Alright, first 15 tents is about all I have stomach for watching AI autofight with my stacks with 1UUU down. This one was interesting...
I've picked archers vs. archers so there'd be archers for the enemy to pick from in order to test the theory they like to prioritize going after archers (highest initiative). The sorceress are selected to see if they'll survive with that many enemy archers around and to nerf the two heavy range units. Well, the enemy archers again left my mages alone BUT my mages went after the
archers instead of the heavy range every time until there were no enemy archers left.
First turn was excusable because the mages couldn't reach the heavy range units yet. After that, it became "I want my money back" because I'm paying the mages to nerf the heavy range ASAP. Sorceress vs. light range matchup is not in her favor, but sorceress vs heavy range is. Yet, she kept picking the worse of the two matchups. It does however, further support the initiative priority talked about earlier seems to be weighted a lot in the algo.
The sterling also went after my archer the first time and then went after my mage the second time (archers still within his range) so his job might be to just throw sand into as many people's eyes as possible. The cannoneer stayed on my archers the whole time. I also theorized maybe they go after your units with the most damage to kill them off first, but in one of the higher tents, I had a sorceress bleeding out with 5hp left and they left her alone for the rest of the battle, another head scratcher. It stood out because I kept anticipating they'd kill her off next move and it never happened. I mean, mages have decent initiatives. They go second. Anyway, it seems try as you might to pick the best matchups, AI will just ignore them anyway and pick the worst ones instead.