Quote Originally Posted by Count Belisarius
Usually, if a human player is careless enough to get ambushed, his army is caught in line of march, and the enemy springs up almost within melee range with no time to reform or arrange battle groups. It used to happen to me all the time before I began scouting the lay of the land with spies before moving my armies. RTW 101, I know, but I refuse to read game manuals, and I was still learning.
I once had a spy (at least 3 eyes) not notice a German army hidden right next to his path and then my army following him got ambushed. It was the most exciting battle I'd had in a while, surrounded on 3 sides.



Playing this battle over and over, since it was so challenging and fun, I noticed that the autoresolve would let me get away with half my army intact. To do this well myself took me many attempts and a lot of failure. It must be similar to the seige autoresolve, that autocalc doesn't take the situation on the ground into account when it performs the calculations and you can come out ahead by autoresolving.