I also find the numerous tiny battles tiresome.

Playing Carthaginian, Hard/Hard.

Auto Calc is a big NO NO if you have elephants. Everytime (about 20 experiments in various situations both battle and siege) where I have overwhelming advantage (5-1 or better) using Auto Calc, the elephants take heavy losses. One case, 600 Carth vs 80 Guals, auto calc, I suffer nine (9) losses – all elephants. I only had 12 in the army. I never autocalc if elephants are in my army. BTW, I like to put one elephant in each of my big armies. Sigh

General gaining stars is way too easy. Chasing bandits (but not killing them) is guaranteed to train your general to three stars quickly. Almost one star a turn.

I did find out that bribing the bandit army might be better. Had a bandit army of a peasent, Iberian Lt Inf, and two Spanish mercs (the pila guys). For 1510 gold, they surrendered with the peasant disbanding and the other three joining me. The Spanish mercs normally cost 750 each and hard to replenish once you buy em, so good deal was had.

Maybe the general gaining stars could use a point system like this:
2 pt for winning on battle/siege map (not where the enemy just runs away on the campaign map)
-2 pt for losing a battle/siege (but your general should be dead anyways, right?)
1 pt per 250 enemy dead after subtracting half of friendly losses, (enemy dead – friendly dead/2) = body count. This would be a running number kept between battles.
-1 pt for 250 friendly dead after subtracting enemy losses, (friendly dead – enemy dead) = body count2. Again, running number kept between battles.
2 pt for killing a enemy faction member (note several may be on the battle field at once)
-3 pt for losing a faction member (AI reinforcements = ouch!)
1 pt for defeating an enemy general per three stars defeated. Running total kept so two battles, one vs 1-star and one vs 2-star = 1 pt.
+3 pt if enemy faction member killed is Heir
+8 pt if enemy faction member killed is Leader

Promotion/Demotion occurs as points accumulate:
3 pt = 1 star
9 pt = 2 star
18 pt = 3 star
30 pt = 4 star
45 pt = 5 star
63 pt = 6 star
84 pt = 7 star
108 pt = 8 star
135 pt = 9 star
165 pt = 10 star

(((Previous Points + (Previous Star x 3) + 3) = new point total


So, over time, you have a leader:
Win 30 battles = 60
Avg 250 kill difference = 30
Kill 6 faction members = 12
Kill an Heir = 5
Kill a Faction Ldr = 10
Avg 1 star enemy ldr per battle = 10
Total 127 = 8 star leader (almost 9 star)