Guide to the Roman Leadership System

[Sir_Crashalot]

Hi all, longterm lurker, newish poster, apologies for rambling etc etc

I have only played RTRVII for the last week, and up to around turn 50. I noticed that there is a lot of confusion around the Roman Leadership System and how to get the most out of it, so I thought I’ll share some of my ways of dealing with it.

This guide will be organized as following:

• How to get the traits (ranks) to appear
• How to organize the republic to maximize benefits from the system

How to get the traits (ranks) to appear

First a short overview of the system. Most of below is taken straight from Muizer’s excellent post. I will explain the Tribunus Militum rank in detail, but then only briefly go over the other ranks as they are largely the same.


Ineligible for office (Trait)
This trait is given to all generals by default WHENEVER they don’t have an active rank. This gives them a massive penalty to command, management, influence, tax, trade, public order, morale etc, more than enough to cancel out any positive traits the general inherently have. This is meant to encourage you to role play and actively acquire ranks for your generals.

Tribunus Militum (Trait) TR (Ancillary)
A general can become a Tribunes Militum 5 years after ENTERING the faction, whether by coming of age, marrying or adoption. That means if you accept a suitor that is 30 years old, he will only become eligible for the rank at the tender young age of 35.
To get this trait, either:

1. Give a character with the eligible for Tribunes Militum trait the TR ancillary, and then leave him inside a settlement, whether a major or minor region. The next turn he will become a Tribunes Militum
2. Move a character with the eligible for Tribunes Militum trait to the city of Rome, which at least 1 free ancillary space, and no other rank associated ancillaries. The next turn he will be given the TR ancillary. The next turn after that he will be given the rank as long as he ends a turn inside a settlement

The rank will disappear if he does not end a turn inside a settlement, whether a major or minor region. If this happens, simply have him end a turn inside a settlement again to regain the rank. You can march the man half way across the map to his destination, and as soon as he arrives he will acquire the rank again.

Quaestor (Trait) Q (Ancillary)
A general can become a Quaestor 15 years after entering the faction, note that he DOES NOT have to have served as a Tribunes Militum (I have never actually tested this, but this has so far not been a issue)
To get this trait, follow the same instruction as for Tribunes Militum, only replace the eligible for Tribunes Militum trait with the eligible for Quaestor trait and so on. Note that you have to remove the TR ancillary at the same time (again, never tested this but so far never came up).
Same as the previous rank, you have to remain inside a settlement for the general to retain the rank. But you will get it back as long as he returns to a settlement with the ancillary

Aedilis(Trait) Q (Ancillary)
Eligible after 5 years after serving as Quaestor, note that this is not 5 years of service as Quaestor, only 5 years after first being one. You can have a general only serving 3 month as Quaestor, then sitting around for the next 4 years and 9 month, he will still be eligible when the time comes.
To acquire and retain the trait is exactly the same as for Quaestor and Tribunes Militum

Praetor (Trait) Prae (Ancillary)
Now we are at the business end of things, a general eligible for the rank 8 years after first serving as Quaestor. Same as being Aedilis, you only have to have been a Quaestor once 8 years ago, and not spent 8 years as Quaestor.
To acquire the trait is the same as others. However you can retain the trait as long as you stay inside Roman territory, meaning a Praetor can defend Roman land more easily (you do not have to end your turns inside a settlement). If you lose the trait from straying outside your territory or losing the territory to enemy action, simply move him back onto Roman territory (if this doesn’t work, move him into a settlement again).

Consul (Trait) Con (Ancillary)
Generalsbecome eligible for Consulship 3 years after first serving as Praetor. The same story about having served and not serving for 3 years applies here too. To gain the rank follow the same procedures as above.
The benefit of being Consul is that you never lose the rank unless you remove the ancillary. Consuls are suitable then for foreign expeditions.

Former _____ (Trait)
These series of traits give you a cumulative stat bonus, but is unfortunately cancelled out by theIneligible for office trait. To gain the benefits of these traits you still need an active rank.

How to organize the republic to maximize benefits from the system

Here I will try to explain how I have been using the system, and hopefully trying to minimize down time.

First thing to note is that you do not need the Tribunus Militum or the Aedilis ranks if you don’t want them. To get to Consul you only need Quaestor, Praetor and Consul itself. This is important to remember as the republic gets larger and you have 20-30 generals to manage.

Second is to accept the fact that some family members will never reach the top spot. There is absolutely no harm to having a handful of 60 years old Quaestors sitting around governing safe provinces. If you need to fight some rebels you can easily march to them by moving from one settlement to another, and fighting them from the closest settlement. Time consuming but this avoids you losing the rank and having to fight with a massive morale penalty. Alternatively just fight with a captain if you are a bit more lenient with roleplaying.

On a related note, just because someone is eligible for Consulship doesn’t mean he have to be Consul. In fact feel free to make him a Quaestor and stick him somewhere until you need him.

The last tip I have is to have less ancillaries than you have generals. In particular, you don’t actually need many copies of the TR (Tribunus Militum) ancillary at all, considering it effectively does nothing. I only keep 2 Consuls, 2 Praetors, 1-2 Aedilis, as many Quaestors as I can fit, and 2 Tribunus Militum. This allows me to rotate the ranks much more easily. To promote someone I always have someone to dump the old ancillary onto.

This can be achieved by keeping Rome itself empty unless you want someone to get a specific ancillary. In the long run this will save you lots of problems. If you ever feel you have too much ancillaries, pick you least favourite Quaestor, stick all the excess ancillaries on him, and leave him in a safe city. When he dies of old age he will take the excess with him.

My personal approach

The way I personally organize the system is that whether a character enters the faction, I quickly glance at his initial traits and decide if he is going to be a military man (who will reach Consulship) or if he is gonna be a quill pusher (he is gonna stay at Quaestor/Aedilis level).

• A military man will be kept near Rome (usually one of the minor regions), and he will progress through the Cursus Honorum in its entirety. Nearby there is one Tribunus Militum, Quaestor, Aedilis, Praetor and Consul, and the ranks are cycled through the generals to give everyone exposure. Once the man reach the stage where he is eligible to become a Praetor he is made one for a turn, then returned to Rome, given a Quaestorship, and shipped to the front lines.

• A governor is sent to Capua, where there is essentially nothing (1 Tribunus Militum and Quaestor), once he becomes eligible for Quaestorship he is sent to Rome to become one, and shipped off to some distance city to govern

• At my front lines, I have 1 Consul, 1 Praetor, and a bunch of Quaestors who are eligible to become Praetors or Consuls. I will cycle the Prae ancillary through the Quaestors to make sure at least one or two is eligible to become Consul if the situation arises.

The second Consul is often kept in Rome itself. He will not pick up any extra ancillaries, and there he can deal with any unexpected situations. If an unexpected war breaks out I can ship the second Consul and Praetor to the second front, and divert any new “graduates” to the new front. In my experience fighting a two front war is hard to sustain, because if you lose one Consul or Praetor to battle you will have trouble replacing him, so I tend to ship over a large garrison and leave them under the command of the local Quaestor (who can fight battles as long as it is within one turn of his settlement). Of course if the first Consul dies unexpectedly I can ship the second Consul over.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, I find it easier to keep all my young ones in one or two spots, and only send them out when they are ready. I don’t use them to ferry ancillaries around, and when they are sent out they only have 1 ancillary which they will swap with someone. The vast majority of my young generals in the 16 to 31 age range actually have no ancillaries at all. I find this keep the system much more organised, and it is easier to keep track of 1-2 generals moving to the front line than to try to track 5-6 moving in different directions.

[Maurits]

Good idea, thanks for sharing your system with us!

+rep

[Typhon]

Very cool, that's a pretty interesting approach.

[leehunt27]

awesome thank you!

[AntigonusOneEyed]

Very well explained, thank you very much!

[JaM]

It would be nice to include some military rank for younger FMs.. There are several examples in Roman History where armies were led by young leaders, like for example Scipio Africanus (he was 21 when he led army in Spain) Maybe something like some special trait based on character quality, so if you get dome exceptionally great young leader, he would be able to command armies in enemy teritory (what about Dictator ancillary that would be without restrictions but for limited amount of time? let say 5-10 years?)