What gives characters experience in battle?

[Celestial Tesla]

Do we know exactly what gives experience to characters in battle, is it simply being in a battle, time spent fighting units, number of kills, defeating characters, for running down retreating units, capturing towers or town centers?

Leveling just seems to take forever, so I am wondering what is the best way to help your characters level faster.

[No gf]

It seems that every single kill, including both the general himself and the troops of his own units platoon, will give general exp.

This is why a strategist who got 2k kills with his archers and trebuchats will usually gain a level or two after the battle.

[Remosu37]

I believe being on assignments or having court positions also generate's XP although at a much slower than you make typically as an active general on the front lines.

Schools and other global XP boosts help

[RCMidas]

Being in a court position, on assignment, deployed as a general, fighting a battle, personally killing enemies, and the odd random event will all give XP.

[Vormina]

I use my generals to run down fleeing units and they seem to get a lot of XP from that. At least one of them levels up after every battle.

Not to mention every treb I have is lvl 10, while my poor infantry are 2-4, lol.

[Gray Riders]

The pack file "fast" has a script handling officer experience. According to that script these are the battle exp values:
*Kills by a unit in your retinue=0.75 exp
*Kills by the officer themselves==1.5 exp
*Minimum of 250 xp for a battle
*Maximum of 10,000 xp for a battle
*Reward is doubled if you won the battle

There's also data for duels. It's looks a bit more involved so I'll copy paste the whole thing:
-- Duels
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_proposer_winner_xp = 2500;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_proposer_loser_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_target_winner_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_target_loser_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_not_won_xp = 10;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_outcome_mult =
{
["complete"] = 1,
["interrupted"] = 0.5,
["refuse"] = 0,
["runaway"] = 1
}

Other notes:
*Rulers get exp for diplomacy
*Administrators get exp for building structures
*Rulers and ministers get passive experience. Ruler passive exp seems to be a percentage so I assume it's a percent of all exp your faction gets.
*Experience for assignments or being a ministers lowers at higher ranks.

[Kitten Food]

Originally posted by Gray Riders:

The pack file "fast" has a script handling officer experience. According to that script these are the battle exp values:
*Kills by a unit in your retinue=0.75 exp
*Kills by the officer themselves==1.5 exp
*Minimum of 250 xp for a battle
*Maximum of 10,000 xp for a battle
*Reward is doubled if you won the battle

There's also data for duels. It's looks a bit more involved so I'll copy paste the whole thing:
-- Duels
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_proposer_winner_xp = 2500;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_proposer_loser_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_target_winner_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_target_loser_xp = 100;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_not_won_xp = 10;
campaign_experience.xp_battle_duel_outcome_mult =
{
["complete"] = 1,
["interrupted"] = 0.5,
["refuse"] = 0,
["runaway"] = 1
}

Other notes:
*Rulers get exp for diplomacy
*Administrators get exp for building structures
*Rulers and ministers get passive experience. Ruler passive exp seems to be a percentage so I assume it's a percent of all exp your faction gets.
*Experience for assignments or being a ministers lowers at higher ranks.

Thanks for taking the time to look through scripts. So it seems taking time to kill fleeing enemies after 'winning' is worth it afterall.

[Vin362]

If your playing as Liu Biao’s take advantage of his unique faction building which is dedicated to character expertise, there are also some reforms that increase experience and sometimes events will reward experience.

[Killer29687]

Didn’t know about the exp gained from diplomacy, can you be more specific? Exp for trades? Tribute? None aggro pacts? Giving cash per turn etc... if you can gain exp from giving cash per turn I can see a amazing exploit of gaining a lv 10 Ruler by the end of turn 1...

[Gray Riders]

Copying the diplomacy exp:
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_trade_agreement_faction_leader = 250;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_alliance_faction_leader = 750;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_war_faction_leader = 250;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_vassalise_faction_leader = 500;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_confederate_faction_leader = 500;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_deal_concluded_faction_leader = 250;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_military_access_faction_leader = 250;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_non_agression_faction_leader = 250;
campaign_experience.xp_diplomacy_peace_treaty_faction_leader = 500;

I'm not entirely sure what the "deal concluded" one is. Might be usable to powerlevel if gifts count.
Edit: Hmm...running some tests and don't seem to be actually getting exp for diplomacy despite it being in the script. Script could be broken or there might be some other requirement to receive diplomatic exp. I have confirmed building does give admins exp earlier by checking after rush-building.

[Killer29687]

Perhaps deal concluded is for a bonus to trade,peace,none aggro etc deals, reminds me I just remembered something interesting, you can declare war on Zheng Jiang then make peace by offering her tribute, rinse repeat... you won’t get a penalty aside from breaking the peace offer the first time.... and my friend said doing this would be useless =D

[Kitten Food]

Deal concluded is XP gained after 10 turns are done for a food/gold per turn deal.

[Killer29687]

Originally posted by Kitten Food:

Deal concluded is XP gained after 10 turns are done for a food/gold per turn deal.

What if you cancel the deal?

[Kitten Food]

Originally posted by Killer29687:

Originally posted by Kitten Food:

Deal concluded is XP gained after 10 turns are done for a food/gold per turn deal.

What if you cancel the deal?

No XP. It is exactly the same as when you send a hero on assignment. They need to complete it, if you cancel early, there is zero XP.

[Killer29687]

Originally posted by Kitten Food:

Originally posted by Killer29687:

What if you cancel the deal?

No XP. It is exactly the same as when you send a hero on assignment. They need to complete it, if you cancel early, there is zero XP.

So.... give 1gold per turn 100 times to the same faction, wait 10 turns... 250exp per time for faction leader= lv10?

[Remosu37]

Yeah, that was the one that looked abusable to me too. If a "Deal" counts as any time you reach a deal with a faction, you could give 1 gold at a time to reach deals repeatedly.

A lifetime cap on diplomacy XP (maybe 10 or 20 deals) plus a per turn cap (1 or 2 deals per turn) might be the best way to prevent abuse of that provision. I mean, you could still abuse it some what, but it wouldn't be that beneficial, and it'd be a lot of trouble.