golden delicious
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ORIGINAL: Zovs
So some more dumb questions...
The manual list these but there is not a lot of details or explanation nor any examples at all.
I would start by saying leave the defaults as they are until you've run through the scenario at least once and seen how it handles. Otherwise... Apologies if any of these explanations are too simple/patronising but I've tried to make this useful to a relatively novice reader.
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Could someone gives some examples or more details on these?
Set Attrition Divider – Adjusts the amount of casualties taken in combat.
Does what it says. If you double the Attrition divider, the number of casualties in any given combat round will be about half. Halve it and they double. The contention is that this should scale depending on the turn length (Bob Cross says a turn twice as long means the divider should be halved, but I think this is excessive because there will be fewer combat rounds than in two turns of half the length)
However, if you move the dial more than a little the game gets weird. Too high an attrition divider and units can barely touch one another, with the major consequence that they will be very reluctant to break off combat (e.g. retreat). Too low an attrition divider and units will get slaughtered as soon as they enter combat- you'll see a greatly increased rate of units evaporating before they even get the chance to retreat.
From what I've seen, this factor has little or no effect on armour losses.
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Set Max Rounds Per Battle – Adjusts how long combats will last.
Each turn consists of ten combat rounds. After a combat round, if at least one unit from each side is still engaged, they will go at it for another combat round- until all ten are used up. This variable will break that cycle when the specified number of rounds is reached- often this is three. Three is a good value because artillery ceases support after a maximum of three rounds (depending on the loss tolerance for the unit).
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Set AAA Lethality Level – Adjusts how deadly AAA combat will be.
Direct multiplier for the anti-air strength of ground unit. I assume there is an exemption for SAM equipment.
Thing about it is, the major impact of AA fire is to prevent aircraft from being able to concentrate on bombing (flying low, slow and straight), which TOAW doesn't currently model. So with this one you're damned with whatever value you pick.
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Set Engineering Build Rates – Adjusts the engineering level for a given amount of engineer equipment.
A unit with any amount of engineer equipment will be given a % engineer rating, which is the % chance of repairing a bridge on any given turn, and also impacts the amount by which the units will be able to increase the entrenchment level of the hex when following the "dig in" order, and boosts the entrenchment rate for all units in the stack (See below). Increasing this value will mean the amount of engineering equipment required to fix bridges or dig trenches is reduced in proportion, allowing you to customise these effects without necessarily overloading your units with engineering equipment
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Set Enemy Hex Conversion Costs – Adjusts the cost of enemy hex conversion.
Units pay a fixed extra cost for entering hexes which were controlled by the other force at the beginning of the turn. This cost depends on the overall movement rate of the unit and its recon rating, but is always at least 1 under default conditions. This control can make it faster or slower to enter enemy territory.
This figure has a big effect on the ability of a pursuing army to follow up a retreat. If hex costs are zero, there is no chance of a retreating army breaking contact with any success unless they are significantly more mobile to begin with or substantial blocking units are used to slow the other guy down. It'd be interesting to experiment with this- but in my experience the default is fine.
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Set Entrenchment Rates – Adjusts how quickly units can dig in.
When a unit follows the "dig in" order it increases the entrenchment % of a hex and also has a chance of advancing 1-2 steps along the entrenchment scale Defending - Entrenched - Fortified. If this value is increased units will more rapidly be able to set up strong fortified positions coming out of a mobile deployment, so this value will have a major impact on the fluidity of a scenario. A low value will make it hard for a defending army to set up a new line, particularly in open terrain.
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Set Density Combat Penalty Rates – Adjusts the combat penalty for exceeding density limits.
If there is more than a certain amount of "active defender" equipment within a hex, then that hex will be subject to a density penalty. Any losses for units in that hex will be multiplied accordingly, with a higher density producing a higher multiplier. Note that attacking units remain in their hex while the combat is resolved, and even units not participating in the attack will contribute to the density penalty for the attacker.
Flexing this value up and down will affect how severe that penalty is. I believe this is used for designers who want to create pre-modern scenarios in TOAW with the contention that massed infantry wasn't vulnerable prior to 1914; feel free to draw your own conclusions.
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Set Supply Costs of Movement Rates – Adjusts what the cost in supply will be for movement.
Set Readiness Costs of Movement Rates – Adjusts what the cost in readiness will be for movement.
By default, units will consume 1% supply and 1% readiness for every 1 MP they use up. Happily, readiness and supply are both stored as decimals in the back end, so you can change this to 0.5 and the game will not wind up adjusting this to 0 or 1 in practice. If you reduce these values, units will become much less worn by movement and can arrive from a long march relatively fresh, with only combat wearing them down.
Readiness and supply together form about 50% of the unit quality calculation which is a multiplier for unit strength, and as a result there is a big difference between a rested unit and a tired one. I would suggest that if almost all your units are non-motorised you might want to slash the supply cost of movement on the basis that soldiers and horses eat almost as much standing still as they do marching, whereas the same cannot be said of a truck. However readiness costs are a different decision. Note that readiness recovery doesn't depend on whether the unit is drawing supply, but readiness cannot be higher than supply. As such if the unit sets off on a forced march with plenty of supply (with supply costs set low) it will arrive worn out but quickly recover even if there is no nearby supply source.
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Set Divisor of Improved-Road Motorized-Movement – Adjusts the cost of motorized movement along improved roads.
OK, by default it costs a minimum of 1 MP to enter any hex. This value will allow the cost of moving along "improved road" for units with motorised movement to be reduced below 1. To put this in perspective, motorised units are normally capped to around 750km per week, which as most people have experienced is actually not very far to drive in 7 days given the right conditions, and in theory one could go at a lot further than that.
Before leaping to change this factor, though, consider that while you in your truck might be able to cover more like 5000km in a week, if you had to organise 1,000 trucks to all move from the same start point to the same end point on the same road, accounting for breakdowns, burst tires, refuelling and tea breaks, the actual performance might be a lot lower. The truth may be somewhere in the middle- but the bottom line of this one is that with this figure changed motorised units become extremely effective at responding to emergencies as they emerge from turn to turn.
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Set Naval Attrition Divider – Scales the number of shots in naval combat resolution.
Same as regular Attrition divider but for ships!!
< Message edited by golden delicious -- 10/15/2020 6:38:06 PM >
_____________________________
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Stupid Questions - 
the manual(s) and what if('s) are just as crazy as the one liners.... 
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