As I keep playing, the one thing i keep noticing is, well, my hearthlings are idots. I constantly get a low health notification because 1 footman thought he could take on every orc out there. By the time of course you usually get this notification its always pointless. Is there some way with either a slider, or a selectable option, to have it so I am in full control of my little minions. After several hours of game play you kinda get attached to the little rascals. With the latest alpha its almost frustrating, which makes the game play less fun. When theres wave after wave now it pretty much becomes a full time baby sitting job instead of a building game. This is just a suggestion, probably until they tune a little more I may have to dumb it down to normal so I can keep some of my sanity.
I like your suggestion of a slider as it gives you some control with out having to completely micro-manage the battles.
I have noticed this as well, I have to watch my footmen very closely, especially when that spot a distance enemy and the combat music does not play until they reach them. At this point the footman is by themselves and without support. I then have to pause issue individual move commands to regroup the Task Force for a combined assault. Once they are able to execute a complex attack, I have to focus on the encounter to manually move troop in and out of the melee to avoid letting them get into the one-shot range of the aggressor. One thing I have started doing is maximizing the amount of clerics I have in the party as the footman benefits from multiple healing auras. The downside from this is that if multiple forces attack I may not notice that they have infiltrated my base camp until I get a notification that someone is low on health or has died. Since workers are squishy on their own a low health warning is basically a death notice. I have started to pause the game during combat and conduct sweeps of the camp periodically in order to detect flank attacks.
Yup this is an issue, especially with the way enemies will pop into the map and ambush lone hearthlings. If your army moved in a group it would be less of an issue (but then they’d be less efficient haulers).