[Suggestion] Never force me to auto-combat

There is an option in the game settings where you can set how much units are needed to enable tactical combat, and if you set it to 0 it will always propose the choice.

If you could win that battle or inflict serious damage, there is likely a very serious imbalance left in the game. (Casters being able to empty out a mana pool on the first turn comes to mind)

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for tactical battles mattering, but what you can accomplish with the tactical should be within a certain tolerance. If Player A hits Auto-Resolve and loses, and Player B plays it out and wins with his army fully standing, something is wrong with the auto, or something is too easily exploitable with the tactical (AI or Tactics usually)

Ya I would like to also have the option to tac battle them all, If I auto attack a bandit party with a def rating of 55 and combat rating of 66, with my party which has a def rating of 656, and an attack rating of 702, I lose which makes so much sense, then if I attack them I use Infernal on their party and they die. I dont see how they can win when I have more then a 10x advantage on them.

Read reply #1, it already exists.

Not at all.  The game ignores Essence and Intelligence values in combat calculations, and undervalues ranged units.

I just lost the game I was playing because my combat strength 216 stack (including two casters with low attack/defense values but high Essence/Intelligence, and access to disruption spells like Titan's Breath, and two parties of archers) was attacked by a combat strength 230 stack which was two squads of squires or something - 60 hit point, 150 attack/0 defense.

I would have won that fight without casualties.  Blow the enemy back with titan's breath every turn while filling them full of arrows - which would have slaughtered them since they had no armor.

Not a serious imbalance in the game (well, that too, but not *just* that) but an inability of the auto-combat calculator to understand strength that doesn't come from attack values, defense values and hit points.

The only times auto-combat should be used are when one side really massively out-tools the other.

Frankly, I don't see why the default for this setting isn't 0. If some folks really don't want to have to click the auto-resolve button, let them change the setting. But I'm guessing most of us want to have the choice every time.

Well the same could be said for those who want tactical battles every time, they can "just turn the threshold down to 0".

Doesn't really matter what the default is - as long as you can change it to your tastes, you can make it whatever you want.

I think that if any of the "Options" could be gotten rid of to make room for other options it should be the "Threshold" option. It should default to 0, not 4. Why? Because as this thread has proven there are going to be a LOT of people who won't see the option in the "Options" screen. It's better to make it a Choice Every Time then it is to only make it a choice once certain conditions are met. Some people might even view it as a flaw in the design. Example:

"How come I can chose to fight my battles once I get 4 guys in my group but not before?"...

Because you didn't see the "Threshold Option" or didn't know what it means. This is going to be a common problem after release if it isn't set to default to 0 instead of 4.

On a side note, I've noticed the keyboard button for "Next Turn" keeps bouncing around from "Space Bar" to "Enter" every time a new Beta comes out. Please change this back to "Space Bar" and leave it that way. It's a lot easier than hitting enter IMO.

I see now that there is an option, but this is a weird option, its not at all obvious that someone would expect this to be a game option, and its not at all obvious what it does.

If it does stay as an option, at least default it to zero.

lol funny looked for this option as well but could never find it, also I agree with everyone, if you can use tac to win and can't win auto "going by stats" there is obviously something wrong with the combat. The biggest issue and it's been posted tons, is archers are OP and so is magic. However these "SHOULD" be OP, however there should also be units out there that counter these, so without melee per say, you would get owned.

IE

1. magic resited units

2. range resistant units

3. range shooting units, spiders should have some sort of web range ability? I don't know more units need range or counters too.

Finally, don't abuse it thou, at the start and overall , if you have an awsome magic user you should feel uber, if your army is mass range you should deal mass range damage, but just like melee if the mix is right, you will find yourself wishing you had some tanks as well. All I am saying is don't nerf it to exsistance, I think with the right tweek in numbers and or abilities, you can make range and magic still very fun and feel OP , but know that at any minute, you can run into something just as nasty against a range build making you flee!

-chaintm

the reason the threshold button exists is for multiplayer (and good thing too, though if the autoresolve is THAT bad then I'm sure then the multiplayer community will form house rules of a threshold of 0 - or very low). 

However, it's best to play this single-player with it to 0. Oh no! you have to click one more time. 

The default should be 0. It can be raised higher in multiplayer.

Honestly though ... I think the parameters need to be different somehow, like based on combat rating, or based on "odds to win"

For instance ... you could set "all auto for 10-to-1 odds to win or better"  and you could calculate that based on combat rating, numbers, spells available, and current mana

Brad said he wanted it to feel like autoresolve would be an option that meant you wouldn't have had needed to fight the battle yourself because the AI was stupid and lost all your units for you.

That sentence .... its horrible. Separate your ideas/ what you want to say ... and actually connect them together in a way that can be understood.

You have to click one more time... .and you have to even know that this is a game option that you should look for to click!

People should also note; its not like having it set higher than zero saves much clicking; with large combats, the combat screen (where you would chooses between auto or tactical) is still presented to you, its just that the tactical is greyed out, so all you can choose is auto.

At the moment, it doesn't, because it can't recognize utility features, and it thinks that units with very high strength but no defense are good, whereas in reality they'll be annihilated before they ever get to attack anyone.

@Killzemallgod

Okay, so your original premise is that Autoresolve would feel like an option. In other words, if Autoresolve would "feel" like an option then it should be reliable.

Your next assumption, that if its an actual option then you don't NEED to fight the battle yourself ... makes sense. You wouldn't need to fight the battle yourself (Under obvious WIN conditions!!!) if the Autoresolve is reliable and a VALID choice.

Now ... your skip in logic, where your brain must have died, is when you say that the reason Auto-resolve is a VALID option is because the AI is stupid and kills off all your units. So somehow, you go from actually making sense to contradicting yourself. "The Auto-resolve is a valid option because the AI is stupid and gets yourself killed." Is basically what you said.

Now, maybe you were TRYING to say that the AI needs to be smarter because you WANT autoresolve to be a Valid option. But thats not what you actually said. At. All.

Now IS that what you were actually trying to say? That you wanted Auto-resolve to be a valid option?

Or are you simply disillusioned by auto-resolve entirely? Wishing only to laugh at people who actually hope for a decently feasible auto-resolve function between now and the end of time.

Exactly, that's the real problem.  If people don't want battles all the time let that be an option but don't make it the default.  Most people won't realize what's going on and will start complaining.