I can confirm that auto resolve looters is better since they never kill soldiers (never see it).
But.... fighting with them, sometime they kill one or two men. So I auto resolve looters every time.
Again other target, it's never good. Some fight should be loose because enemies outnumbers my peoples. In auto resolve, it's a big defeat (without many enemies loose).
Play it and use tactics, it's possible to win. I win a 500 again 600 because mounted units don't perform in forest. Auto resolve was loosing, loosing and loosing. I play it and destroyed them...
Whileplaying it, you can shut down the leader and it's really good.
And if you should go down, takes a lot of bad guys with you.
All this thing isn't possible in auto resolve.