How does chain of command work?

[ray243]

I see that in this image, on the right hand side, there is a list of military office for you to appoint your commanders. As the late Roman army was organised into regional armies as opposed to specific legions, it make sense to have a proper "order of Battle" for the Roman Empire. Gaul for example has Limitanei units stationed close to the frontier regions, and also have a field army that can be redeployed in case of incursions.

What I am most interested is how does this chain of command work? Would the troops that is grouped together as part of the Gallic Field Army for instance all be under the command of the Magister Militum of Gaul? If he chose to rebel, would all the units that you group under the Gallic Field Army rebel against you en mass?

This means a number of stacks ( depending how big you organise the Gallic Field Army to be) that forms the Gallic Field Army would suddenly be a massive threat to your provinces and empires as opposed to random stacks of units that is spread out throughout your empire. If the commander of Gaul is successful in winning battles against you, would we see a system whereby the commander of the Spanish and even African Armies would defect and join him against you as a player?

This would make the game extremely challenging, but at the same time, "logical" to the player. The player has to carefully manage his generals and ensure that he can prevent successful generals from claiming the Imperial throne ( sometime that happens quite often during this period).

[Jokern]

I am thrilled by this great expansion of the use of characters and role-play. So much to do, so many posts to assign people to. I hope that they make it more than bonuses to the characters, which I suspect is the way they'll go unfortunately. One thing I hope they bring back loyalty, so that we can get revolting generals who want to create their own Imperial dynasty. I didn't see anything that looked like a loyalty bar in one of the screenshots with the Roman general. Maybe a general's Imperium and the Gravitas will affect his loyalty?

I doubt CA will make the political and bureaucratic system overly complicated, so I doubt we'll see something like multiple stacks making up regional field armies. It looks like the army system from Rome II stays, so we'll be seeing legions walking around the map.

[Lionheart11]

That is not a family tree, that is the same as we have in Rome 2, royals vs others

[Lord Uxbridge]

That is not a family tree, that is the same as we have in Rome 2, royals vs others

I believe ray is talking about the appointment to office section on the right-hand side and whether it entails a whole new system of rebellion through the separate region commanders revolting singularly, adding more depth to the Rome 2 system. It certainly seems like the whole families/royals section of the game has been expanded on - and I'm pretty sure the large thing in the centre is some form of family tree... I could be wrong, of course.

[Lionheart11]

Oh sorry, i was wondering where the children are, the sons and daughters from these marriages, like a heir.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

At this point the title "Magister Militum of Gaul" was only just being created (Gaudentius Aetius is the first one to hold it in fact.) Instead, under Stilicho you had the Notitia Dignitatum's recorded system: Magister Peditum (which would later become "Comes et Magister Utriusque Militiae in Praesentis Senior") and Magister Equitum (which would become "in Praesentis Junior"). At this point the various provinces in the West were under the command of Comites, not Magistri.

Ian Hughes makes out the evolution of the title of Magister Utriusque Militiae (first used by Constantius III) in his book Aetius: Attila's Nemesis.

[ray243]

I doubt CA will make the political and bureaucratic system overly complicated, so I doubt we'll see something like multiple stacks making up regional field armies. It looks like the army system from Rome II stays, so we'll be seeing legions walking around the map.

That would be a little disappointing, as legions were no longer operating as "divisions" with their own support elements, but more like brigades that can operate somewhat independently as a tactical unit, but is a sub-unit of a much bigger division.

I believe ray is talking about the appointment to office section on the right-hand side and whether it entails a whole new system of rebellion through the separate region commanders revolting singularly, adding more depth to the Rome 2 system. It certainly seems like the whole families/royals section of the game has been expanded on - and I'm pretty sure the large thing in the centre is some form of family tree... I could be wrong, of course.

I really hope that this can actually led to something we never really experience before in any Total War game and even most modern grand strategy games. Commanders of an entire sector revolting rather than individuals armies rebelling. The problems faced by a number of big empires with a massive professional army has usually been revolved around how to ensure the regional commanders do not revolt.

At this point the title "Magister Militum of Gaul" was only just being created (Gaudentius Aetius is the first one to hold it in fact.) Instead, under Stilicho you had the Notitia Dignitatum's recorded system: Magister Peditum (which would later become "Comes et Magister Utriusque Militiae in Praesentis Senior") and Magister Equitum (which would become "in Praesentis Junior"). At this point the various provinces in the West were under the command of Comites, not Magistri.

Ian Hughes makes out the evolution of the title of Magister Utriusque Militiae (first used by Constantius III) in his book Aetius: Attila's Nemesis.

The problem is unless you can design a system that properly simulates the constant structural changes to the way the Romans organise their armies, you have to stick with one chain of command system.

A regional chain of command, even if it is not entirely historical ( does Africa even have a Magister Militum?), would improve the gameplay and make it more challenging. At the same time, it allows more options for the players who wants to reorganise their armies. If the Roman Empire somehow manage to conquer the whole of Germania for instance, they should be able to create a new Magister Militum of Germania if they really want to.

The organisation of provinces and military command, namely how big is the size of the provinces and how many troops does the field armies have is something that a player can manage. This not only reduce the amount of micromanagement the player has to handle, but also force the players to make trade-off in regards to making decisions.

If I face more enemies attacking me by crossing the Rhine as opposed to the Danube, should I transfer more units to the Gallic Field Army from the Thracian Field Army? Would I be giving too much troops for the Magister Militum of Gaul? Or would I have hold back too much troops for him to sufficiently deal with the issue? Should I use a defence-in-depth strategy? Or should I be deploy all of my strongest units to the frontier?

These kind of decisions can be really fun to make as a player.

[LestaT]

Oh sorry, i was wondering where the children are, the sons and daughters from these marriages, like a heir.

Unmarried Lucretia is the daughter of Flavius Honorius who himself is a son of Flavius Theodosius who happened to have another son Flavius Stilicho who happened to have an unmarried son named Marcus Lepidus (probably adopted).

There you have your trees.

The characters on the left are those from the nobles which you can either marry into your family (the Flavius) and/or assign office (the column on the right).

[Lord Uxbridge]

Oh sorry, i was wondering where the children are, the sons and daughters from these marriages, like a heir.

The screenshot was taken at the start of the campaign as that was what was shown in the reveal - therefore the tree is not yet as fully expanded as it could potentially be mid-to-late game. Like previous games before ETW there is a dead pair of characters at the top with a couple of sons:

• Flavius Theodosius and his wife (both deceased, as indicated by the grey-scale image) have two sons:
  
  • Flavius Honorius, who is the faction leader (as indicated from the golden design above his card), is married and has an unmarried daughter:
    
    • Lucreata.
    
    
  • Flavius Stilicho, who is married and has an unmarried son:
    
    • Marcus Lepidus.

Key:
Bold, Italic & Underlined being the first generation.
Bold & Italic being the second generation.
Italic being the third generation.

There was also the ability to make a character your heir; a button appeared in the section below the family tree when the developer selected a character to make him a regional commander.

I do not know what the red arrow in the family tree indicates - the white ones show the offspring of a character, maybe there is something else meant by this on top of that? ^OvO^'s suggestion of the red arrows indicating adoption is a good possibility.

[LestaT]

Could be adoption since adoption feature is already in the game, or patronage. Historically Stilicho himself was patronized by Theodosius and he also married Theodosius niece/daughter ?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I thought Stilicho never married Theodosius' daughter but instead married his son to one of Honorius' daughters?

The problem is unless you can design a system that properly simulates the constant structural changes to the way the Romans organise their armies, you have to stick with one chain of command system.

A regional chain of command, even if it is not entirely historical ( does Africa even have a Magister Militum?), would improve the gameplay and make it more challenging. At the same time, it allows more options for the players who wants to reorganise their armies. If the Roman Empire somehow manage to conquer the whole of Germania for instance, they should be able to create a new Magister Militum of Germania if they really want to.

The organisation of provinces and military command, namely how big is the size of the provinces and how many troops does the field armies have is something that a player can manage. This not only reduce the amount of micromanagement the player has to handle, but also force the players to make trade-off in regards to making decisions.

If I face more enemies attacking me by crossing the Rhine as opposed to the Danube, should I transfer more units to the Gallic Field Army from the Thracian Field Army? Would I be giving too much troops for the Magister Militum of Gaul? Or would I have hold back too much troops for him to sufficiently deal with the issue? Should I use a defence-in-depth strategy? Or should I be deploy all of my strongest units to the frontier?

These kind of decisions can be really fun to make as a player.

The most there ever were in the west were four: Comes et Magister Utriusque Militiae in Praesentis Senior, Comes et Magister Utriusque Militiae in Praesentis Iunior, Comes et Magister Militum per Gallias, and Comes et Magister Militum per Hispenias, which was established in Spain in 441.

Africa was commanded by a Comes until Bonifacius was re-appointed as Comes et Magister Utriusque Militiae in Praesentis Senior in 432. After that Asparus took command in Africa, but he was an Eastern General.

The Junior command disappeared under Ricimer right after the death of Majorian, and then there was a single Magister Utriusque Militiae. The Senior and Junior commands were also differentiated in Patrician status: the head Patrician was both Princeps Noster and Magnificus vir Parens Patriciusque Noster, while other men like Petronius Maximus and Sigisvultus held the title of simply Patricius. The Spanish command was last held by the Goth Frederic in 453, I would guess, but we can't conclusively prove whether or not his title was more than ceremonial.

The Comes Foederatorum command began with Sigisvult from 426-438, and was held later by Vertericus in 439 and Ricimer from 443-455.

[LestaT]

I thought Stilicho never married Theodosius' daughter but instead married his son to one of Honorius' daughters?

According this this Stilicho married Theodosius's niece.

Stilicho was half-Roman, half-Vandal by birth. Making the army his career, in 383 he served on an embassy to the Persian king Shāpūr III, afterward marrying Serena, the favourite niece of the emperor Theodosius.

[Butan]

I think the chain of command will be like Rome 2 "grades", but this time with limited space, all of them having possibly more differientiated bonus/malus.