Anyone still auto battle?

[DeletedUser5800]

I used to frequently auto and always win, after all the updates I have to fight manual because auto makes stupid decisions and always loses. I like doing the battles but don't always have the time which has led to just catering a lot to the point of deleting an armory to make room for a gem factory. What I'm wondering is, did I just get to far ahead for auto to win despite stupid decisions or did it actually get worse at decision making after the updates? Will it get better or am I doomed to cater unless I stop scouting for ages? I'm at the end of dwarves and have already scouted enough to unlock orcs (I know, I was to excited) but I can win manually, so what happened with auto?
If I'm just to far ahead that's fine but just curious if the dif. is me or the auto function, is it still good for smaller and bigger people and I'm just in a bad spot? I was also to far ahead when it used to work...
I do expect it to take more losses or it would defeat the purpose of manual but it losing 100% of the time now seems to make it without purpose.

 

[DeletedUser3696]

I only auto tournaments and never in provinces. I just know I'm going to sacrifice troops for the sake of speed.

A typical province (8 fights) with strategical planning will take about 1/2 an hour. I couldn't imagine trying to do a tournament when I would have to spend like 5 hours of mind-numbing boredom, all just to save a few thousand troops.

If I get desperate I'll just loop the quests to get extra supplies - if I have no other option.

 

[Tauriel Dragonwood]

I auto battle when I am competing in the Tournaments. If I didn't, I would constantly hear voices from another realm saying, "Mom, where's dinner?"

 

[DeletedUser4195]

I used to frequently auto and always win, after all the updates I have to fight manual because auto makes stupid decisions and always loses.

I'm halfway through dwarves and I now have 134 provinces conquered. I rarely battle manually. I win 90% of my battles on auto battle and negotiate the 10% I lose. If I wanted to waste the time fighting I'd win those on manual battle. I'm not having any issues at all simply because I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I'm careful to maintain that and although my progression has slowed I'm still creeping ahead. Good luck to you.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I'm not having any issues at all simply because I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

Right, my fault for getting to excited, I figured, just not sure why auto used to win even though I was still to far ahead, maybe things just got more complex and those two things together are to much for it, or I was just lucky before and not now. Thanks for the insight anyway, guess I'll cater and manual when I have the time until orcs and then rethink my enthusiasm for scouting ahead while I'm stuck there.

 

[DeletedUser61]

I like to treat Combat as a logistics puzzle, and I consequently turn control over to the AI as soon a possible.

But not auto-fight per se, because I want to watch the actual fight so that I can better predict what the AI is going to do.

 

[DeletedUser2963]

The last time I turned my fight over to the AI, I got to watch my treant wonder around in a circle several squares away from combat...... Seriously! I never did it again. Yes I do auto fight, but I just can't watch it!!!

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I want to watch the actual fight so that I can better predict what the AI is going to do.

So from watching do think it's doing as good of job as prechanges, I haven't just watched many being that with me it's have time to do it right or hope auto does it kind of right... just haven't been any kinda rights at all since the updates and I was trying to get at if the variable was it or me. I think it maybe both.

 

[DeletedUser61]

I don't much care if they use Scotch Tape and Clarinet Reeds. My fun comes from "beating" the AI, and when the AI is controlling BOTH sides of the battle, I can minimize the weakness of my troops, and take full advantage of any dumb moves that the opponent is likely to make.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I tried taping Clarinet Reeds to my CPU, that still didn't help auto work, guess that wasn't the problem.

 

[DeletedUser3297]

In Arendyll, I autofight tournaments and some provinces where my squadsize is greater than the enemy's size. When we are on equal ground, I manual fight and sometimes autofight towards the end but only if I am sure that the Ai will win and not have my troops wandering in circles. However, I am in Dwarves and have 103 provinces conquered. I have a lot more that I know are winnable before I will have to unlock the Fairy advance scout. This is my fighting city and I will always be able to fight here

In my other Dwarven city in Felyndral, I am around 160 provinces and the battles are not winnable. Their squadsizes are more than double my own. But I need more space, so I will continue to send scouts out and cater. But soon I know I will hit a wall here with Orcs. This is my negotiating city and I will never be able to fight here again.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Autobattle just plain sucks.
The complete lack of intelligent moves is obvious when in manual fight you use your ranged unit and just click on the unit you want it to attack. It will often move to an extremely disadvanteous position, placing itself in such a way it can be attacked by more units, even when it could move to a position where it could only be attacked by one melee unit, or even none.
Losses in autobattle are almost invariably way higher than when using manual. The problem with the manual battles is that they take far too long.

 

[Mykan]

What I'm wondering is, did I just get to far ahead for auto to win despite stupid decisions or did it actually get worse at decision making after the updates? Will it get better or am I doomed to cater unless I stop scouting for ages? I'm at the end of dwarves and have already scouted enough to unlock orcs (I know, I was to excited) but I can win manually, so what happened with auto?

I auto fight a lot because of this ( yes I also do manual fights too)

Losses in autobattle are almost invariably way higher than when using manual. The problem with the manual battles is that they take far too long.

The devs need recognise the AI needed a catch up after the battle updates, no clue if they have done this now or not. So it did get "worse" a little and is being worked on but if you are in fights of 1:1 up to about 1:1.4 it seems to be similar in losses to prior to the update. Your situation is more then likely the issue with auto as your fight difficulty is probably beyond what the AI can handle. Using auto in tournaments you start to see more clearly when the difficulty surpasses the AI's ability, which varies by key unit (personally light melee got the shaft on this).

 

[maeter75]

I still use auto but mostly for tournament where I know the mix for the battle will be good. When I watch an actual auto battle, some of the moves the AI makes is not so great. On the world map, I dont ever use auto battle.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

@Mykan
I've not paid attention to the question whether the losses on autofight got worse or not.
I just stated than when using autobattle you will almost always run heavier losses than with a manual fight.

I do the province battles (IF at all possible) manually. When I'm at the point where victory is certain I used the autobattle to finish, but even then, with fewer units left, the AI rushes mage units and ranged units into positions where they are vulnerable to a counter even when it's aboslutely not needed. So I stopped doing that.
Autobattle is only good for tournaments at low levels, IF one has enough troops to deal with the losses. Beyond that it's pretty worthless.
I use it on the tournaments midlevel as well, but that's because I have more than enough troops to take the losses and just don't want to spend the time on manual as it takes far too long.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

All very good stuff. Thanks everyone, I'll start autoing the beginning of the tournaments (and watching when I have time to get a better feel for how stupid the AI is and better manage it) and keep doing manual on the world when I just want to and as soon as the event stops making me scout try and slow that down until I catch up a bit on the tree... Try to fall back into a more balanced spot so the auto can get back to having a mild chance... all while hoping they make it just a little bit smarter in the future.

 

[DeletedUser3696]

All very good stuff. Thanks everyone, I'll start autoing the beginning of the tournaments (and watching when I have time to get a better feel for how stupid the AI is and better manage it) and keep doing manual on the world when I just want to and as soon as the event stops making me scout try and slow that down until I catch up a bit on the tree... Try to fall back into a more balanced spot so the auto can get back to having a mild chance... all while hoping they make it just a little bit smarter in the future.

You need to have troops you don't care about or can replace without too much loss of supplies.

The frustrating part is seeing an easy match-up on paper and suffering massive losses, only attributable to terrain and bad AI. Still beats manual fighting.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

Still beats manual fighting.

I actually like the manual fighting, but if that's all I did my kids would starve to death and I would never have time to rant about stuff in forums.

 

[DeletedUser3297]

Manually fighting a province is fun, when you have time. But it takes a very long time to do. So when you actually need a province for a quest or whatever, it is a lot easier to autofight it and be done