To asmodus: You're referring to the battles without a base. In those, enemy units reaching the end of your field deduct a unit from your reserves. There is a one second delay, though.
Use strikes on the enemy base the whole time and it's insta-win.
Play it more than twice and it should become pretty easy. Just make sure you hire all corruption preventions and get just enough advertising to keep all registers busy (if you have enough cows).