"Hero tends to only die if you get unlucky and the enemy is not wiped out in the first round" Wait, if its auto resolve, why would rounds come in to play I'm confused.
Ever look at the combat log? First all your guys get to attack then the enemy gets to attack. Distance and all other factors are pretty much ignored in auto-resolve. The only thing that matters is if you make a melee attack the enemy gets a counter attack if it survives the hit. So once all your guys make their opening attacks the AI units attack your guys following the same rules. If one of the happens to target your Hero then odds are it could die. But since first strike is all that really matters if you got high ATK guys then it's fine.
Oh yea and everyone seems to get 1 attack regardless of SPD. The whole system seems like it's simply left over place holder that was in for combat during the beta. And even back then people talked about how terrible it was. I figured it would of gotten an overhaul when tactical combat was added but it seems to be just like it was back then. Honestly I think it should do "normal" combat in the background to resolve it cause the current system make utility spells completely worthless.
I think the game will resolve the battles trough normal combat rounds that are calculated rapidly, without the need for a combat screen or player interaction.
Nope. Auto-Resolve uses completely different rules then normal tactical combat. It's just normal tactical combat gets repeative after a while so people like to auto-resolve to speed things along. Like when hunting monsters for gildar as they often spawn as fast as you can kill them in some areas.