Senate offices... Why am i not getting them?

[Dayve]

I'm trying to play the most heavily restricted to historical accuracy Roman campaign i've ever tried, so i've actually started to use senate offices. It's 268BC and i have 6 family members, but the only senate office i have is Pontifex Maximus, which is useless to me. I have no consuls and no praetors, which means i have nobody to command my armies. I have no Aediles, no Quaestors, no nothing. Why am i not being appointed a consul everytime one runs out of office? Rome always had consuls, even if they were crap and corrupt, they still had someone to command her armies.

[konny]

It is a bit difficult to give you a fresh consul every year with six FMs because of the restrictions (10 years between two terms, minimum age 42 etc.). In 268, I think, you have Blasio who should have been Praetor. The two Scipiones should be still to young to be Consul, leave alone Cotta. Adoptees or sons-in-law are considred to be between 20 and 30 when starting the game (it is not possible to check for their real age), so no way for them to be anything above Quaestor so early in the game.

Anyways you can't roleplay it 100% correct because you do never have enough FMs to fill all offices by trait, leave alone have the 300 members of the Senate. You should therefore go for the ex-offices. That select one with the ex-quaestor trait to become aedile when you don't have 4 aediles (or ex-aedils) by trait. Make your ex-aediles praetors and so forth.

You can also skip the traits completly and hold your own elections (be sure to stick to the cursus honorum by this and keep an eye on the age of your characters).

Have you tried this, BTW?: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=98407

[The Wandering Scholar]

Nice link Konny

[Dayve]

Blah, i'd love to install that thing Konny but i just started a campaign and i can't be bothered to conquer Taras and Rhegion again. I guess i'll use ex-praetor and ex-consul to lead the legions and just pretend the 'ex' isn't there.

[konny]

BI guess i'll use ex-praetor and ex-consul to lead the legions and just pretend the 'ex' isn't there.

That's what I usually do.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

Perfectly legit, Dayve. As the ranks of the Senate fill out, this will be a distant memory. I usually ignore the "ex" part as well.

[Ibrahim]

the ex is everything...........

[General Appo]

In my many Romani campaigns I´ve gone with several different approaches, the first being just not giving a crap about Senate offices.
Second time around I tried mainly to use Consuls and Praetors, but when their terms of office expanded I´d just pretend that they´ve been made Pro-Consul or Pro-Praetor over that particular war.
Third time I did as Konny said and held my own elections every year, often even making up my own stories as to why this particular guy was chosen to be say Consul.

[Tarkus]

Good stuff, guys...I've asked around here a couple times about more realistic role-playing, and this is very relevant. I've always been rather frustrated about the difficulties around trying to rapidly raise an army in order to send a newly-appointed consul out to battle before he's replaced. The use of ex-officers is, I gather, the only way to go.

Thanks! And thanks to Konny for the link to your mini-mod!

[Tiberius Nero]

Why am i not being appointed a consul everytime one runs out of office? Rome always had consuls, even if they were crap and corrupt, they still had someone to command her armies.

It doesn't mean that the consuls will every time be elected from your faction/family; your's isn't supposed to be the only family in Rome. If you don't have a consul, a consular army (or two...) should still exist, but if no family members of your faction have enough imperium to command it, just leave it leaderless; that would represent someone else with the rank of consul is leading it (yeah the captain of the stack, not the most competent kind of commander, but you said it yourself, consuls could be and were simply crap at military stuff).