Conditions/triggers for Heroic/Decisive victories?

[Hurin_Rules]

Hi all,

This grew out of my attempts to figure out how to get command stars in BI (which seems very difficult). If I'm going to do a bit more testing of this, it would help if I could regularly produce decisive or heroic victories. But I've been having some problems doing this. In one battle, as the Franks, I took one unit of archers, my general's cavalry unit and two sword heerbans against a rebel force of one raider cavalry, two peasants, two spear levies and a Keel levy spearmen. The odds for me were less than 2.25:1 (though I can't remember exactly--either 2:1 or 1:1). I killed off every unit and man of the enemy army--309 casualties--at the cost of only 5 casualties of my own. This only qualified as a 'clear' victory for me. So, my question is:

What are the triggers/conditions for a decisive or heroic victory? Does the enemy army have to have a heavy cavalry general unit in it? Does the size of my army relative to the rest of my armed forces (garrisons, other armies, etc.) make any difference? What specific enemy units make it more likely to get a higher victory (I've been told that eagle units greatly up the chances)?

Any other comments would be welcome.

[lars573]

I think that odds in a battle have more factors in it. For example your victory over a 2:1 force was a few professional soldiers beating a rabble of peasant troops. If you had nothing but your general and 1 unit of levy spears and beaten back 6 comitinenses units that would be a heroic victory. That is how RTW seems (and I stress seems) to judge a victory not just on man to man ration but on the troop quality as well.

[Casmin]

So you mean it's harder to get stars in BI? I thought it was way too easy to get stars in RTW. Looking forward to getting BI after the patch comes out even moreso now.

[gardibolt]

Much, much harder. I played an entire campaign with the Franks and my prime general of the 2nd generation never made it past 2 stars.

[symball]

Heroic victories are much harder now- even bridge massacres or AI seige assaults where you pick them off only result in clear victories. I have played about four campaigns now and only had a handfull of heroic victories- you really need to be outnumbered quite badly and get away with virtually no losses to get one.

[Hurin_Rules]

Well, at least I'm not going crazy then: I was having a really tough time getting decisive and heroic victories, but it seems that, like the threshold for getting command stars, this too has been upped for BI.

[lars573]

So you mean it's harder to get stars in BI? I thought it was way too easy to get stars in RTW. Looking forward to getting BI after the patch comes out even moreso now.

Yes. But CA new this and gave you 2 or 3 guys with 3 or 4 stars at the campagin starts. It also seems that there is a threshold that you can get 2 stars easily but getting the third is hella hard. After 3 it's not quite as hard (but not easy).