Yeah, Im struggling with them now myself.

The hard part seems to be the Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous guy who is ALSO popularis, the rest you can work on with the right character. Get him to fight enough battles and he should get consul eventually and the command and influence pretty easily along the way. Although the game appears to have the same rule as real life Rome did in that you need to be at least 40 years old to be a consul. Im not sure whether this is just a co-incidence or not in my game?

Ive waited literally 15 years for a plebean S/C/V bloke to show up. And he finally has in 187 BC. Im guessing if I stick him in a city with a temple of Ceres he will pick up popularis at some stage - or do I need to keep knocking the temple down and rebuilding it to trigger his chance of acquiring the trait? Then after that he can conquer Africa or Spain for me...

The annoying thing is I have 2 guys who have all the necessary requirements to trigger the reforms, but they are both quite old and will surely die before I reach 172