i agree, the quests and combat should give you exp. however if they really wanted to try something i think it would be cool if you had other areas of exp, like we have of research. i mean my wiz that is back at my capital researching spells should level up his spell capability while the farmer should get some exp for his str and farming, ect. 

though there is the thing from age of wonders that i did like, where the heroes gained 1 exp per day. that way if the hero wasn't always in battle it wasn't a early level when you needed it to defend, but not necessarily the crazy power that you had at the end you had from the heroes that were always fighting. 

I think that Combat, Quests, Random Events (choosing correctly), and Leading and Army should all gain exp.

By leading an army, I mean that, other than the experience you gain from your own combat/kills, you gain experience from how well your army did over-all during the battle. // Perhaps you could even *magically* lead a battle from some tower somewhere, without having to be nearby.

Retain 90% of the battle rating (huge bonus)

Retain 67% of the battle rating (moderate bonus)

Retain 50% of the battle rating (small bonus)

less than 50% (no bonus)

The amount of experience a Huge, Moderate, or Small bonus receives should be based upon how important the battle is. This could be determined by the size and strength of your army, as well as the size and strength of your opponents army.

For instance, 3 soldiers killing 10 spiders with no losses should be relatively small bonus ... while 200 soldiers fighting off 3 different armies totaling near 1000 soldiers should get a very high bonus experience (even for small bonus).

Ergo, I think that (20% of total battle experience) is a good starting point for moderate bonus ... while Huge bonus is 80% more and small bonus is 50% less.

Completing quests should give xp.

Agreed.