Captain promotion

[Diamondj]

Is there a way of knowing before a battle whether or not it is going to be possible for a captain to be promoted if he wins?

[Gazius]

I don't believe there is, but I do think it does depend on how you do in battle, so a heroic victory would probably be more likely to get you a new general than a defeat. It also depends on what faction your playing.

[Diamondj]

Achieving a Heroic victory seems to depend upon odd variables, I have killed 500 troops without losing a man and only gained a clear victory and then gotten a heroic one after losing around 2 men for every 4 killed, does it just depend on a lot more besides the kill ratio?

[beatoangelico]

in EB (and in vanilla RTW) never happened for me for now, but in a Franks campaign with BI I had a lot of captain promotion, even the head of faction was on these former captains I think it depens on how many living and adult family member you have. In that campaign most of my familiy members died in some really bloody battles against the western romans and I was reduced to 3/4 members, forcing me to send captains in battles instead of generals: I had 4/5 promotions and after that (with a more or less decent number of generals) the promotions stopped.

[pseudocaesar]

Its also linked to the number of provinces and number of family members you already have. If you have low family member to province ratio you get more adoption candidates, which include those from battles.

[Landwalker]

Achieving a Heroic victory seems to depend upon odd variables, I have killed 500 troops without losing a man and only gained a clear victory and then gotten a heroic one after losing around 2 men for every 4 killed, does it just depend on a lot more besides the kill ratio?

Heroic Victories depend on the battle's starting conditions more than anything. If you are outnumbered/outmanned, and yet still win decisively (even if you take a lot of casualties doing so), you're far more likely to get a heroic victory. In fact, I believe it's impossible to be credited with a heroic victory if you begin the battle with a 1:1 "power ranking" or better. It may require a 3:4 ratio or lower.

Cheers.

[Thrond]

In my H/M Romani campaign (at present re-enacting the first Punic War), my legions in northern Africa won two heroic victories at 1:1 odds.

The scale was heavily weighted in favour of Carthage though, we roughly had the same number of men, though theirs were full strength and numbers, whereas mine were high experience but deplted. About 1300 vs 1000, I lost 200 and killed 1000 and that was a heroic victory. In the second battle it was about 850 vs 900 and I lost 177 and killed about 800.

So it's possible at 1:1 odds, you just have to have minimal losses and be facing a comparatively stronger force even if you have roughly equal numbers of men.

As an edit:

I also got a captain promotion offer after autoresolving a battle near Taras with 2 units of hoplitai haploi against a samnite rebel unit. It was only a clear victory, but I had about 8 provinces without governors, and few family members of age, so that was probably the reason.

Also, when the Romani faction leader dies, I usually get an adoption offer first off the next turn, so again I think it's strongly tied to the ratio of provinces to governors as much as to a captain winning a great victory.

[Leão magno]

For some reasons is much easier to have captains promotes when the battles are auto-resolved