I was thinking, there should be some kind of AI button to allow for an auto-retreat option for battles that you may not be able to monitor closely (especially if you have sevral battles going on at once). These stances will determine when the ships retreat; let's just say for the sake of an example, the four stances are 0% (to the death) 25% hull integrity, 50%, and 75% hull integrity. That way, when their hull integrity (armor hit point) gets down to the set percentage, they attempt to disengage and retreat to either a.) the system they last visited, or b.) the nearest friendly or allied system.

By doing this, you can send a fleet to raid a planet, set them at 50%, and then go about managing the rest of your empire, or preparing an invasion fleet, not having to really worry about the fact that you would lose all your ships.

Likewise, let's say your the recipient of a surprise attack while you are busy monitoring another battle. You can't really monitor the surprise attack that closely, but know that their retreat stance is set at 25%. So you know that you are not likely to lose ALL your ships before they can jump out, so you monitor the situation, but are free to spend the bulk of your time starting build queues or focusing on the battle you were engaged in before the surprise attack took place.

In short, there are a ton of ways the Auto-retreat AI stance could come in handy, and hope you can see fit to implement this in-game.