Strategic use of auto-resolve?

[Maklodes]

I guess my view is: there are many layers to a conflict. (I was going to say there are many layers of strategy, but the layers really extend above and below strategy proper.)

At the lowest level, there’s technique: say you're a skilled man-at-arms. You are, strong, skilled with lance and sword, and agile in the saddle. Your view of warfare is that it's a contest of skill at arms -- the better warrior is the one who can prevail in a duel. Let's say a tactically skilled enemy commander manages to outflank your acies. Now you're facing enemies in front of you and behind. Hey, that's not fair -- it's not a contest of skill at arms anymore. You could have better technique with a lance than either of your foes, yet still get stabbed in the back by whichever one you're not facing at the time. Why don't your enemies learn to fight better -- really learn to wield their lances and ride their horses skillfully, rather than relying on cheap tricks?

Alright, so better tactics seem unfair to someone focused on technique. That tactical commander, though, might quickly find it very unfair if the enemy didn't face him in pitched battle, but kept the main body of his army in on fortified terrain, laid ambushes for his scouts and foragers, and raided his supply convoys, reducing his army to the verge of starvation and desertion without a battle. That's not fair -- the war is no longer about who's a better battle tactician. Why doesn't the enemy learn better tactics and face them in open battle rather than relying on cheap tricks?

The skilled operational commander, meanwhile, might find it quite unfair if his entire country were diplomatically isolated and facing a grand alliance of enemies. If the enemy's superior grand strategy and diplomacy have gotten them into a completely untenable geostrategic position, then perhaps no amount of skill at the operational level can save them. It's not fair -- it's no longer about who's the better operational commander. Why doesn't the enemy learn better operational strategy and learn to defeat their enemies with roughly equivalent logistical bases, rather than having half the world at war with one small kingdom?

Now, not all of this is really in M2TW. For instance, unless your enemy is in a fort of settlement, you can't beat them by starving them. Diplomacy tends to be a bit iffy. Technical skill in battle exists, of course -- a chivalric knight seems to be a more skilled warrior than a mailed knight, for instance, and a mailed knight in turn seems to be more skilled than a mounted sergeant, and units gain experience -- but it's rather abstracted and beyond much the player can do, other than deploy the best units available. (It's not like Mount & Blade or something, where you personally can become awesome with a lance in gameplay.)

The decision to auto-resolve or manually play a battle is a choice you make at a sort of weird place between the two main layers of the game -- the global strategic layer and the tactical battle layer. Just as there are options available to a real Medieval commander that aren't really available to an M2TW player (e.g., as I mentioned, interfering with the food supplies of an army that isn't ensconced in a settlement/fort), auto-resolve is an option that is available to an M2TW player, but not a real Medieval commander. You could choose to always auto-resolve. Or you could choose to always fight battles manually. Or you could have some "role playing"-type rule like "the faction leader's stack fights battles manually, all others auto-resolve". Or you could try to make the optimal choice from the standpoint of strategy, auto-resolving or fighting manual battles depending on circumstances -- this last option being my initial topic.

In my view, excluding a core gameplay option from the purview of strategy because (for that one battle), it isn’t a match of tactical skill is just an extension of the viewpoint of the man-at-arms from the beginning of my post who thinks that battles should be like a series of jousting tournaments or duels, and that the use of tactics to interfere with the pure “fair” contest of technique is cheating.

(For what it’s worth, in my experience a lot of people playing multiplayer Mount & Blade do seem to regard the use of tactics as cheating. They’ll chat stuff like “3 on 1? Pussies.” in chat in a Team Deathmatch.)

[RubiconDecision]

Strategy and tactics? And you've thrown in a couple of "table games".
Checkers I could probably still hold my own and there more there than meets the eye. And it's not all about who can get the most kings.
Chess, it's been so long I'd probably be looking at an ass whooping by the tenth move anymore.
Pachisi, although dependent on a random dice roll, is still more strategy than not.
Three-handed pinochle, double-deck, for money. Lost my ass and my money.
500 rummy, won as many as I lost, playing four-handed cutthroat.
Gin rummy, not for me.
I have also kicked the computer's ass in the old DOS Risk game and my original copy was on a 3.5" floppy, no harddrive needed.

The reason I bring up my point and others in here about using autoresolve or not is all about personal preference. CA could have just as easy left the code out. Don't knock the autoresolvers out of hand. It's not the chicken's way out the way the player get penalized by it. Even in a losing battle I'll come out with more men fighting it than autoresovling because of the penalties built into the code. I've proven it to myself too many times.

We can talk strategy and tactics until we're blue in the face. Autoresolve for some is just a nice extra to carry on the campaign without having to fight every battle the ai throws in one's path. All the snipes on the side are really not needed by either party.

No one has started talking about logistics even though the code is dumbed down for its use.

Yeah, I get that some people don't like battles or don't want to fight every battle. But that's not the topic, is it? It's about Strategic use, and there's NO strategic value in autoresolving. Nope. Can't be.

Now logistics would make a great topic, as redeploying, choosing what infrastructure improvements to build where, what forts to maintain, etc all have to do with strategy, and this would be a welcome change to puffed chests and personal references. That becomes incredibly complex with AoR (ZoR) i.e. Area of Recuitment, as you might not be able to retrain units and might have to send them way way back to be retrained, which means a player needs a logistic strategic plan amongst all else he/she's juggling. That is vital in EB1 and now will be vital again in EB2 (for M2TW and out in mod-late August 2014). That was a very real problem Hannibal Barca faced when routing the monumental overland journey of Carthegenian troops through Hispania through Gaul through the Alps and into Italia.
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Maklodes, I repped you for writing an excellent post. Let's look at it.

There are times when the game engine generates conflict on purpose through the AI as it's a war game about conflict, right? One of those times invokes a "tall poppy" event (seen in the code) when the player gets into the top three spots. Most players don't know this.

Also there are times when due to how the modder set up the descr_strat, that a certain chance exists of local rebellions. And also there is a file in which the amount and type of rebels show up.

Now what these are intended to be a pleasant diversion so you can test your army, but what a savvy player can do, is send a certain composition of units to handle a threat based upon an observation (a close spy will see them without spying, or even intentionally spy upon them to raise the spy's level of espionage). So you're not to bring the whole army out for a trouncing of rebels. NOPE. What you should do is send a small enough group to test their strength and tactics on a small scale, and hence raise their experience, practice speed versus accuracy versus terrain, and level up those units. This results sometimes in a Heroic victory, a possible candidate for adoption, and a good trait in general for that adoptee. Or, a budding general can take a small group of undersized strength, and thus improve their tactics and gain positive traits.

Now that is strategic thinking. It's not clobbering time and utterly overpowering a small group of rebels with the entire army that one can muster. It's being clever, considering the composition of the rebels, and then trying to decide upon the terrain and range of your archers, how many spearmen, how many light cav, and not bringing as many as the rebels. In this way, I've sometimes used a handful of units, like 3-4, and so defeated five or six, and then strategically gained experience and positive traits.

Do the opposite, and send everyone out, "OK boys! It's lynching time!" Then that posse will of course win, but the commanding named general could get very negative traits (like in EB1).
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Note: the most frustrating aspect in the early game of M2TW is the utter lack of unit balance which results in a total lack of heavy infantry by some kingdoms in their early history, and ignoring this, and only having weak spearmen. Which is messed up as they are DEFENSIVE units, and not strong enough for invasion, and poor in battles, and some player can exploit the autoresolve and end up winning battles of sieges where they are the attacker, when they would surely LOSE if they did that. It's why M2TW has to be modded to be enjoyable, for all kingdoms knew they needed fighting men, an offensive force, not a purely defensive force.

Only defend in Chess or Go, and you're endlessly in "check" and scurrying to react, over and over. Unless you play a mod in which there are early offensive forces and balanced, then this happens. I'll bet it's why people autoresolve in frustration, as it takes clear thinking and understanding terrain to slowly make defensive units "work as offensive" units. But that's a discussion of tactics, particularly Roman tactics of the pre-Legionary period in which Triarii (heavy veterans spearmen) made all the difference in making an enemy collapse.

[irishron]

"Strategic use" of autoresolve. If i were one that just had to fight every battle for one's own ego trip for lack of a better term at the moment, if I was down to half strength in a castle or a walled settlement that had already seen more than its share of battles including breaches big enough to ram a decent cavalry through, three full stacks sieging, time for me to autoresolve and move on. The odds of me holding the place if I decide to fight are already down to 6:1 against and dropping the longer the siege lasts.

Now if I can get Baghdad soon enough, fortified to suit me, and get the units replenished and upgraded, Timur and his elephant cannons are going to know they've been in a fight.

One thing that I read about officers long before Total War got me was a quote and I don't remember the author or even if it's totally accurate, "While the young officer is honing his tactics, the veteran officer is concentrating on logistics".

[RubiconDecision]

"Strategic use" of autoresolve. If i were one that just had to fight every battle for one's own ego trip for lack of a better term at the moment, if I was down to half strength in a castle or a walled settlement that had already seen more than its share of battles including breaches big enough to ram a decent cavalry through, three full stacks sieging, time for me to autoresolve and move on. The odds of me holding the place if I decide to fight are already down to 6:1 against and dropping the longer the siege lasts.

Now if I can get Baghdad soon enough, fortified to suit me, and get the units replenished and upgraded, Timur and his elephant cannons are going to know they've been in a fight.

One thing that I read about officers long before Total War got me was a quote and I don't remember the author or even if it's totally accurate, "While the young officer is honing his tactics, the veteran officer is concentrating on logistics".

I completely agree with the quote at the end, as it's spot on. However, the point of fighting each battle is to reduce attrition so that you're not fighting with under strength units and having the issues you mentioned. And think, "Understrength units is honestly a historical problem!" as a general in history was trapped and could lose, but barely held on, and that's what made him brilliant or legendary with fame, because in the worst situation with troops that were far from elite, he still won, but only just barely. He subsequently might lose, for the battle had so damaged his army, that any question of further battles was out of the question until he could resupply with fresh troops, and let the veterans heal i.e. logistics.

This comes up in the ahistorical Kingdom of Heaven, as Balian has really levies and not knights and armored sergeants, but men who are uncertain of themselves, have little to no experience, but because of morale and brilliant defensive tactics, hold out until Saladin sues for peace. Balian knows that if he can hold out, and make Saladin suffer with huge loses, it might demoralize the besieging army, and make Saladin's loses so bad, so deep, that it harm Saladin's fame which draws new units.

A rather brilliant tactician and strategist who runs the LegendsofTotalWar youtube channel, and who is a member of this community, intentionally demonstrates that one who uses tactics and strategy can use PEASANTS to win battles, and does this with finesse and should be studied as essential tactics. This guy is hysterically funny, a great communicator, and an asset to the forum. (salty language in the vid)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwg...UNL9srg/videos

Autoresolving would have resulted in crushing losses each time.

[irishron]

In RTW GD there is a thread by Biscuits along with his clan name that has a thread with his videos in it for RTW tactics. I have not watched them but the few responses he has received have been positive.

I have not fooled with it because (1)he has not spammed the site with it and (2)he has not bumped it to keep it on top. Things can change though.

It's like Eisenhower and Bradley trying to make sure to logistics are in place to cover their asses when Patton and Montgomery hit France running using tactics on each other as well as the Germans to see who gets to Berlin first.

[RubiconDecision]

In RTW GD there is a thread by Biscuits along with his clan name that has a thread with his videos in it for RTW tactics. I have not watched them but the few responses he has received have been positive.

I have not fooled with it because (1)he has not spammed the site with it and (2)he has not bumped it to keep it on top. Things can change though.

It's like Eisenhower and Bradley trying to make sure to logistics are in place to cover their asses when Patton and Montgomery hit France running using tactics on each other as well as the Germans to see who gets to Berlin first.

And this is the much larger picture of M2TW. I think most people just play the game for a year, and get bored with it. But in reality it was revolutionary, and there's a ton of depth to it, so that a player has to consider things like logistics.

Even more so for the players who are not trouncing the AI, but actually might invoke a cheat command to add to the AI's units, or finish off the AI's infrastructure projects, or to mod the AI with garrison scripts. Those players are making the game way harder by helping a less than adequate AI so they have to fight much more difficult odds.

This versus autoresolving and attempting to control as much territory in the least amount of time.

Logistics is a major aspect and most M2TW videos on youtube are strictly talking about tactics or what territories they conquered, not the strategic planning that went into handling the financial aspects, or religious aspects, or logistical issues, or the naval issues, or the trade issues, etc. That's a ton of strategic planning and not merely who gets where first.

Steam-rolling is a major flaw in the game unmodded, for if a player cripples his surrounding opponents in the vanilla game, and in the first 50-100 turns, then the entire game can be won by crushing the weak AI. That's no fun, and no challenge, and I loathe games like that.

P.S. Monty was a legend in his own mind and just a shameless self-promoter.

Ever play 4 way chess? Each of the four players takes a corner of the board and can't communicate but try to work together. The funniest FOW situations happen where one player on one side thinks the other player (on his team)will do this move, he fails, and he's screwed because of that assumption.

That happens with agreements of naval transport in Diplomacy, an old board game. If your ally screws you by not having his fleet in a spot when you need it to transport your troops, you're hosed.

Such a MP game of M2TW would rock! That happened all though WW2.

[NobleNix]

Independently came to same conclusion. I seem to always do much better on manual than AR, except in this one specific case: siege attacker of fortress/citadel or when defending AI has enough troops to man all accessible walls of castles and other settlements.

[John Doe]

Independently came to same conclusion. I seem to always do much better on manual than AR, except in this one specific case: siege attacker of fortress/citadel or when defending AI has enough troops to man all accessible walls of castles and other settlements.

Yeap, I AR as well in this situation, I like to put two or three full squad around the settlement, I noticed it reduce my loss even further when I have a huge numerical superiority.

[RubiconDecision]

So will wonders never cease? Bullying results in winning siege battles. How long did it take to figure out?

The vanilla M2TW has no factor in the EDCT to reduce the morale of besieging armies, but lots of mods have this. That results in some fairness in bringing multiple stacks of armies led by named characters and sitting still and besieging and results in quite a loss of supplies resulting in progressively lower morale, and it results in seasonal acquisition of disease. Which means logistics becomes a factor as irishron and I were discussing.

Since the AI can sally, and the AI named character might have night battle capability, then sometimes it's better NOT to attack from multiple sides with long besieging, but instead to attack with one army, but have a second stack of cavalry behind the first attacker who is besieging mostly with infantry and archers. Why? The AI will think twice of sallying, as that means going up against your cavalry reinforcements. Had you had two stacks attacking, then if one stack is manned by a named character who cannot fight a night battle, the AI who can will attack one army only by sallying, and possibly wreck your plans. Especially if the defending AI has decent cavalry, they might attack your weaker infantry attackers, and outmaneuver them upon sallying, and wearing out your infantry who cannot catch them.

Which is why autoresolving is a waste, as that cripples the AI from doing that, and allows a weaker unit composition created by a beginning player to win when they NEVER would win if they had to fight it out. Or a brilliant win by a poor composition when tactics are employed by an insightful player. "Crud, the defenders sallied and brought cavalry against my few heavy infantry and mostly spearmen. I've got to pick an elevated position with defensive benefits, channel them to come uphill where they can't manuever and can't charge, and then rotate my spearmen to not buckle from morale loss and attrition." A smart player can do that, but only if they have tactics. In fact, one could have a terrible army composition, and intentionally wait out a siege (a long one) and demoralize the defending AI, and do just that. But that means that map coordinate point has a defensible hill, because fighting against cavalry on a flat meadow means getting your soldiers mowed down like wheat.

So autroresolving robs the AI and the player of these kinds of opportunities but it does make battles faster, and it covers up deficits in the novice player's strategic thinking.

[Maklodes]

Another potential use of auto-resolve might be assaulting armies in highly mountainous terrain. E.g., if you attack an army that's in the alps, just on the edge of a passable valley, then they're likely to be on top of a big mountain which gives them a pretty significant defensive advantage. I don't think auto-resolve takes terrain into account. (I find this often happens if the army withdraws from your initial challenge -- its retreat path often seems to take it to the edge of a mountain, which I suppose is sensible if they anticipate being attacked.)

[RubiconDecision]

So if you can't win because the enemy took the high ground, then it's strategic to autoresolve so you win regardless since a player might lack tactical skill. I see. Interesting. I've never heard that described as strategic before.

Now, for ever other commander in history, who actually had the enemy taking the high ground, it meant deciding how to best utilize tactical skill with your ranged units, displacing the enemy, grinding away at their resolve and making them break, maybe using fire arrows, or finding a way to flank or pin them. But use autoresolve if it makes players feel better.

Since a stronger attacker might force the AI to retreat to a defensible position, then that means to strategically create ambushes by anticipating where the AI will retreat to, and thus rob the AI from that defensible position. Oh wait, that's real strategy, not BS.

Imagine a campaign map, where H means High Ground and numbers mean map coordinate points, and A means the attacker, and D means the defender.

H H 3
4 5 6
7 D A

The Attackers (A) are in the SW position on the map and heads W to attack the Defenders (D). The Defenders will probably retreat to position 1 or 2 which are defensible due to High Ground. Position 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are lower in elevation or on the same elevation, and have little benefit to the Defenders (D). If A can attack D anywhere in that matrix, and D can only retreat to those points, then A (if they have their head screwed on straight), should deploy ambushers to position 1 or 2 to rob the Defenders of the ability retreat there. If low on forces, then sending the units most capable of using that high ground, but likely with at least some defense and maybe some cavalry.

Why? Archers can benefit from elevated positions. Some spearmen could likely hold off the Defenders, while the rest of the Attackers can handle them. Cavalry from a high position will end up mowing down the Defenders if the AI is dumb enough to fall for the ambush.

Anticipate where there is an elevated position in reference to your own by zooming in and taking a look and making a judgement call. When you click on the AI army, a yellow pattern will show which estimates where the AI can move that turn. Then look for forested regions where you also can set up ambushes too.

In this way, a player can strategically force the AI to fight upon some terrain.

[Maklodes]

One strategy I've found for auto-resolve is breaking up Mongol/Timurid super-stacks.

Basically, the Mongols and Timurids have several advantages -- good generals, high-quality troops, etc -- but their biggest advantage, I'd say, is their tendency to form "super-stacks" -- multiple full stacks acting together in tight coordination and offering mutual support.

The idea is to create a sort of super-stack of your own (maybe five stacks or so), full of auto-resolve strong units like DFKs and such, and attack the "corner" of a Mongol super-stack with auto-resolve.

You won't inflict very severe casualties on them, and you'll suffer some of your own, but the important point is not to significantly weaken any individual stack, but rather to inflict a defeat (even a minor one) which causes the stack to retreat, which allows the stack to be isolated and fought more one-on-one, effectively breaking the super-stack into individual stacks which can't count on heavy reinforcement by neighboring stacks.

It doesn't completely fail (I used it vs. Timurids last campaign), but I'm not sure whether it's actually worth it compared to other strategies, since it does require a rather large outlay. Anyone else tried it? Anyone tried fighting Mongol/Timurid super-stacks with a super-stack of your own and tried commanding it as a manual battle?

[UndrState]

One strategy I've found for auto-resolve is breaking up Mongol/Timurid super-stacks.

Basically, the Mongols and Timurids have several advantages -- good generals, high-quality troops, etc -- but their biggest advantage, I'd say, is their tendency to form "super-stacks" -- multiple full stacks acting together in tight coordination and offering mutual support.

The idea is to create a sort of super-stack of your own (maybe five stacks or so), full of auto-resolve strong units like DFKs and such, and attack the "corner" of a Mongol super-stack with auto-resolve.

You won't inflict very severe casualties on them, and you'll suffer some of your own, but the important point is not to significantly weaken any individual stack, but rather to inflict a defeat (even a minor one) which causes the stack to retreat, which allows the stack to be isolated and fought more one-on-one, effectively breaking the super-stack into individual stacks which can't count on heavy reinforcement by neighboring stacks.

It doesn't completely fail (I used it vs. Timurids last campaign), but I'm not sure whether it's actually worth it compared to other strategies, since it does require a rather large outlay. Anyone else tried it? Anyone tried fighting Mongol/Timurid super-stacks with a super-stack of your own and tried commanding it as a manual battle?

Sure, I've done something like this many a time. I'm inclined to bait the Mongols into that narrow valley between Acre and Antioch, and it's doable using your method as it's simple enough to block off other retreat routes so the stack in question ends up there. Then it's an easy two on one for the win.

[Samir]

what general, what military historian would ever think of autoresolving?

funny that you mention them, because they ARE autoresolvers waiting for an outcome they cannot influence any more than someone autoresolving and most soldiers probably would love to have note with numbers about who won instead of CQB

yes I deliberatly misunderstood you, but I read your wall of text...

[RubiconDecision]

There's only one time I will autoresolve, and that's when I am besieging multiple settlements with identical offensive and defensive stats, plus my computer is overheating especially due to two or more reinforcement armies. This makes my computer glitchy with expected casualties no different from fighting it with tactics. Since I don't use the timer, I fight it out, which benefits the defender. In chess or MTW2 Kingdoms that's failure by the attrition of being besieged. That path is likely doomed in real life. In the game, the AI makes poor decisions on attacking without proper nightbattle generals and/or cavalry reinforcement. That means it's easy to defend against them, nightbattle sally, break sieges, etc.

You can't use tactics, or learn to break the AI with a small force, and will likely lose by calculated autoresolve. For tips, watch several excellent videos here. All the glory comes from seizing initiative through tactics and terrain and boldness i.e. guts. Search for Top 5 Legend of Total War moments by SynthenoidBolt. It's the funniest and certainly possible tactic to pull off despite being outnumbered.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwgoZXczzKRm4eurUNL9srg/videosg

[UndrState]

Once again here to advocate the purity of your ridiculous prohibition on autoresolving, instead of discussing the matter proposed by the OP, eh RD ?

[RubiconDecision]

Once again here to advocate the purity of your ridiculous prohibition on autoresolving, instead of discussing the matter proposed by the OP, eh RD ?

How is mentioning the two times I autoresolve a prohibition? Nice incoherent post there.

If my system is overheating due to the above, or a standard siege in which by experience I see a less than 50 soldier loss variable (vs. fighting it out), then I might autoresove. But generally some factor 95% of the time makes autoresolving dumb.

Say I autoresolve and lose 50 more soldiers more each time than fighting carefully with multiple siege tactics. Well that cumulative attrition is expensive and potentially causes losses that never would happen particularly with artillery losses based upon autoresolve calc formulas. As artillery are the hardest to gain experience, autoresolving is a bad idea. If it's a named_character loss, the expense incalcuable; if it's 50 spear levies of low experience...who cares?
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As the video clip demonstrates very accurately, by autoresolving that sally when very outnumbered, the besieger would always lose. If you fight it out, draw back to force the AI to extend themselves far from the protection of walls, cavalry, due to speed, can flank and outright kill plus induce cascading routing...creating heroic victories, new potential adoptions, or excellent traits.
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Do whatever you want but laughably describing autoresolving as strategic makes me giddy with laughter.

[Ventos Mustel]

The point of the thread is: what are the cases in which autoresolving is advantageous to the player versus playing out the battle. The answer being, when the AI would have a strong advantage on the battlefield either by superior terrain (ex: at the top of a mountain), superior mobility (missile cav versus an infantry force), being a siege defender, or having units whose autoresolve value is significantly less than their battlefield value (again, missile cav, and artillery), and the player's skill would not result in a better result than the autoresolve (most often the case in uphill mountain battles or sieges where the AI has a large number of ranged units, who will unavoidably land several volleys onto the attacker no matter how good they are)

The point is not 'is autoresolving realistic', or 'does autoresolving require as much attention to detail as playing a battle', as you seem to be arguing

[RubiconDecision]

The point of the thread is: what are the cases in which autoresolving is advantageous to the player versus playing out the battle. The answer being, when the AI would have a strong advantage on the battlefield either by superior terrain (ex: at the top of a mountain), superior mobility (missile cav versus an infantry force), being a siege defender, or having units whose autoresolve value is significantly less than their battlefield value (again, missile cav, and artillery), and the player's skill would not result in a better result than the autoresolve (most often the case in uphill mountain battles or sieges where the AI has a large number of ranged units, who will unavoidably land several volleys onto the attacker no matter how good they are)

The point is not 'is autoresolving realistic', or 'does autoresolving require as much attention to detail as playing a battle', as you seem to be arguing

No.
Due to the limitations of the MTW2 engine and AI, the player will just about always win strategically, but can lose tactically.Much of modding has been to discover ways to benefit the AI not the player. This is why the tall poppy code is in there, money scripts, garrison scripts, brigands, Baron's Alliance, spawning, difficulty level, battle level etc exist to challenge the player.

Largely people autoresolve for time savings and due to deficits in understanding terrain, weather, movement, speed, elevation, range, impact cohesion, mass, etc.

Learning when to ambush, redeploy, split forces, fortify, etc in a persistent intentional manner is strategy.

A player could autoresolve the whole time and win but it would suck.

If the rationale is to avoid archers then you'd rather cripple the AI if smart and building towards the English position at Agincourt than to deal with it as the French.


The Mongols main strength are horse-archers and you can beat them autoresolving if you deny them a chance to dart around your forces. Why bother playing if there's no chance to lose? You've eliminated thrill from the game by doing that. That's like only asking ugly girls for a date so never having to deal with rejection.

[Ventos Mustel]

Firstly, that comment at the end regarding 'dating only ugly girls' is completely unwarranted.

Secondly, you do not appear to be understanding that whether or not you find autoresolving to be less thrilling, or fun, or engaging is not the point of the matter. The question the thread asked is: given a particular battle, when is it advantageous in terms of game state to click the autoresolve button instead of the fight battle button. Your personal preferences dont enter into it at all, the question is one of pure game mechanics