Right now the troops act quite silly and often act suicidal so it makes it hard to keep your units alive and have them reach high experience level, they usually go MIA before they reach level 3.
It has some interesting potential though, I am not against the 'partially out of your control concept''. It is also arguably more realistic, A general gives orders to their troop, it does not mind control them.
Right now as is in the Alpha I dont like it but I know it is a WIP so I am not too loud about it. I still keep an eyebrow raised because I can easily see the system ending up being a let down.
Ehh...
It's a different implementation than full direct control, it's better than ES at least. It may not appeal to everyone however.
That said, it's really easy to keep troops alive, if you position to the rear and use the hold ground command. Make them come to you, exchange a couple rounds of combat, and then in your next order phase you usually can deal with the enemy with much more certainty in how it will play out. Of course initiative is quite important if you do this, and a decent ranged unit or two helps as well.
I actually find the combat far to 'easy' at the moment because of how powerful hold ground turns out to be in most situations. Yet most units are true glass cannons, so you have to expect to be continuing your production to keep numbers up, as in any 'evenly' matched combat you should and will take casualties.
The glass cannon issue does start to resolve itself as you research up better tier equipment and get your resources online. You can buff up defense to pretty decent levels on various chassis, and if you pick a solid infantry minor faction to assimilate you can tank them up pretty well. Cavalry right now is pretty worthless though, but there is still a lot of balancing yet to be done on units and skills.
