Manual resolve = all hirelings lost including my +5 stat glanfathan hunter becoming unreqruitable, but I get a bit of loot.

 

Auto resolve = no hirelings lost but pay 100g in damage.

 

Why is this?

 

Oh I see why, even friendly AoE like force wall = they get mad and fight back.

Edited April 12, 201510 yr by Mungri

Actually, they can also be killed by the enemies. I don't think I've had a stronghold battle were at least some of my hirelings haven't died (the only time I lost them all was the first stronghold battle I did.)

I was careful to only use Foe targetting only spells like force wall, glyphs and missiles, but they still turned red.

 

I got around it by dismissing all hirelings except the glanfarthan hunter, then casting withdraw on him at the start of the battle and then spamming fireballs + wards at everything in sight.

Edited April 12, 201510 yr by Mungri

Huh, weird. I've never had them turn red, but then I don't recall using many spells during any of the stronghold battles, since the ones I got were all pretty easy. About the only one I know I used was the level 6 cipher massive damage/knockdown one, which targets a party member, so maybe it was better about not hitting the hired guys.

Manual resolve = all hirelings lost including my +5 stat glanfathan hunter becoming unreqruitable, but I get a bit of loot.

 

Auto resolve = no hirelings lost but pay 100g in damage.

 

Why is this?

 

Oh I see why, even friendly AoE like force wall = they get mad and fight back.

Actually it turns out Force Wall isn't so friendly. 

There's one additional annoying feature - hirelings don't recover their health between manual resolves. Not sure if intended.

Ever since my first manual resolve when something went horribly wrong and almost all my hirelings turned on me, my shock Vailian mage - standing right next to the keep's door - attacks me every time he sees me. Even when killed/dismissed and rehired. Furthermore, every time I talk to hirelings on the grounds, the dialogue window shows engagement in melee. Sometimes they attack me too if I bump into them, no hostile intent.

 

I gave up on making sense of my stronghold. I hope this was fixed in the patch, or will be in a future patch.

I had tons of my own guys turn on me for no obvious reason, I remember playing two different fights where I had no clue why they turned hostile. 

In the end I opted to only auto attack during these fights. 

Try my method - dismiss permanent hirelings and rehire them after, get a priest in your group to use withdrawal on guest hirelings and then you can nuke everything.

I haven't lost many since my initial manual, but man is that bad troop placement for a defensive battle.

That way I lost the Dunryd Psion guest during manual resolve. In the earlier try he attacked me and had >125 deflection and other high defenses.