1.2 Generals not gaining experience

I was playing a LOOONG game last night. For a while, everything seemed normal.

Then, I lost a general / administrator due to old age, who was way far away from anywhere else. I thought, OK, time for "man of the hour." I sent ~1200 troops on a search/destroy mission. This captain (occasionally receiving reinforcements but still being the same captain name) fought over 8 battles, including 4 Heroic Victories, but still not Man of the Hour.

I started a new game, to test the theory. Played as Brutii. Same general fought and wiped out: Appolonia, Thermon, Athens, Corinth, + 3 or 4 odd battles, all Auto Played and won with Average Victory or higher. This general was level one, but still after all these fights didn't make level two...

What's up with this?

Try attacking small stacks of rebels instead. Use a much smaller force as well (smaller than the rebels) and try to crush the enemy. The odds must not be fully in your favor. :charge:

Edit: As for the normal Generals, use to them chase fleeing troops for a lot of kills. They gain their ranks from their traits. It is fairly easy. Just don't use overwhelming force all the time.

The odds weren't fully in my favor in any of the battles I described...In each case, I was outnumbered, in some instances 1.5 to 1.

I've noticed that with Patch 1.2 you really have to earn your stars BIGTIME. Previously just "doing your time" in the field cranked you up gradually. Post patch it's much harder. I agree with Quietus, the more the odds are stacked against you the more likely you are to earn traits/stars..... and as a rule I chase all routers down to the bitter end.

FYI I was playing last night and noticed a fairly large bunch of reasonable rebels, maybe 8 units, just far away from my nearest city that only my cav could reach them and get back in time to garrison my 70% happy city. In a moment of sheer laziness I sent three units of legionary cavalry out to get them and stupidly (and recklessly) autocalculated (lazy, and I never normally do it unless it's bandit-tidy-up moments). The cav won, and the captain was announced man of the hour and I now have a 20 year old 3 star general.

I will be experimenting more with this later to see if it can be repeated.

"Man of the hour" isnt just based on good victories

I just had 3 in 3 turns, and all 3 were new units and hadnt fought 1 battle before.

Im playing as scythia and have lost 4 generals in battle recently, with 15 provinces and 3 family members left - I put it down to the AI realising my provinces greatly outweighed my family members and so compensated for me.

I even fought a battle recently and lost my new "Man of the hour" in a sill silly in the rear from a rebel general" (ouch embarrassing).

I curse at the screen at 3am in the morning - very loudly. And then laughed my head off when immediately after I returned to the campaign screen - I got "Man of the Hour" for the scythian horse archers I had in the same battle.

Amazingly good timing - or the fact that I was back to 3 family members with 18 provinces?

The odds need to be less than 2.25:1 in your favor to gain stars in 1.2.

man of the hour occurs whenever there are situations where you fight against the enemy using an army with no general and that unit provides the little extra push needed to win. Probably occurs mostly when you are outnumbered. Also, there has to be no nearby friendly large sized army(bigger than the enemy army). its like they become man of the hour because they saved the faction from a large problem(hence the no nearby large army because if the enemy won, then your faction would have a problem).

I got mine when the spanairds attacked one of my cities. The odds were about 1:1 if i included the two or three town watches inside the city. My attacking army had a general, and i was trying to free the city from the siege. In the battle, I made sure the garrison made it into the battle just in time and fight a little bit. Then i got my man of the hour.

Quote:

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man of the hour occurs whenever there are situations where you fight against the enemy using an army with no general and that unit provides the little extra push needed to win. Probably occurs mostly when you are outnumbered. Also, there has to be no nearby friendly large sized army(bigger than the enemy army). its like they become man of the hour because they saved the faction from a large problem(hence the no nearby large army because if the enemy won, then your faction would have a problem).

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Is the code for this changeable? I can't find it.

Don;t know where the cutoff is but once you get about a 2 generals to 3 cities ration adoption is out of the equation.

Strange, I thought it was easier to skill up the generals in 1.2...

just be the greeks and put a general and some phalanxes and archers in syracuse and you'll have a silver chevron unit in no time.

EU, they mean the general's Command ability, not the experience of his bodyguards.

oh yes but also gain vices and ancilleries this way in no time you have a very experienced commander

There appears to a ratio of family members to provinces that the game does not want to let you go beyond. This might be the problem.