Offices - Ability or Ambition

[naggy]

When you look to fill your offices, what do you prioritize? Ability, or fulfilling the ambitions of your characters?

I've been trying both ways, and it seems like fulfilling ambitions makes your people much more loyal (and slowly builds up stats), which leads to less problems in the long run. However, I haven't had enough experience in Rome to really tell which is better.

Granted, the 1 finesse populist is not getting to be Praetor, no matter how long he has that ambition (he can, however, become a legate to 1000 militia and wander off into the Barbarians...).

(PS: I'm using VV2.2).

 

[Achab]

When you look to fill your offices, what do you prioritize? Ability, or fulfilling the ambitions of your characters?

I've been trying both ways, and it seems like fulfilling ambitions makes your people much more loyal (and slowly builds up stats), which leads to less problems in the long run. However, I haven't had enough experience in Rome to really tell which is better.

Granted, the 1 finesse populist is not getting to be Praetor, no matter how long he has that ambition (he can, however, become a legate to 1000 militia and wander off into the Barbarians...).

(PS: I'm using VV2.2).

I go for fulfilling the ambitions for all finesse 5+ characters. I usually rotate all the magistrates, governors and ministres on a yearly basis. For generals I dont continue to assign them to the civil jobs once they reach their max martial.

 

[naggy]

I go for fulfilling the ambitions for all finesse 5+ characters. I usually rotate all the magistrates, governors and ministres on a yearly basis. For generals I dont continue to assign them to the civil jobs once they reach their max martial.

My problem is getting good martial generals that don't have high charisma. What's the best method for getting rid of loyal units?

 

[Achab]

My problem is getting good martial generals that don't have high charisma. What's the best method for getting rid of loyal units?

Afaik since 2.3 there are only draconic means of "disbanding" loyal cohorts e.g.
a) Send them with low martial general to distant barbarian lands until they pop.
b) Board them into a fleet and send it to seas unknown until they sink.
c) Put them under a command of an unimportant disloyal character and make him start CW, he will take the units with him.

 

[jhhowell]

For filling offices, it depends on your government. In republics I didn't generally have very many people with useful ambitions (quaestor, etc.) so I just picked the most appropriate person by ability. Typically one of the youngest eligible, since anyone older who was any good would already have held the office. I don't have repeat officeholders unless it fulfills an ambition or there just isn't anyone decent who hasn't held the office. Note, finesse 1 is not automatically a bad choice for Praetor - I see charisma as the key stat for that office. I cycled the tech offices every two years on the same day the new Consul took office. I generally ignored governors once I placed them unless something happened (death, corruption event, disloyalty, or someone better getting the right ambition).

In monarchies, I try to find a good simultaneous solution to ambition and age constraints. Pick the oldest guy who has the relevant ambition and decent stats. Younger guys will get their turn naturally as time passes. Sometimes the ambitions don't line up right and I'll end up replacing a governor with someone with the right governor ambition and put the ex-governor in the empty ministry office. Another issue with monarchies is that if the heir has an ambition for an office, put him in there ASAP! A series of useful ambitions (strategos, governor, minister, for example) can really boost the future monarch's stats.

Loyal units - I haven't had any problems with them. In my Rome vanilla game I just stopped using guys who got disloyal through having too many loyal units. Usually their heir only got a small fraction of the loyal units, so the problem solved itself in a generation. In my Seleucid Epigoni game, most of my loyal units are loyal to the Emperor. If you have to get rid of them, letting them get stomped by barbarians should work best unless you're someone like Egypt without easy access to barbarian provinces.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Disloyal characters can apparently be safely used for civil administration jobs and as admirals - as long as you don't try to remove them before the term is up. I've never had an admiral rebel, even at zero loyalty for years. If I have a great character who is very disloyal I'll make him Praetor or Censor or Pontifex Maximus or an admiral and just leave him in that job more-or-less permanently.

Just never make disloyal characters generals or governors.

 

[mayorqw]

You should also remember that in civil offices in monarchies you should have at least a majoroty (spelign) of loyal characters.

 

[Cheexsta]

I tend to go for the ambition first: generally speaking, only a few characters will have that ambition at any given time, so once I have those characters out of the way I can start assigning the best people for the job. This is especially true with republics, so as to avoid the dreaded populist conviction.

 

[Achab]

I tend to go for the ambition first: generally speaking, only a few characters will have that ambition at any given time, so once I have those characters out of the way I can start assigning the best people for the job. This is especially true with republics, so as to avoid the dreaded populist conviction.

In republic fighting populists one should consider to let the officials serve for the full term, as then the chars with the respective ambition trigger the events where you grant them the desired job and gain several senators of your rulers faction in the process.

 

[naggy]

In republic fighting populists one should consider to let the officials serve for the full term, as then the chars with the respective ambition trigger the events where you grant them the desired job and gain several senators of your rulers faction in the process.

Except then, you run the risk of the 0-2 finesse moron getting the job.

I once had a 1-0-0 character become Praetor that way. Worse: The +1 finess still left him at 0, because of his negative modifiers.

 

[Achab]

Except then, you run the risk of the 0-2 finesse moron getting the job.

I once had a 1-0-0 character become Praetor that way. Worse: The +1 finess still left him at 0, because of his negative modifiers.

Well, its a risk you can avoid easily. Or imprison such wannabe praetor or keep the praetor office rotation, to prevent the event.