Getting Experience/Producing Generals?

[13ig_VV]

I was wondering if there's any way to gain experience bars effectively from battles? I know that buildings can add it but when I fight battles I never gain more than one experience bar for more than one or two units and I've seen people in threads get massive amounts of experience. How is this done?

I was also wondering how to get generals? I know they're captains that are succesfull but I can never get command stars for them. Is there any way to easily get command stars for captains so I can pump out a lot of generals?

[Hader]

Any unit that fights a lot, kills a lot and survives battle with few casualties many many times will gain experience. It increasees steadily but it does increase, just make them fight more really.

in vanilla you can only get generals through them already being family members, adoption, one marrying a daughter in your faction or a captain who proves his worth (which is really adopting). However some mods allow you to recruit generals in a town with the right buildings to recruit them, but the cost a lot and may not be the greatest general to begin with, but you can always make them better. Captains cannot get command starts at all, but if they are allowed to be adopted after a great victory the can gain command stars as a general

[13ig_VV]

O ok. So if i wanted to promote captains into generals I just want to have them win a couple of heroic victories?

[Irishman3]

O ok. So if i wanted to promote captains into generals I just want to have them win a couple of heroic victories?

If you've already got a lot of family members, your chances of getting a Man of the Hour or Captain being adopted will diminish, and with enough living family members eventually dissapear. Thats been my experience and from what I've read many others as well. So just winning battles with a heroic victory does not gaurantee you a general from the event.

[Severous]

Hi 13ig_VV

It is rare to gain massive amounts of experience from a single battle. +3exp for a general is my record for a single unit achieved only once. If you are gaining one or two per battle across all the units you are doing nothing wrong or unusual.

As Irishman3 above says...there is an in game mechanism thats compares numbers of regions held and male family members. Rapid expansion of your empire from the outset will trigger frequent man of the hour promotions of captains to generals. Victories dont have to be heroic.

[Zuwxiv]

I've only had two "Man of the Hour" events, (successful captains being promoted to generals), and other than that, all of my other generals:

Came from my Family, (85%)
Married into my Family (10%)
Were Adopted: (9%)

Some mods, such as Terrae Expugnandae, do allow you to train generals like any other troops, but they are expensive.

As for the experience, I don't think any of my units has gotten more than 3 xp in a battle. Even in a Heroic Victory, most of my soldiers (maybe 2/3) won't get any experience at all, while the rest of them might get one. Two is very rare, and three and more is almost impossible.

I don't think chasing down fleeing enemies adds to experience, but the most frequent cases of experience seem to be units that lost a lot of men (most of the unit, maybe) and fought against lots of enemies. Also, remember to retrain your units always. If you have a unit with silver/gold experience and you add some new recruits, it will lose it's experience. Retraining them at a city keeps their experience, and if you have ever had to fight against gold experience silver shields or elephants or any other elite unit, you know the use of experience.

My silver experience elephants ruined an entire Roman army, completely crippled a full stack. Didn't take a single loss, but killed something like 15-20% of the enemy with one unit alone.

Keep some soldiers as your town gaurd, but have your "army" constantly moving and attacking. If a group of soldiers has fought in a couple battles, don't let them sit in a city to keep it from revolting - send them with your army.

[Severous]

Killing routing troops will gain experience...so always kill all you can. The rate of experience gain for killing a router is, I am told, 1/5th the rate you get from killing a soldier who is not routing.

If I have the time and complete battlefield control I will sometimes let a large fleeing AI unit rally. Then attack it and rout it again. Those kills whilst the AI enemy had recovered its morale will be worth a lot more to me than killing them whilst they were routing.

I prefer to use small units to kill routers. Thats more kills per man helping improve experience.

I dont like using mercenaries to kill the enemy...I prefer to use regular troops. When they gain experience thay can be retrained up to full strenth and retain their experience. Not so mercenary units that just get smaller and smaller.

[Irishman3]

I've only had two "Man of the Hour" events, (successful captains being promoted to generals)

Thats interesting because I see a lot of people saying the event is extremely rare for them, however I tend to get 2-3 per campaign. In fact in my current Julii campaign I got two in one game turn fighting the Gauls and one came from an army totally comprised of mercenaries.

I believe though, as Severous pointed out, its due to the fact I tend to expand my empire rather rapidily at the onset of the campaign. Even if it means taking some big risks in those early turns/battles fighting better led and/or equpied armies without a general, I'll attack if I think I have a chance of winning. And they almost always come during those very early turns for me, when I'm taking the biggest risks/most settlements per year.

I'm also wondering if difficulty settings have anything to do with it as I usually play on N/N and many seem to be playing at varying difficulties above that (H/N, H/H, etc.). I also use Player1's bug fixer, have from the get go, but I'm not sure they tampered with any of those triggers.