What determines EXP gain?

[Jamesk2]

Yesterday I had a strange situation happened. In the Battle of Gaines' Mill, because my I Corps were too strong (and my skills too good, I suppose), the battle ended with most of my II Corps arriving from the flank not  having fired a single shot or received a single casualty. However in the camp post-battle, even the brigades that did not enter combat and their respective commanders received EXP and leveled up. So am I correct to think that just arrive at the battlefield give brigades and commanders EXP, they don't have to actually fight?

[A. P. Hill]

Pretty sure winning accounts for the exp.

Not much handed out when you lose.  

[GeneralPITA]

This is why you want to fill every single brigade slot at Antietam and Fredericksbug (including the reserves) because you can earn 60+ promotions in each battle. 

[Wandering1]

At the end of the day for unit experience, to me it seems likely that it is related to the sum of all of the unit's individual skills.

Since morale is affected by time spent in combat, a unit will naturally gain experience just by being used in a particular battle. Said unit won't gain as much experience as the units that actually were shooting, since presumably the units that were shooting are gaining firearms and efficiency.

[GeneralPITA]

13 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

At the end of the day for unit experience, to me it seems likely that it is related to the sum of all of the unit's individual skills.

Since morale is affected by time spent in combat, a unit will naturally gain experience just by being used in a particular battle. Said unit won't gain as much experience as the units that actually were shooting, since presumably the units that were shooting are gaining firearms and efficiency.

By this logic you could rank them up simply by marching them aimlessly to boost stamina. 

[Wandering1]

Just now, GeneralPITA said:

By this logic you could rank them up simply by marching them aimlessly to boost stamina. 

A very slow process indeed, but indeed true.

Stamina seems to grow at a very, very slow rate, considering even on my hard playthrough on CSA, my 3* units still don't have 100 stamina, but have 100 efficiency, morale, and firearms. They have something like 70-80 stamina without the stamina trait.

[Sir Texas Sir]

15 hours ago, GeneralPITA said:

This is why you want to fill every single brigade slot at Antietam and Fredericksbug (including the reserves) because you can earn 60+ promotions in each battle. 

So instead of bring a bunch of 2000 units bring even more 1000?  So you can even combine them if need be?  I been trying to find that majic number for size so that the AI doesn't make super units against me.

[GeneralPITA]

3 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

So instead of bring a bunch of 2000 units bring even more 1000?  So you can even combine them if need be?  I been trying to find that majic number for size so that the AI doesn't make super units against me.

You can fill an entire division with ~420 man infantry brigades, detach all skirmisher units, merge the remaining brigades, then reattach the skirmishers to make a very large brigade above the 2500 man cap....just takes a little effort, but you'll be ranking up a whole bunch of officers and have one very effective fighting unit. Just be sure to have a good division officer for command purposes. 

[P*Funk]

18 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

Pretty sure winning accounts for the exp.

Not much handed out when you lose.  

Personally I hate that idea. Its not like winning teaches you something about being a better soldier or anything. Its not like losing the battle doesn't involve individual units experiencing great success and local victories. Certainly it ought to have some effect on morale but on the whole it seems gamey, and counter intuitive.

Lots of these meta systems in the game seem to really really encourage gamey thinking, not to mention punishing a smart commander for saving his army from defeat, even through excellent tactics, with a major experience hit. Its the same thing with wounded officers. It leads to officers who were involved in many cases were the critical phases of battle being denied experience while the ones who did nothing continue to climb the ranks of command. Being wounded isn't a sign of incompetence (necessarily :P).

I like it a lot better that losing would punish you badly in the long run with government support for your future, meaning that the balance is with bleeding your units to take objectives versus saving them because you expect to not get the funds to raise more of them.

[Wandering1]

I would point out... As far as unit growth goes, winning or losing doesn't have anything to do with it, since unit growth is just based on actions taken during battle (morale is combat time, efficiency is overall kills, stamina is movement, firearms is firearms kills, and melee being melee kills).

Now, there's a good chance if you're winning, you're accruing a lot of kills, since unless you prematurely end the map, for example on 2nd Bull Run and Fredericksburg as Union, you're going to have to at least repulse the entire enemy army.

[MikeK]

Just seeing the elephant, as they called combat, was significant, and beyond that being under fire, successfully delivering fire at an enemy, and seeing casualties.

Marching about is well and good, but there is no substitute for combat, (except video games, of course).