I'm guessing the mechanic that attributes xp is still based on a kills per casualty ratio for each unit?

In that case, the best way to XP line inf (for example) is to kill as many enemies without losing men. This is hard to do 1 on 1 unless you are using (buggy) "garden wall" cover or better: the defense "trenches".

It's clearly not as easy to xp up units in ETW as it was in MTW2. To my mind for 2 reasons:

1. The lack of campaign/battle map strategy (i.e. no river crossing or mountain side defenses to exploit) and the debatable uselessness of forts. I've found it very hard to put my troops in a very advantageous situation, from which they can maximise enemy casualties whilst remaining more or less unhurt.

2. There's also the uniformity of troops in ETW -gone are the days of faction specific tactics i.e high xp genoese militia decimating the enemy from behind a protective screen of spear militia. ETW just doesn't seem to have as many advantageous troops (units with an edge over the enemy's) -or even opportunities to exploit them!

In my games, this means the success of an even battle (numbers wise) hangs on how adaptable my troops are in deployment on the (apparently random) battle map and tactics.