Here are some ideas I've had had for unusual settings games:
1. Betrayal games.
The concept is as follows: The game is played as in teams, but only one member of the team will be declared the winner. The winner is the team member with the most territories once all other teams are eliminated. You must work cooperatively early on, because your team must win for you to win, but there is always a bit of tension in every move. It's probably best not to have cards in such a game, because then players will milk the timing of the turn to optimize the betrayal--but having cards can also make the betrayal that much deeper. One interesting point: when you are fighting team mates, you won't be earning cards.
Here's a sample game
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx
2. The Best Defense is a Good Offense games.
Set offense kill to 100%. Set defense kill to 0%. For added mayhem, turn on multiattack. Attack priority cards will be at a premium!
3. Separatists maps
Unfortunately, I do not have one of these maps to show you, because all my early working models got destroyed in a server upgrade, and I'm been too busy to remake them now. Here's how this one works: each has bonus region has a territory that is a "separatist" territory. Possession of the whole bonus region give normal bonus amount. Incomplete possession of bonus is worth *negative* armies, if the separatist is among what you possess--otherwise, no consequences. The penalty is more severe for the greater fraction of the bonus you hold. (I like the idea of possession of the just the separatist region being worth 1 bonus army, but that's not necessary for the key concept).
Here's a specific example. Let's say in South America, Brazil is the separatist territory. Full possession of the bonus is good for five armies, as usual. Owning all of the bonus region but Brazil is good for no bonus armies, as usual. **But** owning Brazil and Argentina is -1 to deployment, owning Brazil, Argentina and Peru is -2 to deployment, having everything but Colombia would be -5 to deployment. (In my optional setting, hvae just Brazil is good for one army).
Obvious conseqences: certain defense points become much more important (you can't afford to crack at anywhere other than Brazil), players now have incentive to rampage through a bonus (if you crack in through Argentina, you help them by going further, and gift and abandon cards are very valuable (if someone cracks into your bonus, turn the tables by gifting the separatist region).
If that sounds interesting to you, you'll have to design the map for it. It simply means reassigning bonuses on an existing map.
I could have sworn I had another crazy idea, but it's not coming.
