Why can't Pontus construct roads!?

[Dayve]

*Hires a mercenary army to invade the EB headquarters*

And why does a rebel army keep appearing inbetween the capital city and Sinope every 2 turns? And why are all my generals depressed and dejected? WHY WHY WHY

[Kull]

.....And why are all my generals depressed and dejected? WHY WHY WHY

Hmmmm. Maybe they are picking up on the mood of their leader?

[pezhetairoi]

I thought it would be the other way around...

[Dayve]

Nah seriously... Why can't Pontus build paved roads? They are civilised... Surely they should be able to build them? And every general i've had so far is dejected, just wondering why...

[Chester]

You know, you can still go far with a poor general. I often ignore retinues and character traits, and just randomly place my generals in cities or in legions.

During times of war, which is almost constant, I just fling them into action like there is no tommorrow.

Dull, Dejected, poor tactician... In the end I still win the majority of my battles.

[Dayve]

Yeah i like to try to play as realistically as possible though... Surely a king wouldn't appoint a dumb, un-inspiring depressed loser as commander of a legion/army... Especially i don't think the Romans would do that...

[QwertyMIDX]

There were plenty of dumb/uninspiring commanders of Roman armies.

[Kull]

There were plenty of dumb/uninspiring commanders of Roman armies.

Not just Rome either. In fact MOST generals should get the "incompetent brother-in-law" trait:

"Alas, this General should have followed his heart and gone into gardening. Once he would have made flowers bloom and grapes hang heavy on the vine. Now a long evening in the company of the grape is as close as this man will ever get to his true avocation. And it's his soldiers' heads that hang heavy as they march off to reap the harvest of defeat."

[QwertyMIDX]

Yup, plenty of generals from plenty of states were pretty lousy.

[Chester]

That's an interesting point, how does one become a General in Roman society during the EB time frame.

If the position was appointed through bloodline and nobility, I could see the vast majority being sub-par generals. Could low level soldiers advance in rank?

[QwertyMIDX]

To become a general during the Republic you had to get elected to an office with imperium, or be delagated imperium as a legat of an magistrate with imperium. You could also have your imperium prorouged (hence pro-consul, pro-praetor) or be given a special command by legislation passed in the tribal or plebian (I forget which one, maybe either could) assembly. Basically to become a general during the Republic you had to get imperium somehow, because only some with imperium had the power over the life and death of Roman citizens, hence the authority to command them in battle.

Now to be sure military glory (i.e. credentials) were a large part of being elected to office, money (read bribery), family prestige, electoral violence (especially in the Late Republic) were also very important in getting elected. Also the role of these offices in non-military capacity was also important, and as such promises about how said office's power was used were often very important in determining who got elected.

To make a long story short, lots of people were, for whatever reason, elected to offices with imperium who weren't very good generals. It is important to remember that while the military role of these offices was paramount, they had other essential and important functions. In fact by the middle republic there were two praetors (out of 6) who remind in Rome (or at least Italy) dealing with administrative tasks. The City Praetor (who delt with, suprise, issues of administration in the city of Rome) and the Praetor who was charged with realtions between citizens and aliens.

Low ranking troops seem never to have advanced beyond the rank of centurion, you had to be part of the (relativly open) Roman elite (be it Patrican or Plebian) to have a shot at office.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Okay, you beat me this time Querty.

I would add that MONEY in big flashing letters was the most important thing, nots bucket loads but enough to be wealthy. If you didn't at least qualify as an Equestrian (Someone with enough money to be in the cavalry) you could forget it. That not to say that non-Patricians, Plebeians, couldn't be elected.

Marius and Cicero were both first generation senators and Cicero had to go all the way up the ladder of office. Incidently, Cicero is a great example of a Consul elected on his administrative credentials and manifesto. He was a poor soldier, although he did manage to survive being a Republican during the Civil War and while governor of one of the Eastern provinces he was hailed as Imperator after battle and voted an Ovatio (Is that right) by the Senate.

[We all need someone]

There's no substantial evidence that poor, lower class grunts were ever promoted to the rank of Centurion. More often they were middle class people, or upper middle class, which seems to make sense, considering these people could have afforded some education, thereby being better able to grasp tactics, discuss tactics with superiors before battles, and display said tactics to their men.
So despite the common image, in reality they were much more like the junior officers than sergeants, in their role and their background.

[QwertyMIDX]

Oh yes, as I said you had to part of the elite to even consider running for office, and being a Roman noble meant having enough money to act like one.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Wow, hang on. A man serving in the Legion could move all the way up to Primus Pilus (my spelling may be off) he was the most senior Centurian in the Legion and very important, but the post was still not that prestigious in the grand scheme of things. The Legate and the Military Tribunes were very much seperate from the rank and file, which is what Centurians were, the exception comes in the Praetorian Guard, where a Guardsman could be raised to Centurian rank in a regular Legion.

In the Roman system you very much had to take the long view. If you were an Auxilary your sons could be citizen Legionaries, if they got to Centurian then their sons might start out as Equestrians and become local Magistrates and their sons might make it into the Senate and up to the Consulship if they were lucky.

That said, if you were a citizen you could become Consul and history tells us it did happen, low men being raised up, but it wasn't common.

[QwertyMIDX]

There's no substantial evidence that poor, lower class grunts were ever promoted to the rank of Centurion. More often they were middle class people, or upper middle class, which seems to make sense, considering these people could have afforded some education, thereby being better able to grasp tactics, discuss tactics with superiors before battles, and display said tactics to their men.

Well during at least half of EB's time period there were no really poor people in the legion anyway. Until the Late Republic you had to moderatly well off to serve in the army. So thus 'the grunts' of the legion were during that period not members of the lower class. In the Late Republic they started being enrolled in the legions (even before Marius qualifications had been getting lower and lower) and at that point they could indeed advance to the rank of Centurion, but as Wig notes not the offices such as Military Tribune, which is an office rather just a rank.

As Wig notes any citizen could become Consul, and sometimes men who began in modest circumstances eventually became consul, but they had to break into the ranks of the elite first. Joe Roman yeoman farmer couldn't expect to just decide one day to run for consul and win

[nikolai1962]

Most of history generals were generals because of influence not command talent.

My favourite roman house rule is to make my consuls the guys with the most influence despite how crap they are as generals. I can't wait to try this out when EB is all down and i finally play my fave faction instead of the ones as far way from rome as possible :)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Actually that makes me think. Roman Command stars should probably add influence at higher levels. Infact since the Romans lived such public lives and were so judgemental almost every Roman trait should have an effect on influence.

[We all need someone]

Guys, guys, guys I know all about what you're holding my hand through. However, I know the common conception if that the Centurions were "promoted upwards", and there were no barriers (technically) to that happening. There's just such a lack of any solid evidence of such things happening(and Centurions were fairly well documented, since their commanders treasured them so well) and on closer inspection the overwhelming majority of Centurions were middle to upper middle class people, for the reasons I've already mentioned, and for the reasons you boys have mentioned(aka any post in Roman Republic required relatively vast sums of money to acquire).

[We all need someone]

Guys, guys, guys I know all about what you're holding my hand through. However, I know the common conception is that the Centurions were "promoted upwards", and there were no barriers (technically) to that happening. There's just such a lack of any solid evidence of such things happening(and Centurions were fairly well documented, since their commanders treasured them so well) and on closer inspection the overwhelming majority of Centurions were middle to upper middle class people, for the reasons I've already mentioned, and for the reasons you boys have mentioned(aka any post in Roman Republic required relatively vast sums of money to acquire).

[GodEmperorLeto]

Actually, it was possible for "general infantry" legionnaires to get promoted to generalships. But those generalships were political appointments. But to get political appointments, one often needed a military record.

For example, Plutarch records numerous men from our time period as having served as young men in the ranks, like Cato the Elder, and Coriolanus (alright, he predates our time period, but still). When running for office, Romans wore a plain white (no stripe) toga and no tunic, for multiple reasons, among them to display scars earned in battle.

[Dayve]

But why can't Pontus build paved roads? Game accident, they should be in? Or did the Pontic people never build anything more than dirt tracks?

[QwertyMIDX]

If I remember correctly, Plutarch never says Cato actually fought as a common soldier. in fact I think the mentions that Cato was remarkable for only bring one servant with him. Also Plutarch says his great-grandfather lost 5 horses out from under him, so at that time at least Cato's family was of the equestrian class. He was certainly humble for a Roman aristocrat, but he does seem to have been at least a backcountry elite of some sort, having the renowned Manius Curius as patron. Poor and common relative to the great aristocratic families of Rome, but not a yeoman.

[EdwardL]

ROFL Dayve... all he wanted to know was why Pontus cant build roads. Perhaps thats why their generals are depressed and dejected; they all have brought up the topic once or twice before about the roads to the pontus hierarchy, with the result being of them changing the subject to something else. politics politics.. tisk tisk

[Zenith Darksea]

Yes, you kind of get the idea that the EB team is too interested in spamming to actually answer the guy's original question.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Yes, you kind of get the idea that the EB team is too interested in spamming to actually answer the guy's original question.

*Points* HERETIC! HERETIC! BURN THOU HERETIC!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I've answered it elsewhere, and recently. Pontus will get second level roads. And Hayasdan will too. And the Aedui. And the Arverni.

[Mujalumbo]

I have a question! *raises hand*

What is the evidence for Gallic paved roads?

Thanks!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Our Gallic man in the street is actually in the street right now (in Ireland), so it may be a bit before you get a good answer for it.