SorcererKing Forums
If the automatic-win auto-battles are going to take place, then there needs to be no loss of hit points otherwise let us fight the battle.
I've even lost guys in those auto battles because of Trog Archers. Mind you, the Trog Archers have been nerfed somewhat it would seem.
Yeah I'm guessing the auto-battle slider (option) isn't working right now?
There seems to be a new feature where auto battles automatically happen if you are considered 'guaranteed' to win but there remains a chance one unit will lose a small number of hit points.
Or even die if they start low enough. Especially against a ranged enemy.
I don't like broken features. But I'm guessing SD will claim this is WAI...
Make sure you have sufficient healing potions, fireball- and blizzard scrolls in your inventory. The auto battle will use them, thereby preventing any loss of units.
And when you still have loss of hit points on a hero/unit, you do have researched the healing spell, do you? So you can simply top the units off in the strategic map by using either the healing spell or a healing potion. No need to ever lose an unit/hero.
I dont want my scrolls and potions to be used on lame encounters, which i can win without any hp loss by hand. And I haven't got heal in my last game (one cannot reasearch all the spells for some reason).
I too don't like it when my units loose hit points in those battles.
I would agree that I don't want to auto-resolve an encounter in a situation where a unit of mine will take damage. I also don't want the auto-resolve to make use of my consumables.
If it's not clear, I am referring to the auto-resolve that happens on the strategic map automatically - NOT the auto resolve that a player can choose as opposed to a manual battle when the fight is a more even match.
I agree. NO battles should be auto-resolved if you have auto-resolve limit set to 0 or 1. That's the way it was in LH, and with the great increase in damage/HP ratio, it is even more imperative that we should not have the option to fight manually taken away from us. After all, is this not a single player game when no-one else is waiting?
Dunno, I kind of like the automatic autoresolve.
Losing a few units unpredictably does reflect the attrition of battle: isn't any battle where you KNOW the outcome by definition not interesting?
I actually like the feature as is. Though so far I seem to be the minority.
Something I have noticed over the course of the Elemental Games and which bleeds into SK is when you auto resolve with a group any damage taken is normally taken to the last individual or group in the results list. I have tested this by organizing a different unit to be the last unit in the auto resolve and the theory stands. This is not applicable to large battles in which would be been difficult in the first place. It is applicable to small battle where one would only take minimal damage and not kill a unit. That damage, again, would go to the last unit in the unit queue during an auto resolve. I do not know if there is a fix of this. Anyone else notice this?
I concur. It always seems to be the last unit that takes the damage. The truly illogical thing is when the unit is say a magic user that is positioned in the rear of your units. So, supposedly, the enemy charges through your lines (even though they wouldn't have the movement points to do so) and hacks the magic user up a bit before getting dispatched. Something is not quite right.
Yep, that's why I always add some garbage unit like a soldier to the stack last. : )
Yes, if you know the outcome of a battle then it's not very interesting to play it out. But auto-fighting the battle and not knowing the outcome is exactly as uninteresting. Both scenarios play themselves out without any player agency, it's hard to see an advantage in either one.
So instead of perfecting the slider that chooses between these options, I would look at why these severely mismatched fights are happening in the first place. Maybe battles can introduce a "retreat" mechanism that will destroy the defending army but refund a portion of it's cost to the player. Or maybe there can be a mechanism in the tactical battle that allows a faction to bring their army up to some minimum threat level. For example, a global summon ability could serve this purpose nicely (summoning units into a battle even when the caster is not in that army). Or another example: Introducing some concept of supply lines could impose a cost for repeated attacks by the same stack and discourage players from mopping up the map with their super-army.
I would agree though that auto-resolve should be predictable if it's going to be enforced. There's nothing worse than Death by RNG.
I've noticed the last unit thing as well. I even sometimes deliberately split up and reconfigure my army to exploit this. I suspect it's legacy from GalCiv2.
This needs to be fixed.
Just a thought. My suggestion for the DM-controlled autoresolve is this:
Have the enemy run-away.
It's almost identical in practice but the benefits are:
No loss in control,
no loss of items,
no loss of units,
no loss of time on a trivial fight.
As in literally run away on the map? Or do you mean just disappear from the map. The latter sounds very agreeable to me. I don't think I'd want the former as it doesn't help you clean up your territory for safe passage of weak/civilian units.
Indeed I meant the latter. But I can see other possibilities too.
e.g.
Autoresolve when you overwhelm the enemy (current)
Enemy automagically dissolves when you attack them (as above, you see them fleeing and fading away to nothing)
or,
When you massively overwhelm the enemy you aren't prompted to battle instead you're prompted to either:
Allow the enemy to flee with their lives - gain '1 honour' and experience (they disappear... perhaps joining a nearby stack)
Slaughter fleeing enemy units - gain '1 ruthlessness' and loot
Offer them a chance to join you - gain '1 pragmatism' and a unit
That sounds phenomenal!
Franknfurter has a very good idea reminiscent of Age of Wonders 3 
I'm always looking back to old games. So I'm thinking Heroes of might and magic (I've played 3/4/5/6) where you're given several options with fleeing enemies. But SK has the option of fully integrating the new mechanics into such a system. Intangible resources like 'ruthlessness' could be the 'fun' in having the DM decide a battle is trivial. Anyway, each time I'm a little annoyed with SK I also think - it wouldn't take a massive change for me to love this instead of hating it.
HOMM6 has the blood/tears split in killing/sparing fleeing enemies. But I'd love for it to be a more difficult decision. Having positives *and* negatives of each choice is the most important part of it. Also, making things *feel* less annoying is important to me too. (Even if you don't change the mechanics too much)
Yeah, a retreat mechanism would work great. For me, the key is to remain in control of the visible game mechanics. So from that perspective:
If an enforced auto-battle makes me lose 5% of my unit's HP, that's bad.
If an enforced auto-battle gives me the option to lose 5% of my unit's HP or allow the enemy units to retreat to their capital, that's good.
I really like the idea of having a separate honor/pragmatic/ruthless stat for the player, but even if this can't be done it would be good to change the existing method. The current solution of putting a junk unit in the last slot feels a bit hacky to me.
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