The issue I have with EL combat is you can auto-resolve or fight it manually. But if you are going to let me fight it manually, then let me do it. The automated orders felt like a hybrid solution that wasn't quite satisfying (though it was original). But very curious to find out what all of you think.

Not alone :) I think Humankind had the perfect battel system as IIRC, you had direct control of units. My only gripe was that it was a bit easy to cheese the AI with ranged units and terrain. My wife and I have been binging EL1 recently, and direct control of units is something that I would have loved, as well as speeding up assaults had I chosen observer, or switch to observe/auto if I started an assault with the manual option. 

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SpikedWallMan wrote:

I hope the battle is more like EL1 and not like Humankind.  To be honest, I felt like HK's battle system was far too complicated and tedious due to all of the factors involved, and every single move almost needed its own spreadsheet to calculate the best action.  EL1 had a deep enough battle system, but it wasn't so massive that it took too much time away from the other X's in the 4X formula.

Disagreed. The battle system in EL1 was the weakest part of the game imo. The devs changed it for a good reason and they have the data to support their decision

Having just done a humankind game against the AI and got up to about gunpowder units, I do also really like the system. I suppose the only issue I noticed and idk if EL2 will have this, but I have times where my units that are range can't not see the target and I don't really understand why. That my only issue with it, everything else I rather like and I hope EL2 take the concept and improves on it.