.
That band's total value is equal to or higher than the ruler's defense class.
There is no current ruler.

When you perform an overthrow, the following sequence happens:

Select the band that is performing the overthrow.
If the band's suit doesn't match the ruler's suit, discard all bands in play matching the ruler's suit.
Discard the ruler. If an Ace card was used to assassinate the ruler, discard that Ace. (If an Ace was not used as an assassin, do not discard it).
Select the highest card in the band and place it as the new ruler. If there are no more cards in that band, rule goes to the highest card in play matching the assassin's suit. If there are no such cards, the ruler spot is left empty.

My process

I have been working on this game for a couple weeks in my spare time while classes are out. I originally started with the idea for a card game based on the French Revolution because I always though the use of royalty for the face cards was underutilized. I also thought a cool concept would be to have one card acting as a ruler for all players, since that makes the game more interactive and strategically competitive without requiring monetary gambling.

I started with that idea of one ruler, commanding over each card in play. Then, to represent different feudal factions or families, I divided cards in play into their suits. (I understand that the actual French Revolution was more class-based than faction-based, but unfortunately the name War was taken). I was also inspired for the idea of an assassin card by the Spy in Stratego, and liked that a typically low value card could be given an important role to compensate.

My initial idea for the goal of the game was to have the highest value band on the board, and that band must match the current ruler. This provided me with a number of challenges.

It was harder to explain in the rules and not intuitive to constantly be comparing every band on the board.
Because one player starts first, the other players are always at a disadvantage trying to play catch-up.
In order to prevent the first player from immediately winning, the win condition must be checked at the start of a turn, before the player moves. This means that after a player's action, each other player would need to move before he knows if he won.
The biggest one: delayed gratification. I realized while playing other card games that winning is always a climatic moment, immediately rewarding an action taken by a player. Waiting for each other hand to play out, simply hoping that a counterplay wouldn't happen, does build suspense, but the act of winning is only a relief rather than a reward. Furthermore, the other players would only feel hopeless when they cannot counter an obvious victory. Like a steamroll match in Overwatch, it just wasn't fun for anyone.

At this point, I took a break and went back to the drawing board with a lot of rules. I first came up with the limit of 2 cards played per turn. This small detail is very important to how French Revolution plays, since it decreases the amount of cards in play to a digestible amount and prevents winning in one turn.

Then, revisiting the idea of instant gratification, I turned to the popular rules of Blackjack with some important modifications.

The Ace cannot be worth 11. This was in order to ensure that players couldn't easily win with just a lucky hand. Especially since hands hold five cards, it would be far to easy to win with just an ace and any 10 or face.
There is no reward for getting close to 21. As I playtested, in fact, 19s and 20s were often the most annoying band values to play, since few cards, if any could be used to complete that band to 21, so I would need to overthrow to make that band useful again.
Only one player wins. Since money isn't a factor in this game, and there is no house to beat, there needs to be a clear winner among players. This is why you can only win on your own turn, because if you overthrew and made the suit match two different players' bands of 21, both would be eligible winners.
The band conceals no cards. The concealment aspect of the game comes from the hand, as it is important to consider what cards other players may have as well as the ones they've played. Since there is only one copy of each card used in French Revolution, card counting becomes an important strategic element, making this game tragically unsuitable for most casinos.

My next playtests with these updated rules were much more successful. I am proud of the game so far, as I've found a lot of strategic considerations while playing, and most players have found it rather intuitive to learn. I hope to refine the rules and the written explanation further with more playtesting.

(P.S. If you wish to play the game yourself, my winning strategy is to build a band of 31, then overthrow and place a face card or ten in power).

Happy playing! :)