Stupid Questions

[Zovs]

So it's been a while and I am coming back to try to design some new stuff (and to fix my old stuff) and I am having some old man brain farts.

First one up is Shock.

The manual (love how undetailed and explain able it is, would have been nice to include examples to clear things up), says this:

This is typically used to model surprise. Shock levels can range from one to 200, but should in most cases be limited to the 50-150 range. The default is 100. Unit strengths are multiplied by the Shock Level (as a percentage).

NOTE: The manual is inconsistent, it states 1-200, but in the game it says: 1-999.

So my brain is farting on me.

If for example I have unit for side 2 and they have a combat value of 14 and if I implement Shock Level 2 to the following is my math correct?

Combat value of unit

14 * 10% = 1.4
14 * 25% = 3.5
14 * 50% = 7
14 * 75% = 10.5
14 * 100% = 14
14 * 125% = 17.5
14 * 150% = 21
14 * 200% = 28
14 * 400% = 56
14 * 500% = 70
14 * 750% = 105
14 * 999% = 139.86

So is my math correct?

If so then I am not brain farting and thanks for help me out...

[golden delicious]

Yes without actually checking every number the figures look right. A few other things about shock;

1) The shock is also the % chance that a given formation will be available to move and fight on each turn. Thus if shock is at 90%, there is a 10% chance that each formation will go into reorganisation. I would say that, in a lot of cases, this is far more serious a problem than your units being 10% weaker. Obviously figures over 100% are effectively 100%.
2) Anecdotally, a positive shock (i.e. 101% or higher) seems to abolish early turn ending due to a failed Force Proficiency check. However I've not done extensive testing on this. Useful for very short scenarios where early turn ending could be excessively unbalancing
3) Please don't overuse shock. It's an incredibly blunt tool, and you should consider every other possible option before going to shock

[Zovs]

Thank you Golden Delicious (have no idea what your real name is, lol, mine is Don)!

Appreciate the assist.

Yeah, for this small scenario I am cooking up, I set the shock for player 2, to 50% on turn 1, 75% on turn 2 and returned it to 100% on turn 3.

[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.

Could someone gives some examples or more details on these?

Set Attrition Divider – Adjusts the amount of casualties taken in combat.
Set Max Rounds Per Battle – Adjusts how long combats will last.
Set AAA Lethality Level – Adjusts how deadly AAA combat will be.
Set Engineering Build Rates – Adjusts the engineering level for a given amount of engineer equipment.
Set Enemy Hex Conversion Costs – Adjusts the cost of enemy hex conversion.
Set Entrenchment Rates – Adjusts how quickly units can dig in.
Set Density Combat Penalty Rates – Adjusts the combat penalty for exceeding density limits.
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.
Set Divisor of Improved-Road Motorized-Movement – Adjusts the cost of motorized movement along improved roads.
Set Naval Attrition Divider – Scales the number of shots in naval combat resolution.

[golden delicious]

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Set Naval Attrition Divider – Scales the number of shots in naval combat resolution.

Same as regular Attrition divider but for ships!!

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
The manual list these but there is not a lot of details or explanation nor any examples at all.

Could someone gives some examples or more details on these?

Having read the manual several times now, IIRC at least some of these are addressed in the manual, although maybe they were addressed in a "scenario design guide" or something... Give me a day or two, I'll try to track them down.

[EDIT] Oops, ninja'd by Golden Delicious. Let me know if you think further clarification is required, I can try to find the cites I mentioned.

[Zovs]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
TL/R...

Many many thanks!

Stashing this away in a file, as Tom pointed out, I think he is right too, in that a lot of this stuff is scattered haphazardly through the manual.

Agreed that we should always start off with the defaults, it's after I start up a creation that I need to figure out what to tweak.

Again, thanks this was an excellent post and write up golden delicious...very much appreciated...

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Thank you Golden Delicious (have no idea what your real name is, lol, mine is Don)!

Ben. My Rhodes and Poland scenarios come with the game (used to say "came on the disk" but they don't do that any more do they?)

Yeah, for this small scenario I am cooking up, I set the shock for player 2, to 50% on turn 1, 75% on turn 2 and returned it to 100% on turn 3.

50% shock is really brutal. I don't think I've ever seen such a heavy shock penalty in a scenario. Any units that the other side can get their hands on will be totally doomed.

[Zovs]

Totally understand the shock and brutal aspect and am still testing it out, this particular scenario starts with elements of the 505th airborne regiment scattered all over the map and on turn out of supply, so I am still testing it out and seeing what gives and what does not give. So far I have had to tweak:

Max Rounds Per Battle: 9
Readiness Cost of Movement Scalar: 50%
Supply Cost of Movement Scalar: 50%
Divisor of Improved Road Movement Cost: 2

Some of these may or may not be too high/low, hence my testing and I'll adjust accordingly.

[Zovs]

By the way attaching a Word Doc of this discussion so far between Ben and I.

[Zovs]

So in the game and in the What's New PDF, there is this:

New mud rules scalar

Nothing to explain what it is and how to use.

The default is 100 and it's max is 100000 and min is 1.

So what the heck is it do or how to use it?

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

So in the game and in the What's New PDF, there is this:

New mud rules scalar

Nothing to explain what it is and how to use.

Don, Don, Don...you obviously don't know the secret handshake necessary to find all the game information scattered around various documents in various directories*, so here you go:
1. New Mud Rules Scalar.
This is a new Editor Game Parameter that scales the mud drying rate if the New Mud Rules are in use. This allows the Designer to fine-tune this factor for his scenario. The default value of 100 is neutral. A minimum value of 1 divides the default drying by 100. A maximum value of 10000 multiplies the default drying by 100. Values in between those extremes fine tune the feature.

*This info is in the 4.1 What's New, not the 4.0 What's New or the manual. And the 4.1 What's New is not in the Manuals subdirectory, like the 4.0 What's New and the manual, but in the game's root directory...Why would you look anywhere else for this info? [:'(]

[Zovs]

O my gosh!!! [:D] [:@] [:o] [:'(] [X(] [&:] [8D] the manual(s) and what if('s) are just as crazy as the one liners....

Special Rule X - Default value 10 (min 1, max 10000) makes X do Y.

[X(] [&:]

It's not like Steel Panthers where I can throw down a US platoon and a German Platoon and draw a quick bit of terrain and then add one AT gun and see what happens to 'test it out'...no you got to build a formation with units with TOE's that take several hours to ....arhhhhg....lol


BTW I'll add it to my doc and updated accordingly ...

[Zovs]

More stupid questions:

8.4.1.14. Force Movement Bias
(14-455%) – This is a multiplier for Movement Rates for all units of the Force.

So some examples would be helpful.

If I have a unit with 10 MP's and I set the FMB to:

14% = 1.4
75% = 7.5
100% = 10
150% = 15
200% = 20
400% = 40

So does this mean MP gained or lost? Or is it percentage of the units MP added or subtracted to it?

My initial guess is that if a unit has 10 MP and you use 14% then you loose 1.4 MP so you essentially would have 8.6 MP left. Or if it was set to 100% then you'd have 0 MP? Actually I have no idea, and hence my stupid question of the day...

[&:]

[cathar1244]

Hi Don,

Here's a stupid question for you.

Did you ever release that WIE scenario you were working on?

Cheers

[Zovs]

Bill,

I am still reworking it, found a better way to replicate some things, from reading the evil Ed. Also some play testing reveal d some issues so I am addressing those and revamping some things. I’ll post it once I am more satisfied with it. I have a lot more events to write and some new ideas to introduce. Can you believe I have been working on this since ACOW? Lol

[StuccoFresco]

This thread is quite useful.

[judah]

Shock is a useful tool, to avoid early ending, especially for huge scenarios.

There are some wars that can only be adjusted by Shock, to simulate the morale or the social tendency. Without Shock, there is no way to do the Chinese Civil War.

[76mm]

Returning to mud: even on only "occasional" precipitation, there is A LOT of mud in June. Actually it is pretty annoying. My understanding is that I can make it dry more quickly by increasing the mud scalar...is that correct? Or do I need to decrease it?

[Zovs]

Here is another Dumb question:

Force Movement Bias, all the manual says is:

8.4.1.14. Force Movement Bias
(14-455%) – This is a multiplier for Movement Rates for all units of the Force.

What is the default (seems like its 100) but what happens if you drop it to 50 or increase it to 200?

NOTE that either the UI is bugged or the manual is bugged as the UI shows 50% to 150%, but the manual states 14-455%.