I've said it before but I think there's an issue with the level of casualties in matches you resolve yourself as well. If I send a single trooper against an army worth 50 gold and manage to get 50% casualties before I'm defeated it seems unreasonable that I should wipe out 25 gold worth of troops on the strategy map. If we're using the rules that I can only participate in one fight a turn then maybe that can be justified but in that case we certainly shouldn't be using this kind of modelling for auto-resolve.
With the way casualties are currently organised there's no tension between creating a strong force that can battle effectively versus keeping all areas of the map defended because a single large force is much less effective than a number of small forces.
