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.