Slitherine

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I understand that manipulating the Japanese Economy and making better decisions on how to allocate the scarce resources available is part of the challenge/allure to the game for JFB's. From what I have read, there doesn't seem to be much scarcity to the resources. I have no problem with the Japanese player making alternative choices but they should be hard choices. It just doesn't seem that way from what I hear.

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ORIGINAL: vettim89

As I have discovered when doing F4F-4 research, this is a universal truth. Rule number one when looking at AE Allied airframe production numbers: TimTom is never wrong. Rule number two when looking at AE Allied airframe production numbers: is you think the production numbers are wrong, refer to rule #1

I mean that quite seriously. I thought the F4F-4 numbers were all wrong but after my research and some valuable information from some others, we pretty much agreed they were right. My guess is no matter which airframe you pick, you are going to find that the AE numbers are about dead on.

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ORIGINAL: Sredni

I find it amusing that in what is supposed to be a historic simulation the IJ is swimming in airframes while the allies end up with carriers sitting in dock for years due to airframe shortages. The IJ has more high xp pilots then they can shake a stick at and a training program to keep their pilots elite all the way to wars end, while the allies struggle to field pilots with any experience at all, and have issues trying to keep up with training.

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

What a lot of WITP AE players need to start understanding (Mike Scholl already does) is that "PDU on" and "IJN Production on" are about equal, individually, to having non-historic Allied torpedo dud rates.

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ORIGINAL: Feinder

Is there a way to play a campaign game (Dec 7, 41 to end), without Japanese production? Just a scenario that has historic japanese production numbers of aircraft etc, and not to muck with producting a bunch of Tojos or whatever?

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ORIGINAL: treespider

If you refer to a few posts above you will see what you need to do to "correct" the Japanese economy...good luck finding a PBeM opponent. I researched the economy for Japan...and the resources requirements to be transported to the HI are still shy by around 3-5 million points per year...if you want to know the tonnage of rice imported from Indo-China just ask...that being said the resource transportation requirements are about 7 times higher now when compared to WitP....so if you want to increase those requirements have it...however due to the nature of the economic model the entire system may just collapse if you go to far.

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I had thought that AE provided a tolerably accurate model of the oil/resource shipping operations needed to sustain the Japanese economy, but it seems that the actual requirements are an order of magnitude greater.

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ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

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ORIGINAL: treespider

If you refer to a few posts above you will see what you need to do to "correct" the Japanese economy...good luck finding a PBeM opponent. I researched the economy for Japan...and the resources requirements to be transported to the HI are still shy by around 3-5 million points per year...if you want to know the tonnage of rice imported from Indo-China just ask...that being said the resource transportation requirements are about 7 times higher now when compared to WitP....so if you want to increase those requirements have it...however due to the nature of the economic model the entire system may just collapse if you go to far.

As one who has played the Japanese side a good deal more than the Allied, this has come as something of an eye-opener for me.

I had thought that AE provided a tolerably accurate model of the oil/resource shipping operations needed to sustain the Japanese economy, but it seems that the actual requirements are an order of magnitude greater. Worse, there is a broad hint being dropped here that the game may be incapable of providing an acceptably accurate model of the Japanese economy under war conditions. Apparently one major flaw is the game's failure to reflect Japan's food import requirements.

So, one suggested solution is to turn off the production model and to apply build rates instead in order to replicate Japanese production accurately. But does that not mean that all those tramp steamers plying between Dalian and Moji and across the Tsugaru Strait with resources become instantly redundant? In which case, the Japanese player will doubtless hide them in some out-of-the-way port and all those Allied submarines will have nothing to shoot at but the IJN and the supply/troop transports. Won't the only job for the Japanese tankers be the transport of fuel to Truk, etc, whilst Palembang will cease to have any importance? It appears to me that abandonment of the production model leads to even worse distortions of the economy's impact upon strategy than its retention.

Treespider may or may not be right about the difficulty of finding a PBEM opponent if the game's representation of the Japanese economy is made to reflect real life. I suspect some JFB's are sufficiently masochistic as to want to see how well they could manage an accurate economic model. But if AE is not providing such a model, apparently to ensure some people will be willing to take the Japanese side, then let's have that out in the open and stop deluding ourselves that at the grand strategic level AE has any pretensions to accuracy. If the Japanese have as big an economic advantage as is being suggested, then the presence or absence of another two dozen SBD's is a matter of the utmost insignificance.

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ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

What would be instructive in such as discussion is some information from games that have run full length (or nearly), and comparing the total numbers of Japanese aircraft produced versus what they produced in real life. I've never had the time to complete a game to anything like that far, so I can't comment myself...

Andrew

PS: One of the difficulties in recreating Japanese aircraft production is that it was nothing like constant - it increased by a huge amount in the later part of the war.

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ORIGINAL: Swenslim

What is much more important, Japan trains 615 army pilots and 450 navy pilots per month.
I dont see where is over-production in the game.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

What a lot of WITP AE players need to start understanding (Mike Scholl already does) is that "PDU on" and "IJN Production on" are about equal, individually, to having non-historic Allied torpedo dud rates.

No. Your argument IJN Production ON is arguable (because this setting alone cannot be evaluated separately from the rest of the game), your argument about PDU ON is a load of it. Unless the Allied player, like, totally sucks at the game, PDU ON is great to have as Allies. Maybe not quite as great as it is for Japan, but the difference is not big enough to justify major handicaps for the latter. Logistics and planning is way harder with PDU OFF. Creating a mix of the available fighter types on the frontline, which is the key for successful Allied air defense, becomes way harder. Creating single-type bombers armadas, which is the key for successful Allied air offense (you don't want your 4Es to arrive piecemeal) becomes way harder. Shifting aircraft between theaters becomes way harder (nigh-impossible in some cases, such as early DEI/CBI defense). Battle-hardened squadrons might be stuck with obsolete planes. And so on. I won't ever play with PDU OFF as Allies, micromanagement already takes enough time.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: Sredni

I find it amusing that in what is supposed to be a historic simulation the IJ is swimming in airframes while the allies end up with carriers sitting in dock for years due to airframe shortages. The IJ has more high xp pilots then they can shake a stick at and a training program to keep their pilots elite all the way to wars end, while the allies struggle to field pilots with any experience at all, and have issues trying to keep up with training.

This is not the case when the Allied player is competent. In particular, Allies not having enough planes and Japanese being able to keep their initial pilot quality cannot both be true, without gross and atrocious mismanagement on the Allied part.

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
there for example?

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ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

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I had thought that AE provided a tolerably accurate model of the oil/resource shipping operations needed to sustain the Japanese economy, but it seems that the actual requirements are an order of magnitude greater.

No, they are not an order of magnitude greater. The requirements in game are well within the "ballpark" of what was required in the actual war, but yes - they are smaller. There are reasons for this, however. For example, not every single large and small ship that Japan used is represented in the game.

Andrew

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
there for example?

The total number of IJNAF pilots that entered various training programs in 1937-45 was over 240 thousands. Yes, most of these are late-war pilots who haven't completed their training or were trained inadequately, but so are trash pilots the in-game training program gives you (even in early 1942).

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ORIGINAL: herwin

See this xkcd cartoon.

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ORIGINAL: JWE

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ORIGINAL: che200
JWE personally i think we have to have at least a mod where the data errors in the Game are updated, or we can have an data update for new games so at least we could have better scenarios. I know that it could create problems for ongoing games but it could be an update which only people who are going to start new games would use. In my game vs the AI i edited these data errors but it would be easier if we know which are the data errors instead of editing each time.

So what's to stop ya'll from making one?

It's not a data error, it's a difference of opinion and, frankly, I'll listen to Mr timtom above any collection of other people, as regards opinion. This man's sources, analyses, and game integrations are cleaner than anything I have seen anywhere else. I have learned to trust his judgment implicitly.

I have supported many tweaks, some of them unpopular, but I don't don't support this one. Sorry, but my vote is no.

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
there for example?

The total number of IJNAF pilots that entered various training programs in 1937-45 was over 240 thousands. Yes, most of these are late-war pilots who haven't completed their training or were trained inadequately, but so are trash pilots the in-game training program gives you (even in early 1942).

yeah, what Japan in real life mostly put into their squadrons from mid 43 on would be probably something like skill 35 in the game, while in the game you put skill 70 into the squadrons, and a skill 70 pilot isn´t twice as good as a skill 35, he´s probably three or four times as good. Or do you want to tell me that you put the pilots from the replacement pool into your frontline units? I guess you train them two months and put them as skill 70 into the units...

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ORIGINAL: Swenslim

And where do you get 70 skill pilots ??? In my game in early 1943 most of my reinforcement in active squadrons are 35 skill pilots.

It is very uncomfortable to manage reserve pilots who have some Manchuko training because you dont see IJN or IJA pilot you chose, so you need to push dozens of times before you get reserve pilot into squadron.

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ORIGINAL: bklooste

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
there for example?

The total number of IJNAF pilots that entered various training programs in 1937-45 was over 240 thousands. Yes, most of these are late-war pilots who haven't completed their training or were trained inadequately, but so are trash pilots the in-game training program gives you (even in early 1942).

yeah, what Japan in real life mostly put into their squadrons from mid 43 on would be probably something like skill 35 in the game, while in the game you put skill 70 into the squadrons, and a skill 70 pilot isn´t twice as good as a skill 35, he´s probably three or four times as good. Or do you want to tell me that you put the pilots from the replacement pool into your frontline units? I guess you train them two months and put them as skill 70 into the units...

The Japanese will only put them into the front line if he is forced to by attrition and is required to commit the forces , likewise for allied players. Also a quite 41 early 42 spells big trouble for Japan in late 42 due to the experienced allied pilots he then faces
.

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
If Japanese pilot training isn´t completely different from the Allied one, then it takes two months on average of on map training and you´ve pushed a skill 35 to 70 skill pilot.

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
That´s where you get them from. And while you find it uncomfortable to do Japanese training with IJN and IJA pilots (2 different services), the Allied player has to do the same with

USAAF
USN
USMC
British
Canadian
Indian
Chinese
Soviet
Dutch
New Zealand
Australian

pilots, which means 11 services. Does that sound more uncomfortable?

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
If you think PDU ON is equally beneficial to both sides, then you're smoking something. Is it nice for the Allied player? sure. But, it's about a factor of 10 less in importance when you can't change the types of planes you're producing.

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
And, Japan has 2 "countries" or nationalities to constrain him. Allies have at least 12 "countries", several of them don't even produce planes to have a choice in upgrades (Marines and India come to mind.)

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
Want to have a decent Dutch fighter in 42? tough.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

No, it doesn't, see above. Besides USN and USMC are not different services. They use the same plane pools and I'm pretty sure they use the same pilot pools.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
If Japanese pilot training isn´t completely different from the Allied one, then it takes two months on average of on map training and you´ve pushed a skill 35 to 70 skill pilot.

And Allied training squadrons severely outnumber Japanese ones by early autumn of 1942. About three to one if we talk about fighter squadrons. Bomber squadrons are relatively sparce, but Allied bomber pilots do not die in droves every time they meet a half-dozen of enemy fighters. So yes, Allied training pilot is completely different. In its capacity.

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ORIGINAL: castor troy
That´s where you get them from. And while you find it uncomfortable to do Japanese training with IJN and IJA pilots (2 different services), the Allied player has to do the same with

USAAF
USN
USMC
British
Canadian
Indian
Chinese
Soviet
Dutch
New Zealand
Australian

pilots, which means 11 services. Does that sound more uncomfortable?

No, it doesn't, see above. Besides USN and USMC are not different services. They use the same plane pools and I'm pretty sure they use the same pilot pools.