ChezDaJez
Posts: 3436
Joined: 11/12/2004 From: Chehalis, WA Status: offline
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quote:
To get back to my original post as I was the one who started this thread. From what I can glean reding between the lines, with PDU = OFF you can expect 1. Having to deal with air groups that are not filled out while waiting for production to catch up to need 2. Withdrawing groups on a regular basis to allow those units with the most urgent need to have the airframes 3. Following the historical upgrade paths which may or may not lead you to places you may not want to go 4. Having some units stuck with obsolete aircraft for a long time Does that about sum it up? Any important points I missed? As Brad mentioned earlier, we are playing with PDU off in AE after plating with PDU on in our CHS game. Your summation is pretty accurate, but I would like to provide a few insights from a Japanese perspective as to the benefit of PDU on or off. First, despite what Mike says, PDU benefits both sides. But Mike is correct in saying that the Japanese player will see a greater benefit BUT only when playing a stock WITP game. The benefit is much more reduced in AE. With PDU on in AE, the Japanese player can build more advanced aircraft in greater numbers than historical but in the end it does not benefit the Japanese player that much. Why? Because, generally speaking, Japanese aircraft service ratings get worse the more advanced the aircraft get. Most late-war Japanese aircraft have good stats but lousy service ratings. It's great to build a gazillion Franks and Georges but not so great when they sit on the ground due their crappy ratings. Against a smart allied player, advanced Japanese aircraft become almost a one-shot affair because once they are damaged, allied bombers can turn them into scrap metal with little difficulty. Japanese aircraft production becomes much easier with PDU on. I want 500 Tony... I build 500 Tonys and their engines. That's assuming of course that I can keep the flow of vital materials to the home islands uninterrupted. Once those vital resources fail to arrive in the home islands, PDU becomes just a distant dream for the Japanese player as production drops to nothing. No production, no advanced aircraft... simple as that. This is a very real concern for the Japanese player once the allies get working torpedoes. On the other hand, with PDU off, the Japanese player is stuck (as are the Allies) with many units flying obsolete aircraft. Some Nate and early Oscar units don't upgrade until late 43 / early 44. Guess what the smart Japanese player will do with those units? He'll tuck them away into some backwater airfield and stick them on training so that when they do upgrade, he'll have several very experienced air units that can be thrown into the fray. Japanese production is much harder with PDU off. Timing is critical. You must research what to build, how many to build and when to start building them for each and every aircraft type. Some units are restricted not only to what they can upgrade to but also when. Doesn't do any good to plan to build 500 Tonys if I can only upgrade one unit a month. Changes must be made incrementally and care must be excercised to continue building obsolete aircraft such as Nates to keep those units that fly them reasonably well equipped unitl their upgrade time comes. One nice thing about allied production that no one ever mentions is that YOU CAN"T CRASH IT! One mistake with Japanese production and you can crash it quite easily. It takes months to recover from crashing the Japanese economy with lots of wasted resources. Ask me how I know! Anyhow, that's my 2 cents. Having played PDU both ways, I can say each has pluses and minuses. Choose the one that best suits your style of play. Prefer a more historically lmited game, play with it off otherwise go all out with it on. And if you play with it on, you don't need to give up anything in return to the allied player. He's going to kick your ass anyways. We Japanese players are a masochistic lot. Chez
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Ret Navy AWCS (1972-1998) VP-5, Jacksonville, Fl 1973-78 ASW Ops Center, Rota, Spain 1978-81 VP-40, Mt View, Ca 1981-87 Patrol Wing 10, Mt View, CA 1987-90 ASW Ops Center, Adak, Ak 1990-92 NRD Seattle 1992-96 VP-46, Whidbey Isl, Wa 1996-98
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