What my theory on the autocalc is is that I want to get the same results that I would get if I RTSed the battle.
Agreed.
As for sending in a stream of cheap units to wear down the enemy. Those results are reproducible easily in the RTS mode. It's not a problem with the autocalc it's a problem with how the game is structured (being able to recruit units to accompany your starting forces). It's a little late to change that now (and it is not a huge problem, every game has some OP strategies).
Disagree with both points. It's an issue with how casualties are calculated in both the rts mode and autoresolve. At present it's based on a relatively direct proportion of how many units die in combat which doesn't respond well to starting with a few or even an overwhelming amount of extras. Instead of this you could match the units against each other more directly and apply far less of a weighting to what happened in the RTS portion. So even if you lost that battle between 1 Trooper vs 3 Hunters an Armour and a Shaman you might only expect to lose one of the Hunters, the other units would be pushed back.
I'd also say while every game will have some slightly overpowered strategies good games never have completely overpowered strategies. In particular though sending streams of cheap units against armies completely kills any depth in the campaign map.
Sending a constant stream of cheap units into battle is a completely degenerate strategy and there seems to be no counter to it.
Just because a lone weak unit can sometimes do larger than expected damage, doesn't mean that that would be an effective long term strategy.
Even if that did prove to be effective (has anyone actually recommended spamming cheap units and spreading out as thin as possible?), it could easily be countered by using cheap units along the border of someone doing that, or by advancing your own cheap units.
This is not acknowledging the scale of the issue, it's not that cheap units sometimes do higher than expected damage, it's that singular units almost always do massively disproportionate amounts of damage against large numbers of entrenched foes. Not only is it an effective long term strategy it's the only effective long term strategy. Keeping your army behind the lines and using singular units to counter singular units is just wasting resources by never bringing them to bear, and risking them being brought into combat through the use of strategy cards.
