Remember I am giving players the options of modding down the bandit and pirate spawn rate. I am certainly going to do that, as detailed on post #2 here. In the past, my RTR and EB games as the Romans have been as much about fighting tiny stacks of rebels as fighting enemy armies - I don't want to do that this time round. It doesn't feel realistic and it's not fun.

But I think a system of forts would add to the realism: according to the "true Roman" guide, Roman armies typically did not garrison cities. It's not quite clear what we should use as garrisons - there's no "town guard" type unit. I'd be inclined to use a mix of infantry - just as our historical pre-Marian armies are going to be mixed - so we can shuffle them around to make up losses as need be.

In my most recent game, I used forts as holding areas for all the very depleted units that I would gradually call upon to top up the stacks in my armies. They were kind of staging areas, where I could put together a collection of replacements that a Tribune would march to the front. Remember, we can't retrain to make up losses and, as DDW says, RTR stops you recruiting in recently captured areas, so shuffling replacements and reinforcements to the front is going to be an important part of the game. Captains move slower than generals in this mod, so it may be efficient to assign some family members to these supply chains. Forts would also allow generals to keep adding military experience (indeed, I think it probably was partly Marcus Camillus's intention when designing his traits system to encourage armies not to loiter in cities).

Overtime, I think we should move to a system where, at least among the lower house, governors are the older experienced family members (ex-generals etc get influence bonuses), but the younger ones are working on their military careers. Upper House members might be suitable as Tribunes (ie second general in a full stack) if young and governors if older. But if the Upper House members want to move down into the Lower House at some stage, we should develop their military careers too.