Optimising Family Politics- a detailed guide.

I gave up on Rome II about 3 years ago, it was boring and lifeless. So I reverted back to Rome I. A month ago (after 2018 patch), I fancied a Julii Campaign, but had uninstalled Rome I. So... bite the bullet and try Rome 2. WOW ! Huge difference. Not only is it good to play, I would go as far to say -it's now BETTER than Rome I. Primarily because of the Political enhancement.
It has taken considerable research to understand various aspects of the Political System, and I've not seen a guide yet that focuses on RESOLVING problems in managing party politics in Rome II. So here's a list of useful things to know to do that.
The political system is mostly dealt with through the four sub sections in the Faction tab: Summary, Politics, Characters, Records. The first three give you details of the main characteristics you need to know about in order to run your Family at optimum levels to achieve dominant power. No Attila faction balancing here- it's all about domination in Rome II. The principal characteristics in order of importance are: Influence, Loyalty, Ambition, Gravitas, Other Families, Marriage, Children, Age, Corruption, and Career promotions. There are also Campaign modifiers which affect some of these.

I've also included two calculations to show:

1. Your Influence is solely a product of your Generals' and Admirals' Gravitas x Ambition versus that of all Non Family Characters'. It is not made from any contribution from Statesmen or Wives, or 'retired Generals' (ie Statesmen).
2. What your Research rate is, what contributes to it, and how its best left to your Wives' contributions.
   

This is apparently a combination of 'gravitas x ambition' of characters in all Parties, subdivided and totaled for each Party to give a 'domination' percentage in the Senate. It's a domestic power quantifier.

It's claimed by many that this includes the 'gravitas x ambition' stats of 'Statesmen' ie men and their wives, who are not Admirals or Generals and are 'at Rome'.
THIS IS NOT TRUE.

Here are the precise INFLUENCE calculations from: All 3 Opposition political parties and my Family of about 75 members, including 19 generals/admirals, about 20 Statesman, all the wives and about 10 children.

OTHER PARTIES:
Total Gravitas x Ambition = 640

ONLY MY Admirals & Generals
Total Gravitas x Ambition = 2331

640 + 2331 = 2971

So for percentage totals:

640 divided by 2971 and x 100 = 21.5 % INFLUENCE Total for All Other Families
2331 divided by 2971 and x 100 = 78.5 % INFLUENCE Total for My Family

What does the Game say? On the FACTION/SUMMARY tab: My family INFLUENCE = 76%

Close enough. There's an ex-non family husband in OTHER NOBLES G=17 A=1, and I've about +3 INFLUENCE from General/Admiral's personal Traits. Influence: Generals can get a +1 Influence trait, but +1 what, is unclear. My Influence is about 2331. Its a drop in the Ocean.

So... Influence is a product of: ALL the Gravitas x Ambition of OTHER PARTIES (irrespective of their Statesman/General/Admirals status) against the Gravitas x Ambition of ONLY your Generals & Admirals. And with the various minor personality trait modifiers.

The main factor about Influence is to get it as high as possible, primarily to get the perks that go with it. Above 70%, as shown in the line of dots above the influence semi-circle diagram in the FACTION/POLITICS Tab gives all the major admin benefits.

This is your main concern dealing with extra Family-politics, ie THEM, as opposed to intra-Family, ie US. Loyalty basically refers to the likelihood of another Family seceeding from your benevolent paternalistic power crazed slave state; [Why would they do that??] and forming their own. Taking YOUR Generals and YOUR Armies , and YOUR provinces. Which we don't want them to do. The way to do this- is to keep Loyalty positive, and about 10+ to avoid occasional unexpected drops. The positive 10+ figure is found on both the FACTION Politics/ Characters tab. Loyalty is mostly affected by Game Start parameters- the traits found for each Family on the Politics Tab- 'Patriotic' 'Hates Barbarians'... etc' and Game difficulty. The Family traits are only alterable in game by removing that family entirely through Secession and after a while the game will introduce a new Family with random new traits- which you can't alter, but there's small chance they might work better for you. Or you can play to gain Loyalty from these particular traits, but this is probably not worth the benefits. It requires modifying your larger strategic parameters to obtain minor tactical advantages. That's' not classical era Total War, its how Anti-Insurgency warfare is done nowadays- putting short term political goals before long term strategy which ends up very badly usually....

Altering Loyalty otherwise is dealt with on two tabs: Politics and Characters. First the simplest and generally cheapest by using the former- 'Buy Loyalty or Provoke'. Buy Loyalty when extra-Family is negative and this option is available (it has a turn based cool down- so you can't buy it every turn). Altering Loyalty after that, is done from the Character tab, and then via 'Intrigues'. Certain Intrigues get a Loyalty boost for a set number of turns- not permanently. But if you use your Family members for Intrigues these generally have a negative Loyalty affect. If you use extra-Family, they usually have a positive affect: Games, Food and Diplomatic Envoys for instance. However some extra-Family intrigues often come with a permanent gravitas boost- not good for your Influence. I generally stick to routinely sending extra-family Statesmen on Diplomatic missions, which gives a Loyalty boost at only gold cost. Make extra-family members Generals and win battles = higher Loyalty? Not in my experience. That just increases gravitas/ambition in the long term, loosing you Influence/perks.

All characters have a Ambition stat, shown in the FACTION/Characters tab, either 1,2 or 3. This is more important than gravitas but only in a passive way- but you need to be aware of it when doing any Intrigues. When the game calculates Influence, it is Gravitas x Ambition, so a high 3 Ambition gives you effectively three times the gravitas of another character with only 1. This has a huge effect on gravitas/Influence, and should alter how you set up 'Household' traits for each character, and how you use them for Intrigues. Never use a 3 Ambition character for gravitas cost intrigues. Every 1 gravitas point cost is actually 3 Influence points lost. Also, give 3 Ambition characters the +1 Gravitas Household trait when it becomes available(or take it off a character with merely 1 Ambition)- it's worth 3 for them in terms of Influence gained.

An old widow in your Family can be usefully married in some cases using 'Political Marriage' the Intrigues Panel to a member of the other Families. This often gets Harridan wife Trait after marriage, reducing the husbands gravitas ( and Influence) gain/turn. Additionally it leaves him vulnerable to her 'Flirt' Intrigue. Its best to this with only one wife to the most powerful of the Other Family Characters, because she'll need another Other Family Character to 'Flirt' with. Disadvantageous to do it with a member of your Family! Results in +Loyalty from Other Families and a decrease in Gravitas/Influence.

Gravitas is ostensibly the simplest Political feature to understand, and consequently has been covered in detail elsewhere. The motto here is 'DO STUFF' with your characters. Battle Victories are the obvious things, but just having your active characters not having a full green 'not been anywhere' movement remaining bar seems to generate household traits, and other turn based benefits. There are various Intrigues that give gravitas too, but avoid the ones that give negative Family gravitas. Note also that the Other-Family intrigues that give Gravitas sometimes have a high gravitas cost to you! The best method to obtain gravitas outside of battle is via the long term benefits of extra wives and children. Marry every 'Come of Age' Family character ASAP, and give both the '+10 chance of having children' Household Trait, if available. But keep marriage to one/turn if possible, the gravitas/gold cost is very accumulative, and subject to a slow per turn cool down.

It should be noted that there is a big difference between the four types of Personalities and what their Gravitas actually does:

1. Other Families Characters: Gravitas (x Ambition) is used for the Influence calculation. The only Intrigues available (top green ones) do not have a gravitas cost, only gravitas GAIN. Military Actions gain Gravitas.
2. Your Family Generals/Admirals: Gravitas (x Ambition) is used for the Influence calculation, with minor personality modifiers. Some Intrigues cost Gravitas, some may be used to gain another character some gravitas, but at greater loss to the initiator- ie net loss that turn to your Family.
3. Your Family wives and Statesmen. Gravitas is only used for Intrigues cost.
4. Other Nobles. These are widowers left over from when one of your blood Family members dies, and the former were 'married in' to your Faction- they are not blood relatives. (Hopefully...) Their lost gravitas (x Ambition = Influence) appears to be added to a Total sum Influence of your Family / Other Family / Widowers, which effectively means its deducted from both the other two, mostly to your disadvantage if you have Loyalty under a firm grip. Adopt 'Other Nobles' ASAP in most cases.

Evil smelly Ba..ba ba baabarians? Pah! Nowhere near as vile as your neighbours across the Via! These people are your real enemies. Treat them like tannery drainage scum floating on the Tiber they are. OF's steal your influence, are disloyal and want to take all your stuff. How to stop them is not actually very difficult. Use the Army/Navy 'Details/Character' tab, and invoke REPLACE with the youngest member of your family with the highest Ambition by default, unless there's something else you want to emphasize- a '+2 experience' recruitment trait for example. Now either Divorce the OF him from his (gravitas earning) wife -unless she has a negative gravitas earning trait, or Adopt her into your family using Intrigues, especially if she has 2/3 Ambition. Now also remove any good Household traits he has. Having adopted his wife into your family, a neat little trick is to use her 'Flirt' (from Intrigues) on another Extra Family character to increase her Gravitas, lower her husband's and raise the flirtee's Family Loyalty!
And assassinate any extra-family character when they get to about 40 gravitas with 3 Ambition, 80 with 2, and 120 with 1. (That's the proper thing anyway- if you are a Senatorial Roman Family member according to that patrician POS- Tacitus). Unless they have good gravitas, and ambition, but for some weird reason the Game doesn't give them any Senatorial numbers. I've a Cornelia party with zero Senate Influence, despite good gravitas/ambition.

Keep Other Families to the bare minimum, and if its a low cost option - Provoke them into Secession, to remove them entirely (for about 10 Turns+ at least, until a New Family is introduced by the Game))

Hate it or loathe it, Rome 2 is totally PC when it comes to Ancient World chattel of the feminine persuasion, (or at least the prevailing vestigial and over literal Victorian/ 'I Claudius' subjective interpretations of it). The Ladies play their part, just like they did in Aristophanes c. 430BC, who shows them in more or less exactly the same position they are today... [ermmm I'm confused]. So forget the risible 'Battle Maidens' and focus on marriages and babies. Wives are great- they get gravitas, hold transferable traits, and your next generation of young Generals. Young Generals who if getting Victories in the early 20's have positive benefits for your Family for 40+ years - very efficient. Extra- Family wives are good for raising Loyalty through principally the Diplomatic Envoy Intrigue, but come at high gravitas increase cost. Your wives are also good for activating 3 permanently useful non military Household traits: +10 to having children, +5 to Research, and +1 Gravitas,(useful when they have 3 Ambition). Most traits are military orientated, but +1 Cunning/Zeal are sometimes a useful bonus for Intrigues, Adoption in particular. Just don't squander your 3 Ambition wives' gravitas, when you can use a 1 Ambition one's. [edit: Actually- it doesn't matter, wives' Gravitas is only for spending in the Intrigues panel, it has no affect on Influence]
Marriage is subject to a minimum and cumulative Gravitas/Gold cost, but is such a potential enhancer for your Family (duhhr!), its best to do it at the first possible opportunity. Other Family members can enhance the marriageable character's Gravitas via Intrigues if they're a bit short, but watch the Gravitas cost to them.
Additionally, when a family character dies, their spouse (if originally married into your family) goes into Other Nobles on RHS of Character screen. Always Adopt them back in- unless they are young and total dribbling-cases. Then they become marriageable again, and you'll get a potential new spouse option. Obviously re-marry your own widows and... whatever a man-widow is?
One last thing with Marriage... CHEAT! Save before pressing that marriage button. Be like Augustus and police the dobbers, gonks, whackos, spakkers, numbnuts, wob-wobs, divs and spocks that seek to join your Family. After getting the marriage screen always check back in the Characters tab for what you have just got... and then take a seat- you'll need it. 70% of the time, it's something that finds difficulty in walking on two legs. +3 Corruption, -1 Gravitas, -10 having children, etc etc. So reload that Save, and try try again! Beautiful wife, +2 Trade, +1 Influence, take nothing less! Like Tiberius said: 'If it was good enough for Augustus...', and he wasn't having any of it. Didn't do his family any good- obs, but one can but try!

WIVES & RESEARCH
I have a current Research rate of: 334%

This is made up of:
FACTION/Summary: 'Empire' +20%. 'Peerless' +20%
CHARACTERS (All my Family characters except children), Household & Traits: +134%
Settlement Buildings (Libraries) +60%
Initial Start Rate 100%
TOTAL 334%

The largest contribution is the 134%, which is entirely made up from two factors: the transferable Household trait: 'Aged Retainer +5 % Research' and the permanent TRAIT 'Likes Greeks +2 Research%'. [There's a minor Household '+5 Civil Research' too but its rare].
Most of this 134% come from the wives, and your left over non General- Statesmen. Holding transferable Military Household traits is useless for them, so there are only the non military ones- which is mostly Research.

Hence the Wives are the biggest Research gainer, particularly if you have given them and their husbands the +10 Baby making Household trait too! A big Family is a Researching family!

Whether they are your own perfect angels or other peoples' annoying spawn, brats with green coming out both ends, start to become useful (in game only) at age 15. An Intrigue allows your Family Leader to send them away to boarding school to return at Coming of Age (16) with a random +2 personality trait. It's worth checking the kids' age fairly often, as if 3 or 4 are of the same age, the cost to do this is cumulative, and if you do them in quick succession, the cost mounts up rapidly. Best to do some even before age 15, at well spaced intervals to benefit from cost cool down. This Intrigue isn't available post age 16.
Children are best achieved by wishing on a star, full lobotomies and stocking up on stork friendly food/alcohol in the fridge. In game they are achieved automatically after marriage. Its best to give a very young couple both the +10 having children Household trait immediately. Remove them from the oldest couple you have, every time you have a marriage. The birth rate decreases with age- exactly how I don't know, but it seems to drop off after age 30. More children = more post 'Coming of Age' gravitas/ambition beneficial traits. Outbreed you enemies.

'Charmless', 'ill Educated, 'Aspirant Middle Class', 'Thoroughly vile', 'pig ignorant', 'entirely materialistic', 'faddy', 'managerially clueless', 'unoriginal', 'just capable of breeding', 'gullible', 'ridiculous put-on accent', 'incapable of construction', 'got all the gear- exerciser', 'spiritual'...

These are some negative character traits, not from RTW2 but all familiar examples from contemporary life! Rome 2, set in the Golden Age of the 'Good Old Days', has all good Household transferable traits, and mostly positive 'stuck with 'em' ordinary TRAITS.

Household and Traits are very useful, and make a big contribution to the Game. Ensuring that every '+5 Research' & '+10 to bearing children' Household perk is immediately used will produce more of your General and much more Technology more quickly by increasing the Research rate.

With a Family of 75+ members, and doing some basic data gathering for the Research calculation above, what became obvious is that of the wives with 'Old Retainer' +5 Research, about half also tended to have the 'Likes Greeks +2 Research' Trait. Only 2 out of 20 had the latter without the former. So it seems giving a Character 'Old Retainer' results in 'Likes Greeks' about half the time too.

Age has few direct effects in game, but there is one major force multiplier of age- youth. A General in his 60's fighting battles will accrue benefits for your Family that will last 10 years maximum before his death. A 20 year old General adds them for 40 years. Four times more effective. So marry them young, and get them on the battlefield young. Generals over 60 usually have gained big bonuses, so you might want to have one if absolutely necessary leading the charge in a full invasion against multiple full stack armies, but after that- mopping up, use 'Replace', with an young one.
However, bear in mind that a high Gravitas/Ambition old General will give you a big Influence gain. If your Family is looking a bit shaky in the Senate, keep the old Generals in the Field. It is NOT True that Statesmen (or retired Generals) or wives contribute to your Influence. ONLY real Generals and Admirals do that- see INFLUENCE calculation above.

As characters reach age 60, death by natural causes kicks in, so remove all the best Household traits from them, and give to younger characters. +5 Research rate, +1 gravitas, +2 Trade for example. I'm not sure, but giving them the frequent and more useless ones instead reduces the number 'in the pot' available, and MIGHT make the game produce more next turn.

This is something of a grey area, because the data for the Faction's Total is not explicit. Corruption lowers your income, and rises over time, making it more a mid/late game problem. It derives from character traits (usually from poor choice of spouses), possibly initial game difficulty/faction type settings, increase in Imperium; and... a surprising one- +1 Corruption for each settlement you take by Occupation (apparently... not seen direct evidence of this yet). Bearing in mind you'll probably end up with 80 odd settlements, that's a major consideration. You can deal with it in 3 ways. The Augustan Cheat- (Save before you marry) don't accept any +3 corruption suitors; Research: some Subjects and their completed categories give anti Corruption bonuses; and alter your Occupy to Loot rate when you take Settlements; if its 'Occupying' after capturing a settlement that causes corruption to increase rather than- as I suspect- merely having another settlement regardless of how you took it.
Some Statemen/retired General/Admirals can have up to -3 Corruption as part of their traits. Unfortunately, this seems to be exclusive to Public Order bonuses, and Research rate benefits. However if Corruption bothers you- hover on the star in the Personalities list when in the 'available characters' section before choosing who to recruit for a new army/fleet, and choose somebody with anti-corruption characteristics.
Corruption is not as bad as it looks. The Ancient World ran on corruption... as do most modern democratic societies- its just institutionalised and systematic now; and a good Economist will tell you its Keynesian positive effects on money flow...! As you increase your Empire and upgrade your buildings, the wealth generated can soon shift into he 60,000+ profit /turn in the last two Imperium stages. Eventually with full stack armies extant, and building trees finished; you'll run out of stuff to spend on- as the Corruption becomes significant: so the two effectively cancel each other out.

Edit: I've added a full Guide to Corruption, its in the 'Basic Gameplay' guides Section here too.

In the Family/Character tab there is a 'Career' path, which can be followed to enhance all your Characters skills and abilities. This is separate to the 'Star' based promotion levels for Generals/Admirals and Agents.
Males can rise through: 'Military Tribune, Quaestor, Aedile,Praetor, Consul Governor, to Censor.
Females: Influential, Opportunistic, Power hungry , to Matron. (Feel that Tacitus luuuurve glow!)

All these rely on you choosing to promote these characters. It comes at a high 'Loyalty' cost with the Other Families, and is best done in a block- the negative Loyalty effects last only a few turns. The optimum time is in the first 20 turns when Secession is prevented, so Loyalty isn't a problem, or by making another (weak!) Family secede, and doing Promotions then.

The gains are usually tax gains, gravitas, Loyalty, and wealth increases. The first promotion is the cheapest, and gives an important + gravitas bonus /turn which younger 'Come of Age' characters need for early marriage. This should be done ASAP - after Age 20, when it becomes available.

There's a +3 Influence/turn for the Consul, which with a similar Influence bonus for Colosseums and end build tree grand architect should be a major addition. However +3/turn when you have over a 1000, doesn't appear that impressive.

Promotions are for reasons of cost: Gold & Loyalty, far too expensive for my tastes, but may suit other Game Play styles.

Secession. Although this is generated by either failure to maintain Loyalty in the Other Families, or deliberately by 'Provoke' in Parties tab, secession is played out in the Campaign. However, it also has a huge effect on what you can do with internal Politics in the Character screen. Secession can be a very good thing, and give you the same benefits (which you should now be able to afford) that came in the first 20 turns 'No Secession' feature. Most Family benefits in the Intrigue panel and Promotion, come at high extra Family Loyalty cost. But this is usually only for 2 or 5 turns. So while a secession is on, this temporary Loyalty drop doesn't matter. Now's the time to boost Promotions particularly... aiming for that Consular level +3 Influence. Anything that has a Loyalty drop- do it in a secession, and 2-5 turns before it ends.
How do you know when it'll end? Simple, you manipulate when it starts, its duration and when the secession cessates... [Aaahhh- I can die contented now!] When another Family starts to hit -40 Loyalty, it's probably beyond reasonable repair. So you WANT them out the picture. Step 1. Check the Factions Map, and the Family provinces tab. This shows where the disloyal Family has its power base- a new concept in Rome 2. This is where they will secede and try to form a new Faction. Step 2, Move all your Generals out of that area.( I'm not certain if the secession only has its own Family Generals or not) and/or, 'Replace' all that Family's active generals/admirals. Step 3 Use 'Provoke' to instigate the Secession. Step 4 Destroy the largest Secessionist armies and retake their Settlements, but leave one army- the smallest alive. This is best as a defeated army, especially if you can destroy all other units but cause their general to rout but not die. Leave their lonely general/small army alone, while you take advantage of the 'Secession free' period to max out your family Intrigues at no permanent Loyalty drop. He'll lose some bodyguard each turn and eventually die (or some dumb ally will finish him off for you if nearby). When this happens you'll immediately get +40 Loyalty for the other Families, and by that time all your anti-Loyalty turn based effects should have worn off. Happy Faction again!

I've tried to steer clear of the obvious stuff which is repeated ad nauseum on line, and deal systematically with the more latent means of making Politics work for you. There's a lot I don't fully understand still, and much of what the authoritative (hah!) sources say conflicts with my experience. Hope it's of some use. So that's Rome 2 AND No Man's Sky, which aren't rubbish anymore! Dare I even suggest that ... [low whisper] FALLOUT 76 could- based on these precedents, be made a good game in the future? Umm... I wouldn't stop investing in Ground to Air Anti-Porcine missile systems myself...