Auto-calc?

[Duguntz]

Hello to all of you, EB fans!

I've been wonderin', reading lots of threads about AI, and traits and remarked a lot of post that mentions auto-calc. and I was wondering : Isn't it supposed to be the fun of EB to fight it out in the field of honor ? I'm not trying to criticise, but I can't understand why the auto-calc seems to be so popular!

Any opinion?

[seienchin]

Well:

1. EB Battles take time, a lot of time.
2. After fighting 1000000 seleukid stacks it gets boring killing every 2 unit stacks
3. It addes a challenge cause auto calc is good for everything.
4. People who like to roleplay a lot, might not be interested in getting to involved into fighting

[Duguntz]

I can understand the issue if you have to fight a two unit stack of rebel with your crack elite royal army, but for roleplaying, (that's really just my opinion) roleplaying the gens on the battlefield, I think, only can add to the fun, aren't you agree?

[anubis88]

Auto-calc just sucks... For example... I wanted to see the next turn, becouse i had huge plans in greece and a city of mine in Spain was besieged.... It was a 1:1 ratio of armies, and hit the auto-calc... My army lost BADLY. I had something like 200 kills, while the 1500 of my men were slaughtered.

I restarted the game, and played the battle myself... The archers and slingers alone killed more than 800 enemies, without me doing as much as move a mussle. The battle ended without me doing anything but sitting and watching for 40 minutes with me losing less then 60 men, while my opponents army was completly destroyed.

That's what sucks about Auto-calc... It would be very usefull uf you could just click auto-calc on those battle which are of low importance and impossible to lose

[DaciaJC]

That's what sucks about Auto-calc... It would be very usefull uf you could just click auto-calc on those battle which are of low importance and impossible to lose

In those cases, you would be advised to open up RomeShell with ~ and type in auto_win attacker if you are the attacker or auto_win defender if you are the defender.

Personally, I never use auto-calc except in naval engagements...

[Africanus]

That's what sucks about Auto-calc... It would be very usefull uf you could just click auto-calc on those battle which are of low importance and impossible to lose

Isn't this what the auto_win cheat is for?

[anubis88]

I know... But the cheat also sucks... The losses are highly unrealistic, and i still consider the auto_win cheat a cheat... And i don't cheat

[Africanus]

I know... But the cheat also sucks... The losses are highly unrealistic, and i still consider the auto_win cheat a cheat... And i don't cheat

I use it sometimes when I get a CTD after winning a long battle that I don't feel like re-doing. But you're right, my losses are almost always greater with the cheat than they were in the actual battle.

[Macilrille]

Definately.

There is one thing your autocalc is good for though; getting experience on your units.

Seriously, even in a heroic Victory where you face overwhelming odds and your forces gives their utmost and each kills many times their numbers of enemies, you still gain only 0-5 chevrons on a fullstack.

If you autocalc it (using the autowin) you would get 15+ chevrons to go with your huge losses.

I admit to sometimes do it a few times, then merge the remainder of my depleted units and armies to have highly experienced armies.

[Duguntz]

well, for me it's resume as. Long battles, of corse, aren't always exiting to fight out, especially when it's the second time, or when you play as sweboz and romans send you countless and countless full stack of pedite extraordinarii. But i still consider it's a part of the game. i don't know why, but auto-calc makes me feel like I cheat... and I don't cheat neither!!! Hey, never used, not even once, the add_money, even when in the red (wich happens from time to time, as I'm playing sweboz). and never used auto-calc, even when the odds are 1:10... i love to see my general bravely die in battle while fighting an impossible fight. He'll enter the sweboz legend!

[Lysimachos]

I can think of some reasons to use auto-calc.

1. Performance: If you're using a computer with weak graphics capability, battles are all but fun or even beautiful. Take my AAR, for example. I auto-calculated all of those battles except for about three up to the point where it is updated now, but somewhere in there are some battle screenshots which may show you what I mean. Add to that an unnerving lag and you'll be stuck with fighting only those battles for yourself which are absolutely needed.

2. Time: Even not-so important battles can easily take twenty, thirty minutes. If you want to get somewhere with your campaign, but you can only spend a few hours a week on playing, there's no way around using auto-calc one time or another.

3. Roleplaying: You might want to fight only the battles a certain FM - e.g. the faction leader - takes part in, representing that he has no direct influence on any of the other battles. And in combination with 2.: Is it really essential to fight the thirteenth battle of that captain at the end of the empire against some - at best - annoying rebels while the real action is going on someplace else?

I don't see anything wrong about using auto-calc. You save some time, but you'll pay some of your men in return, because auto-calc will almost always give worse results than fighting for yourself (with exception of siege assaults in some relations of strength and perhaps battles against horsearcher heavy armies).

Oh, and if you are using very hard campaign difficulty you can expect to be owned in auto-calc battles, so you'd better only use it on medium or perhaps hard. Auto-calc difficulty depends on campaign-, not battle-difficulty.

[Macilrille]

Speaking of which (auto-calc and sieges), I have only very rarely seen the Auto-Calc beat my performance in sieges/assaults. Is it because I micro-manage like crazy?

[Cambyses]

I use it sometimes when I get a CTD after winning a long battle that I don't feel like re-doing. But you're right, my losses are almost always greater with the cheat than they were in the actual battle.

This! By far the greatest advantage of auto_calc is if a CTD means I would have to replay a tough battle that took an hour or more the first time around.

As others have pointed out auto_calc is rarely an advantage however as your losses tend to be disproportionately heavy. I do use it when bashing spawned rebels when all units can be retrained at the nearest settlement however. Also when assaulting cities with a > 4:1 advantage. Its a time thing! If you could increase the speed to x8 or more on the battle map I might well use auto_calc less.

[applebreath]

I'd say time is the huge issue. For those that say they "never" use auto-calc, I'd wonder if they ever finished a full campaign without blitzing.

I play on VH so I can't use it too much anyways, without taking a huge risk. But for non important battles, I consider it a handy tool. Besides, it's far from a cheat when you actually take more losses.

I wish there was a setting for auto-calc difficulty. I wish it was in sink with battle difficulty.


But just the other day, I was feeling lazy and I auto-calc an important battle that I had good odds on. I lost the battle and killed 200, while the AI destroyed 1200. I HAD to reload the game, which I hate doing and only do in extreme cases that are usually no fault of my own.

In the future, since I don't really reload, I just have to be a stickler about ONLY using auto-calc on unimportant battles. Normally I might not have even reloaded, but I felt I was cheated. The AI can have so many stacks while me so few. I couldn't let my only army in that area be destroyed, unless it was destroyed with me in command.

[Cute Wolf]

Auto calc must be paired with auto_win too, have you heard ridiculous army of 3 rorarii beats a fullstack of hoplite army? That's the worst that I've had...

[Duguntz]

Auto calc must be paired with auto_win too, have you heard ridiculous army of 3 rorarii beats a fullstack of hoplite army? That's the worst that I've had...

Tell me you were the rorarii, TELL ME YOU WERE THE RORARII!!! or i shall never respect again any army of hoplite!

[anubis88]

Definately.

There is one thing your autocalc is good for though; getting experience on your units.

Seriously, even in a heroic Victory where you face overwhelming odds and your forces gives their utmost and each kills many times their numbers of enemies, you still gain only 0-5 chevrons on a fullstack.

If you autocalc it (using the autowin) you would get 15+ chevrons to go with your huge losses.

I admit to sometimes do it a few times, then merge the remainder of my depleted units and armies to have highly experienced armies.

Well this is the sort of cheating i'm talking about

[Cute Wolf]

Tell me you were the rorarii, TELL ME YOU WERE THE RORARII!!! or i shall never respect again any army of hoplite!

Sadly no.... that was what happened when I assault Capua on my Kart-Hadast campaign that becomes those Crazy AAR.... I just pretty confidence, that 8 hoplitai and 2 samnites can take em without any mess... of course the autoresolve sucks!

[Duguntz]

Sadly no.... that was what happened when I assault Capua on my Kart-Hadast campaign that becomes those Crazy AAR.... I just pretty confidence, that 8 hoplitai and 2 samnites can take em without any mess... of course the autoresolve sucks!

That's it, all my illusions about the greatness of the hoplite tradition are vanished, they're no more than the petty velites or some Helots putted on the battlefield against some mighty warriors weilding clubs and nearly no clothes that I can't name because it'll be consider as Sweboz spam... Damn... I said it... sorry!

(No offence, it's only jokes!)

[Cute Wolf]

That's it, all my illusions about the greatness of the hoplite tradition are vanished, they're no more than the petty velites or some Helots putted on the battlefield against some mighty warriors weilding clubs and nearly no clothes that I can't name because it'll be consider as Sweboz spam... Damn... I said it... sorry!

(No offence, it's only jokes!)

Hehehe... we all know about how sucks autoresolve in VH campaign mate.... but if we play medium campaign, everything only goes as breeze.... why aren't you try to autoresolve 10 wothiz watha against 3 rorarii instead? without auto_win of course!

[Duguntz]

Pfff easy fight! anyway the rorarii would run at the sight of their... lances...