I don't understand why automatic power management would be a bad thing. Do you feel that it's somehow difficult?
Is meaningless clicking and forces pausing the game whenever you lose a base. In a game like starcraft, that makes sense for what they're trying to do, but in a grand strategy game extra clicking should take a backseat to actual gameplay.
For example, trying to have the lowest possible power on is really not how you're supposed to do it. You are supposed to optimize by the cheapest possible.
metal | Crystal | power | Rate(power per resource) |
2 | 2 | 5000 | 1250 |
15 | 15 | 40,000 | 1333 |
40 | 40 | 80,000 | 1000 |
As you can see, you always turn on as many mark 2 reactors, followed by Mark one until you achieve the lowest possible power. If you are still negative, then you turn on a mark three, and repeat the algorithm. I am able to do it without doing any math at all, just by going through the process of turning on all the reactors in the proper order and repeating the process if I lose a base. I don't understand what this adds to the fun factor or strategy. As I understand it, the reason reactors are in the game is to enforce consequences for losing bases and to prevent spamming structures and ships everywhere, not for you to partake in some repetitive optimization clicking.