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So, I've started to discover that the CSA is absolutely strangled by the lack of 2-star generals. Many of my promotable guys (1 star but have a 2 star model) are simply not promoting. I'm not quite sure why since most of my forces see quite a bit of combat.

First question, what specifically effects leader promotion?

In looking through the game setting files, I found these entries:

expXpGainCoeffLeaderKill = 10 // Leaders get 10% of their subordinate SU xp gain
expXpGainCoeffLeaderDie = 5 // Leaders lose 5% of their subordinate SU xp worth loss

Second question, do units *lose* experience in day-to-day operations? I know they lose XP when they upgrade. Is this XP loss then trickling up to their leader?

Third question, if anyone has any experience modding these listed values, would increasing the XP gain from 10 to say 50, have any effect on leaders gaining strat/off/def rating points?

I am trying to find a way to get more guys promoted, but not break the game by having everyone sitting at 7-7-7 by mid 1863.

This could be completely wrong, but I don't see that XP affects seniority at all. I think it's expected that the CSA will earn its promotions which is fine against Athena. However, as people tend to be more deliberate, the opportunities are far fewer in PBEM. Then there's the issue where a lot of my guys have as much as base -12 seniority and have never been eligible, so I'll admit to having no idea what's going on.

I don't think any unit can lose XP other than upgrade.

I assume if you change LeaderKill to 50%, you'll be able to get Little Mac to 7-7-7 in '62.

You lose XP when taking on replacements, so if you take damage, your unit will lose XP over time.

To gain seniority, I think you need to kill enemy units. From the games I have played, it appears that the only way to gain a lot of seniority is to kill elements. So, it seems to be better to kill 3 elements, rather than do 30 elements worth of damage to a stack and destroy no elements. I once got Huger to be eligible for promotion, as he personally shot the last man of an union element (he got the start for destroying an enemy element, and the chance for promotion.

Leaders Stat/Off/Def ratings are directly affected by XPs. As your general gains XP, his stats go up.

That may be correct. It's ridiculously easy to get Grant and company promoted simply by beating up all the little auto-garrisons in western Kentucky and Tennessee.

Thanks, that's good to know about the XP to stat increase thing. That was my fear. I think I may just have to do some events that will result in promotions. It may run counter to what is happening in game at the time, but I see no other way to avoid having 5 corps across the entirety of the CSA by the close of 1863.

I've poured through the settings files and can find nothing that changes how someone gets seniority.

Jim-NC's explanation fits with my experience. This also explains why coastal "fort busting" earns so many promotions, all those elements get destroyed.

As the CSA I find myself needing to use "fighting Army" tactics a lot because of the lack of two stars.

Stonewall wrote: It may run counter to what is happening in game at the time, but I see no other way to avoid having 5 corps across the entirety of the CSA by the close of 1863.

I'm not sure this is counter to history. By that point Lee had 3 infantry corps in his army and Bragg had two in his. Certainly there were other forces scattered around the Confederacy that were even called armies, but amounted to no more than large divisions. The problem is getting people like Cleburne promoted so you can get rid of the likes of Polk.

I believe that it is overall kills vs. overall losses that earns a promotion. So if General X fights a battle and inflicts 3000 losses to the enemy, but takes 5000 casualties, then that General has a deficit of 2000. This number is a running total. If he continues to lose more men than his enemy, then he goes farther into the hole.

Let's say the General is 10k in the hole. He wins a great battle where he slaughtered 8k more enemy than his own losses. You would imagine that this victory would earn a promotion. However, he is still 2k in the hole and remains a 1-star.

Thus, you should take those Generals you want to promote right from the start. Do nothing with them but attack at overwhelming odds to inflict more casualties than they take. That probably sounds like another iteration of the "best of the best" theme, but it should work. I know that with the steamroller Army in my Union AAR, two 1-stars out of 11 (18%) have earned promotion after just two battles.

Gray Fox wrote:I believe that it is overall kills vs. overall losses that earns a promotion. So if General X fights a battle and inflicts 3000 losses to the enemy, but takes 5000 casualties, then that General has a deficit of 2000. This number is a running total. If he continues to lose more men than his enemy, then he goes farther into the hole.

Let's say the General is 10k in the hole. He wins a great battle where he slaughtered 8k more enemy than his own losses. You would imagine that this victory would earn a promotion. However, he is still 2k in the hole and remains a 1-star.

Thus, you should take those Generals you want to promote right from the start. Do nothing with them but attack at overwhelming odds to inflict more casualties than they take. That probably sounds like another iteration of the "best of the best" theme, but it should work. I know that with the steamroller Army in my Union AAR, two 1-stars out of 11 (18%) have earned promotion after just two battles.

Did they (or their component divisions) kill enemy elements? and were they the only ones to do so?

I don't believe so in the first battle. It was just raw numbers. However, in the second battle several units were destroyed. All of the Divisions showed combat icons, though.

by combat icons, do you mean the little "medals" meaning they destroyed elements? or that they were in combat (hit probability, entrenchments, etc)?

The little icons that show the unit was well led, opened with murderous fire and so forth.

My supposition is that leaders become promotable after destroying elements. The check is to see if any general says he's promotable and didn't get the "medal" icon for his unit destroying an enemy element. I haven't paid enough attention to that I'm afraid, so it's only my gut instinct that that is what happens. I don't believe it's enough to be positive on the losses, but that it's destroying elements that gets the promotion. The "medal" icon is usually the right most icon for a unit (a unit could be a division, or a single general - they are listed separately on the report).

As an example, see here, where on post 110, you can see that the CSA troops have destroyed at least 3 elements of my union troops (it was more like 10 or 11). Each CSA unit has a "medal" on the right side of the fighting icons. I would expect that Hindman would have been eligible for a promotion for destroying enemy elements, but am not sure.

If you can see a promotion where the general did not get that medal, I would like to see it.

Jim-NC wrote:My supposition is that leaders become promotable after destroying elements.

I think this is probably right, in the sense that killing elements leads to seniority increase. The in-game tool tip is pretty clear though that promotion is possible after a leader has improved 4 seniority points from his starting position/or reaches 1 or 2 level seniority.

According to the manual an element destroyed is worth one VP point. If you win a battle, NM is increased a unit for each "Unit and General Element" taken out of action. In this context, expXpGainCoeffLeaderKill, and expXpGainCoeffLeaderDie are referring to these destroyed elements, with killing an element of the enemy worth 2 of your own destroyed. This would also help explain GF's observation that running up lopsided causality rates magnifies the effect.

But it seems like seniority points are more directly linked to "winning" or "loosing" a battle and the vp/NM gains associated with it. "Winning" seems to always lead to seniority boosts while "loosing" leads to seniority loss, even if I had fewer causalities while "loosing." I haven't been able to find where in the code the criteria for qualifying a battle as a win, loss, or draw is located, but I suspect those calculations would go a long way to understanding.

Of course as a practical matter, it seems clear you have to go out and fight to gain leadership, and if you focus on using the same set over and over, the seniority will raise enough to promote them.

Stonewall wrote:Third question, if anyone has any experience modding these listed values, would increasing the XP gain from 10 to say 50, have any effect on leaders gaining strat/off/def rating points?

I am trying to find a way to get more guys promoted, but not break the game by having everyone sitting at 7-7-7 by mid 1863.

Ya I think if you pumped up the value from 10 to 50, you would wind up with crazy high statted folks by mid 63 (but so would everyone else!) Not sure if it would help with seniority, as much as you might think.

There is a way to create a supplemental promotion system. Basically leaders are given a percentage chance each turn of promotion independent of experience points. The percentage chance can vary by time periods and by individual leaders. One additional plus to the promotion event is that leaders may be promoted at any time after they become elgible for promotion. The details are here:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?35631-Altering-the-promotion-system

PS: I think the supplemental promotion events are very appropriate for certain games and situations. For example in RUS, the reds in the long campaign are on the defensive for the first 6 months or so as the Whites pummel them. Due to many early war losses, the red leaders simply don't gain the experience to generate the 2 star corps leaders that they badly need in the 2nd year of the war. I could see some similiarites between the leadership situation of the Reds and the Union at the beginning of the game. And in games with few battles, again xp doesn't always generate the numbers of leaders to match historical leadership. In situations like the above, I have no problems with an event percentage chance of promotion to ensure historical levels of leadership while still having the xp system also generating some commanders from battle results.