Concept: Activation Order

Each side draws one card per command, plus one card for quality level of the general (which could be negative...). Assign cards to your commands as desired. Count down in order from Ace, King, Queen, etc. A reserve would be valuable for soaking low cards.

Option: Aces can count as high or low, so even if you have a deuce, you're not sure you're moving last in the turn.

Option: draw cards based purely on the quality of the general, not "one per command", to represent command span. Average generals get three or four cards.