AutoFilling a Premade Division or Group

[YourUncleDarnel]

I just bought Hell's Highway and tried to fire up it just to verify the DLC was installed.

After selecting the premade Wessex division that comes with it, I was asked if I wanted to autofill it or do it manually.

Would autofilling permanently change the division's configuration or just for that game?

I am a total noob at SD2, so don't be mean.

[YourUncleDarnel]

I don't wish to permanently screw up what is advertised as a strong premade unit.

[Shortpower]

I don't think it has a pre-made configuration? I'm pretty sure it semi-randomly constructs it.

If you want a strong construction of the division its best to follow a guide teaching the basics, or ask a decent player to make you one for the appropriate game mode (1v1 divisions are much different than 10v10)

Edit:
Here with thoughts and ideas behind his decisions -
https://youtu.be/oLeouzkeW5w?si=9OLOlSvbP0BM1z1_

[terve886]

All edits to division deck will be saved. Usually it is better to design your own battlegroup, because depending on gamemode, game settings or even map played you might want to have different loadout.

Figuring out how to make a deck takes some time, and there is plenty of deck building videos to give you a bit hint how to get started or what to look for. I usually start making a deck by first selecting auto generation, and then editing out the units I don't like or move them to different phases based on my own needs. Usually I tend to strip a lot of the units out.

Things to look out when making decks (not in order of priority):
1.check all avaivable transports for every avaivable unit. It is usually good to look for the fastest one, but sometimes there is armored options or even armed ones which might adjust your choices. Still, try to keep speed as priority especially if they are on phase A start units.
2.You want to have at least some recon options. Tank heavy decks will probably want some recon vehicles to move alongside their armor blobs, but usually it is good to have excellent stealth infantry squads (all recon infantry squads are excellent stealth regardless of squad size) to just sit still on a forest on hold fire to give you vision.
3.For infantry you will quads that excel at close quarter range, such as SMG squads, flamer squads or a lot of grenades and molotovs. If you don't have sufficient QCQ squads, you will have a lot of trouble winning green forest fights without heavy arty and air support.
4.You will also want squads that will excel in longer ranges, such as 200m range in yellow forests and 750m and 500m on more open areas. Preferrably set the units on the edge of the forest in a position, where their max view distance does not exceed their optimal range. Use C to see line of sights of units.
5.You will want to have effective 2km range solutions. Usually having both 2km AP and HE is recommended, though not fully necessary.
6.Have a solution to deal with heavy armor. If you have no way of dealing with heavy tanks that sit in 1.5km to 2km ranges, you are going to have miserable time in all open areas. The solution can be Heavy AT guns or heavy armor of your own, but also excellent stealth medium AT guns can get the job done if you are good at setting ambushes with return fire command and using multiple gunsat an angle or enclosing distance with medium tanks and smokes. Even heavy artillery or rocket barrages can be used to deal with heavy tanks that get too confident in sitting at one position. Some artillery guns carry strong HEAT shells which can also be viable, so look out for those.
7.AA, you need to have some form of AA. Having fighters can be useful, especially on 1 vs 1 and smaller games where emplaced AA spam isn't spammed as much to completely block air gameplay.
8.Artillery and air are support tools, but can also make a deck weak in other areas very good. Just keep in mind that artillery is better at pushing a line than holding one while air crafts can usually punish your opponent before they get AA guns to follow with their push.
9.Depending on the amount of artillery with radios you have, you will probably want decent amount of radios from your other untis as well. Likewise if you have a lot of radios from your units, but little access to artillery radios, you will probably want artillery commander to get more value out of your artillery guns.
9.Leaders. Leaders are very imporant to boost your units, and especially infantry benefits a lot from the morale damage resistance. Try to get some leaders for your QCQ infantry, but really any unit benefits from being close to leader. Depending on how many leaders you can get on your deck, you might want a commander to further boost their veterancy buff to 2 levels.
10.Veterancy. The more you have slots for certain types of units (infantry, tnaks, etc.) the more likely you can trim their numbers by having some vetted. Once again, depending on the game settings such as longer games or higher income, you might prefer having straight up more units or vetted ones. Also some units have way better or worse veterancy curve in terms of how many units you lose for taking them vetted, so check that out as well.
11.Planes need bit of experimenting to figure out which ones work the best. While having high bombloadout can seem fun, having faster movement speed can make the difference between succesful bomb drop or one sided beating. Planes also tend to work better in numbers where bunch of bombers can brute force a bomb drop on an area, but keep in mind it is expensive to invest that much in bombers and it might back fire if the next time you attempt it your opponent has prepared massive AA net.. maybe try elsewhere? Planes can also have vastly different bomb drop patterns which can make them better or worse. I find the planes that do a quick dive before landing the bombs in tight pattern better than the ones that drop a massive carpet of bombs because oftentimes you don't necessarily have that many targets spread out in an area and even then it is often better to have precise strike to kill some units rather than suppress many on most situations.

[Complex Strategy]

Originally posted by YourUncleDarnel:

I just bought Hell's Highway and tried to fire up it just to verify the DLC was installed.

After selecting the premade Wessex division that comes with it, I was asked if I wanted to autofill it or do it manually.

Would autofilling permanently change the division's configuration or just for that game?

I am a total noob at SD2, so don't be mean.

The autofill is a prebuilt deck loaded into the game. You can create multiple copies of the same division but whenever you save a deck that becomes what the game retains for that specific deck. So if you build a deck, then autofill, and then save the autofill will be what remains.
If you want to use autofill then just make a new division and autofill that blank one. However, autofill is usually not that good and gives you pretty bizarre decks. Use videos like the one linked above or like one I made as maybe inspiration as they are generally more competent then the autofill
https://youtu.be/EY2B4fAF09Q?si=Ho3KPkkIMpUpk_WA