Auto-calc balance

[Barbarian]

I have stopped auto-resolving completely, I fight all battles by myself, even if it is just a small clash. I only use autoresolve after modding something, to get somewhere quickly and test new features. However, I have noticed few things too:

1) Horse archers are definitely underpowered. I knew few people, who auto-resolve battles against scythia, because they can't handle their horse archers. If a fight between 10 units of infantry and 10 units of horse archers is autoresolved, the results are the same as if 10 units of infantry fought 10 of infantry in melee.

2) Command stars have even greater effect in auto-resolving, than they have on battlefield.

3) One of the main reasons, why I hate auto-resolving, is that it often evens out the casualties among all units, like not an army who lost one 160 men strong unit, but an army, who's 16 units each lost 10 men. That's far from reality, as in real battle, I would keep my valuable and rare archers in safety, my elite infantry as a reserve, and send some basic recruits and mercenaries to attack first and inflict as much damage as they can, and would probably never have to use my valuable reserves.
This makes a huge difference in battles far away from my main cities. I can't afford to loose few dozens of my best men in each battle, because there is no way to retrain them. But Auto-resolving will never understand it.

4) In A-R, faction members almost always survive. With the FOW turned off, you can see AI factions attacking lonely rival faction members some 20 times, until they finally beat them. The leader dies only when he has some 20-30 men left, and he is attacked by half as stack army.
The situation in real-time battle is much different. AI almost always looses it's leaders, and it happens early in the battle. Fighting Egypt with phalanxes is a good example. I would say that there is 50% chance that enemy's leader will be the first one, who charges his chariot in spears. Try to autoresolve the same battle, and you will never kill their leader.

5) Surely Auto-resolving doesn't count the strength of the city walls. I recently change the files a bit - gave Gauls an epic stone wall around Alesia, and added superb tower defences to the walls: ballista bolts could fire at ANY direction. Then tried to take it with the silver chevron praetorian cohorts.
Gauls had some weak skirmishers and warbands there. In real-time battle I lost heavily due to the superb tower defences. When I auto-resolved the same battle, it was counted as a heroic victory with minimum loses, as my army was much stronger.

BTW, what do you think about elephants in Auto-resolve? I suppose they should be quite powerful, as the battle is counted as an all-out charge

[Paradox]

Yeah, I stopped auto-resolving and, instead, used the forward button when in short battles. I too learned that command stars have a VERY great effect on auto-resolving.

[El Diablo]

The problem with A/R and elephants is, as has been previously stated, a percentage of casualties are sperad amonst the whole army.

10% losses means you have lost 10% of your precious ele's.

NEVER AUTO RESOLVE WITH ELEPHANTS!!!! This is particularly important if the are Merc elphants or you have no ability to replenish your unit.

(Mind you I feel the same way about my beloved Cretan Archers - I never AR with them!)

[Quirinus]

I have stopped auto-resolving completely, I fight all battles by myself, even if it is just a small clash. I only use autoresolve after modding something, to get somewhere quickly and test new features.

I do autoresolve a lot when I'm playing the Julii, or Carthage in Iberia. This is because the computer never takes into account the very potent 'warcry' ability. Battles that I couldn't win in many attempts produce a clear victory when autocalc'd. Though that means rotating and ferrying troops back to your core cities a lot, I don't mind overmuch. No matter what critics say about the battlefield AI, I find that it handles basic infantry tactics reasonably well, for instance, activating warcry before charging.

Horse archers are definitely underpowered. I knew few people, who auto-resolve battles against scythia, because they can't handle their horse archers.

I'm one of them..... haha. If I see a large army that is more than one third horse archers, I will definitely auto-calc. Horse archers in small doses I can handle.

Command stars have even greater effect in auto-resolving, than they have on battlefield.

Yeah! Though I guess that makes sense..... better command is supposed to reflect a better understanding of battlefield tactics, so I guess it makes sense on auto-calc that they win against the odds more often.

One of the main reasons, why I hate auto-resolving, is that it often evens out the casualties among all units, like not an army who lost one 160 men strong unit, but an army, who's 16 units each lost 10 men. That's far from reality, as in real battle, I would keep my valuable and rare archers in safety, my elite infantry as a reserve, and send some basic recruits and mercenaries to attack first and inflict as much damage as they can, and would probably never have to use my valuable reserves.

Yeah. What I do, though, is to pool the casualties together. Say, for example, I have a bunch of hastati who all lost less than ten men. I will 'merge' the troops-- as in, using units from one troop to replenish the rest, and then taking that unit (or units) back to the nearest city for retraining. That's why, at any one time, only about two-thirds of my actual army in a particular theatre are in the main army itself. I find that this strategy works pretty well, as you don't put all your eggs in a basket-- at any one time, you're only fighting at 2/3 strength. If the going gets really tough, significant reinforcements are but a couple of turns away.

This makes a huge difference in battles far away from my main cities. I can't afford to loose few dozens of my best men in each battle, because there is no way to retrain them. But Auto-resolving will never understand it.

I agree with this. Which is why, if I happen to have elite units, or rare mercs like Cretans or beserkers, I tend to play the battles myself, or remove the troop from the army if I'm confident enough about my odds without them.

In A-R, faction members almost always survive. With the FOW turned off, you can see AI factions attacking lonely rival faction members some 20 times, until they finally beat them. The leader dies only when he has some 20-30 men left, and he is attacked by half as stack army.
The situation in real-time battle is much different. AI almost always looses it's leaders, and it happens early in the battle. Fighting Egypt with phalanxes is a good example. I would say that there is 50% chance that enemy's leader will be the first one, who charges his chariot in spears. Try to autoresolve the same battle, and you will never kill their leader.

Gods! I couldn't agree more. I play the battles myself if I ever deem it particularly important to prune my enemy's family tree.

BTW, what do you think about elephants in Auto-resolve? I suppose they should be quite powerful, as the battle is counted as an all-out charge

Actually, I don't find elephants to be battle deciders in autocalc, like chariots seem to be, although technically elephants should be much better than chariots. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?