1) I agree with you, the auto-resolve can yield very different results. A single stack that you cannot ever defeat in auto-resolve can easily be zerged in normal, making sure the counter-attacks hit the right units and so on.

2) I also think the autoresolve should be "weaker". I mean, part of the game is getting good at it. If the autoresolve will just do it for you, where is the skill involved? I guess my point is, you can't expect an automatic feature to measure your skill, that has to be done in normal mode.

concur. But sometimes there is no way--by any experience level--that one would lose a given battle. It is like the AI's planning. I never get attacked unless I initiate. In other games, the AI would gang up on me. As it stands, we play checkers v chess. I agree with the skill level. Actually, that was kinda my point. With the parameters previously stated, I'd kill the AI every time. So if I can kill an enemy in battle with ease in a given number of turns---should it not be the case with the A/R? I am speaking more in terms of a faster paced game; for more complex battles, I DEFINITELY want to go head to head--with a black belt v a white belt? The outcome should be predetermined....IMO.

Thanks. that makes sense.

Last I checked (and I haven't touched auto resolve in months for this very reason, please correct me if I'm wrong!) auto resolve didn't take range into account at all. So if your archer unit went up against a melee, they'd both start hitting each other in the first round. For that reason if no other, auto resolve produces results that have little connection to playing it out, even if it were an AI vs. AI match (which, I agree, is the ideal that auto resolve should be trying to simulate: same result as letting a tactical AI play for you). It's understandable if they want to abstract out certain elements in auto resolve to make it finish faster, but not considering basics like range just breaks it. Not that I'm criticizing at all - as long as we have tactical battles, auto resolve is of secondary importance at best. It definitely needs some more work to be useable, but I understand and support other game elements taking higher priority.

AoW:SM had a mediocre (not perfect, but better than Elemental) simulation for auto resolve - it didn't track the position of units, but it did let ranged units get a free hit or two in before the melees started attacking, and in city combat it created a representative gate unit that melees had to break down before attacking (there's another thing Elemental needs, actual city walls in tactical combat instead of this hp bonus!). It still missed some important things: for example, the limited number of units that can fit into melee range against a single hero is an important factor in tactical battles, it can shift massive 24v1 battles in favor of your lone hero since only 6 of those 24 can actually try to hit him at once (well, fewer if you position him in a good spot like next to a tree, or more if they brought ranged units, but you get the idea). Auto resolve just let every single melee hit your hero at once, which was enough for me to not use it - but at least it included (simplified, abstracted versions of) some basics like ranged attacks and city walls.

Not sure, but I believe A/R just adds up all the stats in the fight. for instance 80 attack, 25 defence, 120 hp. It then gets a value... such as 225 (note... this is NOT the real forumla the game uses to come up with an army rating. I do not know the REAL formula, this is an example...). It then uses some arbitrary "modifier" to that number based on what the devs thought was appropriate. For instance, Side A has essence available. Side B doesn't... Bump Side A by .08

Side B has archers, Side A does not. Bump side B by .10

etc...

They then factor in some random generator and come up with an outcome.

My problem is this. I have a battle. I got 4 units, They got 12. I kill 6. I took me 9 minutes of real time (lag, strategy etc...) I now have the AI in deep poo-poo. MY Army value is 275, His is 94. My morale is 56, his is 30....

I hit A/R so I don't have to waste another 4 minutes (I am assuming the memory leak/lag is bad as I have been playing 4 hrs...) When I hit A/R, I will take some damage (even though I would not have had I played manually), Some of my essence is used (and dear god... I now gotta wait 14 turns to replenish what it used.. lame), and my xp is much less than had I played it out. I believe if I fought manually at 275 vs. 300 I would get "x" amount of xp. But if I play manually, whittle his 300 down to 100, then hit A/R, I only get 1/3rd of the xp I would have received. In fact, the battle summary, only shows the units killed that the A/R killed.

Does anyone know if this is true, I don't have the energy to do a big test.. I was hoping someone else already did one.

sweet thanks for testing and confirming. I am too lazy.

much appreciated

@Dhraconus have I mentioned this week that you are my hero? I mean I know I have in previous weeks, but recently? Thank you for just checking off one of my 'to-do' list.

Phylast, from reading your post, it sounds like you might not be aware of this, forgive me if i am misreading. under game options, on the far right is tactical battle threshold, i believe it defaults to four, and casuses certain battles to autoresolve automaticly denying you the ability to fight them out, based on the number of participants involved i believe. lower it to 0 and it effectively disables it.

The real problem in autoresolve is going to be spells, especially if they start heading the route of say, dominions, a game which acted out each battle, just didn't let you participate beyond a little script of *suggested* actions. can't tell you the number of times some mage at the back of the formation, against orders, raised a fire shield, setting every other commander near him on fire and killing them, when there was zero chance an enemy could get to him. or my favorite, when i had a communion set up with 5 slaves and one master, and i had a nature 1 mage commanding a large army just set to cast vine arrow. for reasons unknown to me, while the communion went off without a hitch, the nature 1 mage cast bezerk instead of vine arrow, for his target, the communion master, who promptly went screaming into battle and died, loosing most of his choice gear and a fat wad of crystals, and screwing up my communion.

If multiplayer is meant to be viable, they are going to have to get auto resolve working to a point where it is useable, reliable. you will get enough twiddling of the thumbs waiting on people with a decent autoresolve, but having to fight out each battle will get ridiculous, and forcing autoresolve on all battles, will get frustrating.

i would prersonally like to see a option screen before the autoresolve begins where you can specify a few parameters. simple things like tell certain units to avoid combat, or set a variable for how much magic you would like used, you know, don't cast, cast freely, last resort, etc. the scripting in dominions, for example, was horribly inadequate as you often ended up forgeting to change your scripts after customizing them for some specific battle, better to have a default and let you quickly customize on a per battle basis.