Playing as Romani: How do you handle the massive influx of all those FM in the early game?

[Grimmy]

Ok.

So, I've been playing the Romans (full disclosure, I've only played the Romans, because awesome just like me), and I'm the type of player that runs my "own game" as far as expansion goes. I start out as what is called by some a "turtler" in that I tend to focus inward to build up my own AO before going out to take the AI's stuff away from them.

Around turn 50 or there about, I'm starting to stretch a bit and going after the first war with Carthage to take Sicily and Sardinia and Alia (sp?).

And my FM start filling up the unit slots in Rome. In some games, filling it up so hard that there's spillover.

I've done the thing were you let them educated up a bit (to cultured), attach them to an army, get them blooded and let them rack up service time to the 7.5 years. I've found that with my game (maybe a bug?) if I put two FM in an army, either one or both get no time served showing on their unit cards. No matter how many years I leave them out in the field with their army.

So, question to anyone who's dealt with this.

What do you do?

[Septentrionalis]

I personally believe that the traits, loyalty, and election mechanics become something of a chore and reduce my enjoyment of the game. However, I never felt that the sheer number of FMs would be a cause for concern. I would have them tour around the countryside, defend the republic and then retire to one of the many bigger cities in Italy in which I try to have the top tier of education available. They gain good administrative traits which become sought after as the republic gains and eventually there may be a shortage of capable governors.

I have to add though that I play a very conservative and slowly expanding campaign. No bulldozing the map and no military expenditure beyond the absolute immediate needs. All funds used to developing infrastructure and no starting wars. The end result is a dominion with almost all regions green and happy, with some trouble mustering enough troops to fend off attacks towards me. I may have been lucky, but it makes for a very balanced campaign in which Rome is not so overpowered militarily as highly developed and wealthy. Also, prioritizing happiness also means not so much taxes collected.

[Grimmy]

I do much the same Septentrionalis, in regards to conquest. I'm a slow grower as well.

Some questions to you and others, if I may:

1. Do you ever "trim" your family tree of lesser individuals? If so, does that harshly impact later game availability of FM?
2. Do you adopt many, any or all of the marriage proposals for the daughters of your family tree? And if not, does that harshly impact FM availability later?
3. Are there specific traits that you absolutely try to avoid or kill off FM if they develop?

4. Does thinning out your FM harshly impact leader authority?

I would try to figure these things out myself but I tend to get burned out early mid game and stop playing. And when I start again, I prefer to start at the beginning, so in all these years, I've never actually got through the mid game, let alone the end game lol.

I'm a dummy.

[Septentrionalis]

1. Do you ever "trim" your family tree of lesser individuals? If so, does that harshly impact later game availability of FM?

I don't but it would probably affect you negatively if you played longer and had a lot areas to govern.

2. Do you adopt many, any or all of the marriage proposals for the daughters of your family tree? And if not, does that harshly impact FM availability later?

Almost all. I reject only if there is something badly wrong with the suitor. I never felt the need to breed offspring too much. FMs can be trained and developed, and if one does not have administrative skills, they can be used for combat instead.

3. Are there specific traits that you absolutely try to avoid or kill off FM if they develop?

Not really. The really insane ones can be sent on long missions building watchtowers in Africa and assignments like that.

4. Does thinning out your FM harshly impact leader authority?

I do not know. Authority is one of those features that I do not understand and would prefer to play without. Authority, loyalty and many of the traits just increase micromanaging and stress in the game. 50 FMs all of whom hate the games or read during the races and I have no idea why. Now that's fun.

I would try to figure these things out myself but I tend to get burned out early mid game and stop playing. And when I start again, I prefer to start at the beginning, so in all these years, I've never actually got through the mid game, let alone the end game lol.

I'm a dummy.

Don't beat yourself for that. I kind of grew tired of all the chores and micromanaging and quit playing for a long time. Now I am trying again with Sweboz.

[Septentrionalis]

Oh yeah. I am under the impression that rejected suitors easily return to the game as rebel generals.

[aaronp]

Outside of Italian governors, I keep most of them in Rome. I find this pretty low maintenance. They're there to fight it out in the political arena after all, and they can do that without any input from me. When I need a new general, there is usually someone with in Rome with Imperium, and I may grab another younger protege to take with them for the experience. I've had a few generals with low loyalty take their army and bounce, but that's just adding to the spice of the campaign.

[Slaytaninc]

My biggest problem is that I want to houserule using only one general per army and the Imperium system makes that a much riskier strategy. I haven't thought of a good and realistic work-around.

[Septentrionalis]

Aaronp and Slaytaninc, what does lack of imperium do again in the game (I know the historical concept)? That is one of the many mechanics that the player guide does not cover. I would very much like to contribute to the guide, because I see value in developing it further.

Slaytaninc, at the risk of sidetracking the conversation, what is the underlying justification of your house rule? Historical, avoiding overpowering a stack, or something else?

[Grimmy]

Septentrionalis:

Side track away, please. All info is good info.

Questions spawn other questions and all questions should be pursued.

[aaronp]

Just grepping through the files, it looks like Imperium provides a bonus to personal security, while a lack of imperium has a -3 command penalty for offensive battles and a -1 morale penalty.

[Septentrionalis]

Side track away, please. All info is good info.

Questions spawn other questions and all questions should be pursued.

Agreed! Moreover, this section of the forum is not exactly overflooded with activity these days, so let us not limit ourselves unnecessarily.

Just grepping through the files, it looks like Imperium provides a bonus to personal security, while a lack of imperium has a -3 command penalty for offensive battles and a -1 morale penalty.

A big hand to you for fishing that information out of the files. I played a long campaign as Romani while not really caring about imperium and never noticed anything that drastic. So the battles might have been a bit easier if I had, but when playing a powerful faction and fighting carefully, it was not so hard to succeed without.

[BailianSteel]

One thing I do is "retire" FMs over the age of 60, unless they have the appropriate traits to remain in service for longer (such as ambitious, extremely high loyalty, Vigorous/Charismatic/Sharp, or he's the Faction Leader.) I just move them out to one of the comfy looking villages where they can spend the rest of their days in peace...or they come across a random Eleutheroi stack.


Another thing you can do is build Provincia and assign your FMs as Rector Provinciae and deputies. I don't know if they build up years of service, but I rarely get those above 2.5 years.

[Shoebopp]

More family members mean a larger pool of candidates from which you can select to govern the most rebellious provinces. Very important for the longterm cultural conversion of Cisalpine Gaul, Hellas, and Iberia. Otherwise you'll be stuck with just a few FMs, some good, some bad, not nearly enough to guarantee a high-influence governor per province.

[Grimmy]

Thanks, all y'all.

P.S. It wouldn't be hurtful to me if this thread was turned into a general Romani play issues thread.

P.S.S. or is that P. P. S? Heck, I wouldn't even mind if play issues of those icky barbarian type peoples got worked on here. Mostly. Kinda.

[mahj00n]

I suspect I play fairly similarly, if EB doesn't force us all to play fairly similarly , in that the first 10-15 years or so are spent securing Italic lands and consolidating a bit... I freely admit my approach is heavily influenced by QS' "realistic" guide and there used to be another downloadable guide that might have been written for Roma Surrectum that were good sources of house rule ideas.

Those who come of age are shipped into Rome to spend 16-20 (or Cultured if I remember to check) with the FL and the upgraded school(s) - tax is generally bumped up and there's no savings as every dinarii is getting pumped into Italian infrastructure. Only good things can come of it really... except overly educated.

The earliest electable age is around 28-30 so reaching the 7.5 years military service should be easily doable. Taking from the barbarian Kingetos system, no youngster gets a free pass - off they go doing laps of Italy using up 70-90% mp. Take a wander into the cuban heel of Tarentum, if there are no Gallic rebel stacks they might gain a raiding point spending an end turn over the northern border and of course tackle any rebel spawns. Initially it'll be a relay of single FMs, eventually there will be teams of 2-3 through their early-mid twenties. Give them a battered Equite or inf. unit to drag around with them when soloing - not sure if it's a requirement or just a chance multiplier to being elected Tribune Militum (I don't think they get it just with their own bodyguard).

I don't do any trimming or tending beyond my overall 'learn some skills/ethics, learn some tactics, get elected & put it to use' so FMs turn out as nature intended. If they are hopeless administrators, to the point of being detrimental, then they are field generals (maybe even 2nd stringers) but there are no 'pirate missions' for even the most hopeless cases. When it comes to son-in-laws I'm not slow to X them if the SVC is lacking or an obvious negative. This can be a little bit dicey in that there is also a cut-off I'm sure before the girls become too old to marry off... at best it limits the family tree, at worst nobody else can get an offer while the eldest-eligible is single.

Through 30's they should be elected through the available positions. From praetor to mid-50s... if there's conflict then the imperium gets put to use, if not governorship. If you're doing the old hand imperium-consul with experience gaining whipper-snapper then you only have 1 'qualified' general per army anyway. Somebody mentioned provincial governorships, I didn't see it mentioned that these grant imperium too so long as the FM stays within the bounds of the province. This gets especially useful for things like Iberian campaigns - instead of having to ferry imp/non-imp generals across the med, have an FM-friendly settlement that you can park Romans in between campaigning, once it advances enough it gives you a ready made general on the doorstep of the conflict. The only negative is the lack of recruitment until the Marian reform. On the flip side of that, you only need one Latin settlement out of the 4 or 5 that make up the province. And the Hispania-Citerior/Ulterior, etc. is an added bonus for those that like RP. It's a necessity for Liguria too - it has to be FM-friendly and hosting a +8 law 'retired' consul through his 50s - 60s or it's just going to rebel. < As Shoebopp pointed out, you'll likely go through your whole pool just to find 1-3 candidates that you can rotate through consulships.

While there is that influx of youth numbers in the early game, I'm somewhere around 210 just now and that whole cadre are now 60-something dodderers and I'm a getting a little bit on the short side of having enough in the right generations to provide proper governors/generals to go around and youth to blood. I always have a heavy reliance on client rulers mind you so it could easily be worse, although I suspect this is an EBII thing more than the old EBI II-IV choice.

I've no doubt said some things as fact (marrying, off the top of my head) that are really just me not paying enough attention and jumping to conclusions, but the rest of the forum is awash with nuggets from folk that know a lot better than me...

[Septentrionalis]

More family members mean a larger pool of candidates from which you can select to govern the most rebellious provinces. Very important for the longterm cultural conversion of Cisalpine Gaul, Hellas, and Iberia. Otherwise you'll be stuck with just a few FMs, some good, some bad, not nearly enough to guarantee a high-influence governor per province.

What Shoebopp is saying cannot really be overemphasized. If the goal is to run a politically stable and highly developed Roman republic, good governors will become scarce supply at some point no matter how much you try to keep all FMs alive and educated.

P.S. It wouldn't be hurtful to me if this thread was turned into a general Romani play issues thread.

I'll be more than happy to answer questions and participate in discussion. Too bad I lost access to my long 2.3 Roman campaign as my installation became corrupt and I installed 2.35 that is no longer compatible with the save games. But I remember quite a few things because I grinded and micromanaged that campaign as if i had countless lifetimes to devote to a single EBII campaign.

[Shoebopp]

Regarding general Romani gameplay issues, the whole "years of service" trait could use more frequent milestones. Instead of 2.5 years, 5 years, and 7.5 years, perhaps make it increment by 1? It's easy to lose progress on a milestone when you accidentally make a young Roman the primary general, or have him conquer a settlement and stay in it for one turn. More frequent milestones mean less progress lost if those happen. Also, perhaps make a difficult-to-achieve but earlier turn requirement Marian Reform? This way completionists could strive for the reforms and achieve it by, say, turn 300 while historical roleplayers could enjoy a slower experience. Very few people have the commitment to play 600+ turns and I'd hate to see such a wonderful gaming experience in post-Marian Romani to go unplayed.

[mahj00n]

Hehe my count is so low it takes 24hrs for posts to become public...

The thing with the military service is that the points are counted in the background anyway as long as the requirements are being met, the point is earned. 2.5 / 5 / 7.5 are just easy markers for grading - 2.5-5yrs=10-20pts=50% chance; 5-7.5yrs=20-30pts=75% chance; 7.5yrs=30pts=100%. (Except for Praetor & Consul when Influence counts more the military service points).

* and I can already correct my earlier post 26 is when the the Quaestor becomes available, although the next available, Aedile, is 32. And it shouldn't be necessary to drag around a unit to get TM, in saying that, being the 2nd general in the stack essentially guarantees getting it.

[Grimmy]

I've figured out I was doing the schools wrong.

I was only building them in Rome because I didn't want my FM going to school forever and getting pushed up the ranks of schooling to the level of educated idiot.

But, school rank promotions (cultured, erudite, etc.) stop at age 28 and I had totally forgotten about the traits and ancillaries that can come from the school building line after the formal education process ends.

So, now, I go about spending the coin to build schools all over the place. Gonna have a very educated citizenry, I am.

[Septentrionalis]

I've figured out I was doing the schools wrong.

I was only building them in Rome because I didn't want my FM going to school forever and getting pushed up the ranks of schooling to the level of educated idiot.

But, school rank promotions (cultured, erudite, etc.) stop at age 28 and I had totally forgotten about the traits and ancillaries that can come from the school building line after the formal education process ends.

So, now, I go about spending the coin to build schools all over the place. Gonna have a very educated citizenry, I am.

So if I can unpack this message, you just played EBII and came to the discovery that future leaders' education is a good thing and definitely something to spend on? I must say that this mod is truly marvelous!