So what's the result of these three examples? In two of three basic scenarios you have an advantage to personally engage in battle. Only in the scenario in which you have a far bigger army there is just no point to personally engage in battle. And that's how the game should work imo. The 20% probability to lose a battle if you fight with one trooper against four enemy troopers is just wrong imo. You should have way worse chances to lose this battle and same is true for the other way round. If you attack an enemy with a very small army your chances to win by autoresolving should be minimal (REALLY minimal). So if you want to do that, you should be literally forced to engage in combat personally.
Everything else is just "betting on the system": produce one trooper in each round and send him in a country with a big army and autoresolve the battle. After X rounds you will win this country and the enemy army by pure random principle, because the chances of winning the battle are just way too high.....
I agree with what you say if there weren't the possibility of unit production during RTS battle... The point is that 4 troopers against 1 as starting units is not such a huge advantage - especially, if you play 2x2 (even if the other two factions do not have starting units at the beginning of the battle). I think I am quite an average player and I have made the experience that if I start the battle with 4 troopers versus 1 (or vice versa) I can either win or loose very easily (depending on the map). If I rush on the enemy base with my 4 troopers, all of them will be likely killed - either due to produced units or turrets. And even if I succeed to take down this base there is still another opponent in 2x2 who has already produced Giant Blob of Death during the time while I was engaged with the first enemy. As already stated, at the end I can win or not (depending on the map), but I will very certainly suffer heavy losses.
So, my point is: 4 troopers are just a very small starting force compared to all the units which can be produced during RTS. If I engage in battle I am likely to loose all the units - and it is now pretty much what the outcome of the autoresolve is.
The problem is not the autoresolve which promotes the thin-spreading of units but rather the possibility of unit production during RTS. In earlier betas the player was punished for going personally into battle, because the autoresolve gave a result with no losses in the 4 versus 1 trooper situation. Now, it just mirrors what happens if you enter the battle as a dragon.
In the reverse situation, in which I attack with only 1 trooper against 4, I also have a pretty decent chance to win the RTS battle (because I can produce lots of units during RTS). That is also the result which I get with autoresolve.
