Adoption

[Unseengenie]

What is a good way to get candidates for adoption, like making a captain become a General.

[Bonez]

Get a heroic victory, basically wait until a large rebel army is spawned then send an army of just the bare minimum amount of troops to beat them and when they do and if they get a heroic victory you get a chance to adopt the captain. Also not sure about this but they always start with the 'been in wars' trait.

[Genius of the Restoration]

They don't, but you're right about how to get them to pop up. I think you also need to have more settlements than male family members, though that might only be for plain adoption (outside of combat).

[Unseengenie]

How to get a heroic victory

[Vicious the Conqueror]

You get a heroic victory when you win a battle on a big disadvantage, though that's really vague. I've won really hard fought battles at huge disadvantage and not get the heroic victory and won pretty easy battles and got it :/.

You don't need a heroic victory, though. From what i've seen there's a bigger chance of adopting a captain if they win a battle against a proper faction (not the rebels) on a disadvantage (even if slight).

BTW i got the adoption prompt once for a really spectacular general and then the guy died of old age that same turn, as in, I never even got to select him on the campaign map.

[Genius of the Restoration]

Heroic victories are the result of beating an opponent when the battle calculator says the odds are against you. The battle calculator is the blue and red bar that displays before the battle and gives a likelihood of success as 1:2, 4:5 etc. When the odds are against you, or sometimes even (1:1), and you win the battle on the field (not by autoresolve), you'll have won a heroic victory. You then have a chance to find a candidate for adoption if there was no general present. I think rebels and factions are the same, because I often use spawned rebel armies to get generals for myself.

Some armies are easier to get heroic victories with than others. For instance, it's easy against Romans because the calculator overestimates all their infantry. Units are also different. The most notable units are chariots. If you find an army that contains Scythed Chariots the battle calculator will likely say the odds are against you, because these units are incredibly overestimated. Light cav is underestimated.

[Fides]

I also think is has somthing to do with the number of Familly members that you have, a bit like marriage, if you are a bit low on familly members it may become more likely that your captains get promoted, just as your daughters attract younger men, wheras if you have many familly members, you attract older men, or no suitors at all.