>>58021052
Shrug. It was an autism flight of fancy because I like war games but the idea of writing a real pokemon war bores me. If I had to come up with answers on the spot then...

You take a town when a Gym Leader surrenders or is defeated (no longer having pokemon to battle with). Nobody is magically compelled to act at all and there is in fact no reason for anybody to attack each other. Evil Arceus wants to laugh as humans descend into paranoia at the mere idea of their neighbors invading them until someone inevitably makes the first move of aggression and the rest of the dominoes fall (We can't just wait for those ninja bastards in Fuchsia city to kill us! Even if all of Kanto stayed peaceful do you think Unova won't be coming for us after they tear themselves apart?!). The original Gym Leaders have power because they are the strongest in their town, and also Gym Leaders are pretty much 'the flag' that they need to protect to keep independence so everybody has a vested interest in keeping them safe. But the Gym Leader position can be gained by defeating the current Gym Leader of the nation you are apart of in a traditional 6v6 pokemon battle. Pokemon battles between members of the same city are Evil Divinely enforced to be 1v1s (or 2v2s or whatever, as long as both sides have an equal amount of pokemon), and everybody can only take 6 pokemon into these battles (but they can carry as many as they want on them). There is however no rules whatsoever in battles between towns. Gym Leaders cannot turn down a challenge, but the consequences for losing are entirely up to the Gym Leader themselves. But even if you defeat the Gym Leader you are likely going to have to immediately fight all of their loyalists without time to rest as now YOU cannot refuse any battles. Towns without Gym Leaders will instead be given one at "random", who may or may not be prepared to suddenly become the target of every ambitious asshole in town.