cheating to trigger the Marian Reforms

I have for the last campaigns I tried with Rome been faced with two options, finish the campaign without the Marian Reforms, or give up on the campaign, I really don't get why the Marian Reforms are in at all when they are so unlikely to happen before you conquer the Medditeranian Sea, I'm aware of the history, but Rome still had plenty left to fight in the time of Marius, and was actually facing the crisis with Jugartha, the crisis with the Germanic Tribes, and the crisis with Mithradates, so the 90 provinces (every single sharp charismatic vigorous character I have ever obtained has been Optimatas) is rediculous, what am I going to do with a Cohort without anything left to fight?

I tried cheating but all I ever get is "Character not found" or "Could not find this trait in the database".

For a sample example of trying to make a character become a Populares I did

"give_trait Lvcivs Romanvs Popularis 1"
result
Could not find this trait in database
I also tried Populares 1

So could anyone just give me exactly what I would have to type into the cheat Console to get the Marian Reforms without first winning the game? It seriously feels like I'm playing a Carthaginian Campaign, since Carthage was the mercenary user of the ancient world, :help:

give_trait "Lvcivs Romanvs" Popularis

You don't need to put a number at the end because there's only one level of the trait anyways, which makes it unneccesary. Moreover, there are plenty of different Lvcivs's in the name files, which range from LvcivsA to LvcivsZ (or was it K?). So if "Lvcivs Romanvs" doesn't work, try "LvcivsB Romanvs," and if that doesn't work, keep on going from letter to letter.

As for your thing about winning the game, well... I don't believe in such a thing as "winning" in EB. It's more of a historical political and military simulator to me. I suggest you focus on putting a reign on blitzing and rapid expansion, and try to slow down and RP. There's a reason why unrealistic expansion is... unrealistic.

Thank you for the help, although I tried just not using any numbers already, all I got was that the trait could not be found in the database, on the positive side I am pretty sure that I got Lucius' name correctly.

I also try and play the game as a simulation, but what I like about the Romans was their will to change and invent, and I like the idea of simulating the change from militia to soldiery as the militia proves unable to tackle the difficulty I actually like the all mercenary forces that I use as Romani for things like keeping public order, border troops for keeping the threatened provinces etc etc, that is why I sometimes go for being Carthage (Mercenary capital of the ancient world). There are just different ways I like to simulate each faction, and it tends to be hard to rp the locals being Auxilia when there are no Roman troops, or when the Roman troops are horribly depleted to the point of being a liability in combat (because they prevent a more viable unit being there instead).

I am in my first Romani campaign and have reached 179 so I suppose I will be feeling your frustration possibly soon. I don't really have a problem bolstering a Roman core army with locally recruited troops of whatever description. If anything it adds to the variety of the campaign - battles and tactics in Spain will be very different from those that you have to adopt in Egypt. And merging depleted units or shippping new inexperiened units out from Italy would have been the reality facing commanders then.