Yeah, it's mostly used for rpgs so that the hotseat function (in case the gm wants to play some of the other nations' turns) can be used but players can still fight their defensive battles.
It's been years since I used those settings so I'm not sure hot I ended up doing so in this game. I don't even think I have a preferences file with defensive battles enabled on my computer anymore.
I don't see any concerns about aring the battle so that just leaves one question. Who should do it? I can AR any defensive battles but it might be inappropriate for me to see how they go since I'm also a player in the game. The alternative would be to rope a non player into doing it. At least with relatively few ai factions it shouldn't come up often after we get further into the game.
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