Phalanx and auto resolve

Has anyone else noticed how the phalanx isn't taken properly into account in auto resolve battles?

for an example, i had an army made up of armoured hopelites vs the romans. At first, i hit autoresolve. I had about 600 dead to 100 casualities inflicted. I re-loaded and fought the battle myself. Heroic Victory!?

Then, early in another greek campaign, i was defending sycrause from the scipii. I hit autoresolve and was slaughtered, only inflicting 100 casulaities. Again, i fought myself and killed the entire roman army for about 50 losses.

Now, i know vh difficulty puts penalties on auto-resolve, but this example proves it stupid.

I personally commanded the assault on sycrause (as the scipii), split my forces to attack two gates and charged. Against a phalanx, of course. I lost the battle badly. Autoresolve: 50 casualities to city captured!

The ai just fails to take into account the stopping power of the phalanx. (in the above scipii example, i lost so many men as the phalanx parked me within range of 4 towers and the gatehouse ;)

Yea, auto-resolve is horrid.
Early in my first campaign I attacked a small settlement that was defended by one general and his bodyguard unit (40 odd men) with a 370 man army that included a general. I was defeated outright with my general dying!
That was the last time I ever used auto-resolve.

Adding another great phalanx story....

I started a custom battle, with me (as greeks) vs the 3 romans and the gauls, in a city siege. I used 8 units of 3gold, full upgrade spartan hopelites. The romans had a full army of legionary cohorts (no upgrade) and the gauls an army of chosen swordsmen.

I deployed my spartan hopelites to guard the streets. The enemy charged and the battle commenced, it lasted about 30 minutes.

End result: 4732 kills, 96 casualties. LOL

That is amazing. Vive la hopelite!

Nothing is really taken into account in auto-resolve. I'm sure you've noticed there is a certain amount of rock/paper/scissors to the units in this game. If you put an army of 10 armored hoplites on the field in phalanx formation, and I had an army of 10 upgraded forester warband on the other side, you'd probably be dead to the man before you could get to mine. None of that is figured in when the game auto-resolves a battle. It's strictly a number crunch with a lot of randomness thrown in.

The campaign difficulty setting you choose has a huge effect on auto-resolve. If you're playing with H/VH, expect some poor results.

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Originally Posted by chemchok

The campaign difficulty setting you choose has a huge effect on auto-resolve. If you're playing with H/VH, expect some poor results.

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Add to that lack of a general or a shitty one and you have your troops getting butchered. Also since I prefer to auto resolve I always play the game on medium or easy, plus that way I always win ~;)

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Add to that lack of a general or a shitty one and you have your troops getting butchered. Also since I prefer to auto resolve I always play the game on medium or easy, plus that way I always win

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Well, i play on vh/med with no general (unless one is around) so i can see how this is happening ;)

It just annoys me how the game is leaving out some great abilities.

On a related note (number crunch), i put 2 legionaries, 1 auxillia and a town guard against 2 peltasts and a peasant in a city siege - and lost. lol
Did it myself, won easily ;)

I would like to be able to watch the auto-resolved battles...... And why not be able to script some orders to the AI for each type of battle.......

That would be far too much effort for the poor, busy, overworked ca guys. It would be nice though...

We need a toggle on auto resolve that is separate from the current strategic/battle settings when we set up the campaign. I would like to have auto-resolve set to medium for armies and ships, while I play the strategy map and battles at higher settings. As it is auto-resolve gives very bad results on higher levels (often killing your best troops against enemy armies outgunned by 10:1 who then escape). This forces me to fight all battles...very, very tedious and un-fun.

On land if "evenly" matched or somewhat worse, I usually win 10:1 on VH. In close battles where I am heavily ougunned I might win with only a 2:1 margin. How much sense does it make to have auto resolve result in disproportionate casualties for my army when I outnumber & outgun them 10 to 1? And the naval auto resolve...that is really awful...few decisive battles, and I lose about twice to three times as many men when I win and outnumber my opponent by an order of magnitude. As a result I build almost no ships since I cannot even close to affording naval superiority with such an extreme handicap.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

As it is auto-resolve gives very bad results on higher levels (often killing your best troops against enemy armies outgunned by 10:1 who then escape). This forces me to fight all battles...very, very tedious and un-fun.
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I totally agree. Auto - resolve is just the worst thing you can do!!! So I end up having to fight every little skirmish if i don't want to lose my whole army!! Haven't had problems on that with the Romans though... Okay losses were higher but I usually won most battles.
But now I started playing the greeks and I just can't win with them on auto reslove no matter what I do!!!!

Schnief

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

As a result I build almost no ships

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I do the same thing. I build usually one ship per harbor, and use them to sneak armies from landing to landing. Get the army to the harbor, end turn there. Next turn, army gets on the boat, sails, gets off the boat. Since I can't generally beat the AI fleets in combat, I just avoid them wherever possible.

I autoresolved my 5k troops attacking a city with 1500 troops and got a clear defeat. I then played it by attacking with only 2k troops(took the others away first-dumb ai generals you know) and got an easy heroic victory.

Yes autoresolved especially when attacking cities is much worse than fighting it yourself.