How do you guys play EB ?

[socal_infidel]

I've been in all EB-all-the-time mode lately.

With Pahlava, you have to play out every battle or you'll get screwed on auto-calc. And there are a lot of battles. Usually, they consist of nothing more than getting two-unit teams of horse archers to empty their quivers and withdraw. But on some turns, I'll end up doing this four or so times.

If I'm playing the Maks, Ptolemies or AS, I tend not to fight sieges. Sieges bore me. The good thing about those factions is they tend to get quite rich, so oftentimes I can simply wait out the siege for the 8 turns or so without taking a hit to the coffers and without having to fight a siege.

I only reload if my characters take some weird-ass path to their destination. Happened a couple times already with Pahlava. The movement points tell me my army can attack the AS, but I click on it to attack and they go around the mountains when the army is right in front of them . Stupid.

[Cartaphilus]

If I'm playing the Maks, Ptolemies or AS, I tend not to fight sieges. Sieges bore me. The good thing about those factions is they tend to get quite rich, so oftentimes I can simply wait out the siege for the 8 turns or so without taking a hit to the coffers and without having to fight a siege.

Yes, I do not usually fight sieges too.

I tend to fight all battles (except sieges) in the early part of the campaign, but when it progresses I try the auto-calc for minor battles (more losses but it saves time).

[Irishmafia2020]

I use auto-calc on all of the battles that I have a 2-1 ratio in, and sometimes when I am dramatically outnumbered (one unit vs a stack). Even with 2-1, or 3-1 odds on my side I lose occasionally. I like that... I keep those losses and don't go back to a recent save because I don't think that every army wins in every engagement, although I am much more likely to win if I am personally in control of the army. In my current Baktria campaign, after thirty land battles (no fleet) I had 21 wins, and 9 losses. That is more realistic than running the table and going 30 - 0 or 100 - 0 as some players would do if they fought every single battle... To be fair, if its is a strategic battle that I simply must win, I won't risk auto-calc, the a.i has got to beat me instead.
I also refuse to destroy any faction, as I would rather defeat them and place them in a one province "reservation" instead. This substantially increases my difficulty level. If possible I attempt to assist other factions that are on the verge of being wiped out. My unwritten victory condition is "all factions must survive" - that makes for quite a challenge and gives me an excuse to meddle in everyone else's affairs. I play H/M BI.exe, and rarely use force-diplomacy (mostly for giving gifts). I don't worry about historical simulation at all, I just treat the EB world as my sandbox. That's how I play EB....

[Gaias]

I tend to play with fog of war toggled off, as spies are rather useless gamewise. I have been using move_character command alot lately as it allows me to move armies on the strat that the AI doesn't use (for whatever reason). Also I tend to give money to factions that I am at war with if I know that I will have little or no trouble defeating. I use to use forced diplomacy for various thing, but have limited to peace treaties and settlements.

[V.T. Marvin]

I use auto-calc on all of the battles that I have a 2-1 ratio in, and sometimes when I am dramatically outnumbered (one unit vs a stack). Even with 2-1, or 3-1 odds on my side I lose occasionally. I like that... I keep those losses and don't go back to a recent save because I don't think that every army wins in every engagement, although I am much more likely to win if I am personally in control of the army. In my current Baktria campaign, after thirty land battles (no fleet) I had 21 wins, and 9 losses. That is more realistic than running the table and going 30 - 0 or 100 - 0 as some players would do if they fought every single battle... To be fair, if its is a strategic battle that I simply must win, I won't risk auto-calc, the a.i has got to beat me instead.
I also refuse to destroy any faction, as I would rather defeat them and place them in a one province "reservation" instead. This substantially increases my difficulty level. If possible I attempt to assist other factions that are on the verge of being wiped out. My unwritten victory condition is "all factions must survive" - that makes for quite a challenge and gives me an excuse to meddle in everyone else's affairs. I play H/M BI.exe, and rarely use force-diplomacy (mostly for giving gifts). I don't worry about historical simulation at all, I just treat the EB world as my sandbox. That's how I play EB....

I play in almost identical manner as Irishmafia2020 does, except on H/H BI.exe. Losing sometimes an auto-calc battle seems perfectly O.K. to me. The revenge will be sweet anyway...

[ForVictory]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

[socal_infidel]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

If you get any kind of substantial empire going, it can be tedious to fight multiple battles each turn. And sometimes you're more interested in the larger strategy of an invasion or a war on a particular front (getting armies into position, fresh recruits to the front, etc) than on fighting multiple battles every turn.

Plus, for experienced gamers, it's harder to lose if you're fighting every battle. With auto-calc you'll lose every once in awhile. Which makes for better story if you're roleplaying or such.

[Dhampir]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

So that when it turns out that those brigands you're going after with heavy infantry are skirmishers, a battle can actually happen as opposed to your infantry chasing theirs around the map for half an hour.

[DeathEmperor]

I usually fight most of my battles in the early and mid-game, but later on when my empire is quite large and powerful I usually use auto-calc as it's easier to recoup my losses and I'm usually more focuses on planning campaigns and managing multiple battle fronts. I don't reload unless I forget to move an army (sometimes the general leading the army is "pessimistic" so I don't make him use up all his movement points) or I missed destroying a government building.

I also used force-diplomacy to make the ai agree to ceasfires when it really should. Usually when I've got a full stack besieging their capital or I've wiped out most of their armies.