Imperator trait, and others

[palmtree]

I've had several characters with the Vanquisher of Carthage trait, before I finally finished off the faction, and it mentioned that my general would need to get the Imperator trait before he could get a triumph. Seeing this inspired me to focus on one general and kick as much ass as I could with him in order to get a triumph, but I ran out of enemies and the only result was that I had a very wealthy general from all that plunder. Not bad, but I wanted my triumph. That was back in the 250's.

It's now 237 and, supported by another general I decided to send out my green new adopted family member to get some experience by defeating the Aedui halfstack that was besieging Mediolanum. I autoresolved since I wanted to focus on the Ptolemai and what do I know, post battle my green and completely untested general is now named Imperator. He didn't even have a command star.

So what I'm wondering, is this trait completely random?

And considering that the yearly history text mentions triumphs granted fairly often I find it kind of strange that I've been playing 40 years now without one.

And on the topic of generals I usually find myself up against supremely skilled enemy generals no matter what I do while my own generals, even the ones with 10+ victories and years of campaigning behind them, never seem to be able to gain more than four stars. Is there a method to this madness, or am I destined to curse Rome's crappy generals?

[different_13]

Stars are mostly an AI-only thing.
The player's characters get traits instead, apparantly.

I auto-resolve all my campaign battles, and I've never suffered unduly from 1 star generals battling 10 star beasts.
Of course I tend to use vast quantities of high quality troops, but still..

[Maeran]

I got a triumph early on. And here's how:

The triumph sequence seemed to be broke in previous versions of EB, so there has been a lot of discussion about what is needed. Do a search, but basically Imperator needs you to win when the odds are really against you. and even then it's a such and such percent chance of getting it.

When my young general Aurelius Cotta was ambushed by a rebel army with 2 levy hoplite units, he was alone apart from his bodyguard. But because they could outrun the Greek scum, they avoided capture and even managed to rout one unit before the time-out. Because the odds of success were so against Cotta, he was named imperator.

Later on when war broke out with Carthage, it made sense to send Cotta. The other levels required for a triumph were so much easier to achieve. And so it was, although after 'conqueror of Carthago' he needed to fight another battle (it was against a Sicilian revolt) before he was invited for his triumphus.

Since Roman armies tend to be pretty good, even as a half stack, the odds usually aren't sufficiently bad for your general to get named Imperator, basically. In history, triumphs were more political and pretty much every consul got one if he fought some hick tribe during his consulship.

[palmtree]

That's odd, since I certainly wasn't outnumbered when breaking the siege. Between my general's half stack, five other units on the other flank, and the troops that sallied out, I outnumbered the Gauls 2:1

Maybe it just counts the attacking stack regardless of reinforcements.