ORIGINAL: Kadrin
How so? Most of the allied units on the map start 25-75% disabled, in bad positions. If you're refering to the Artillery Deathstars, that's just a broken game mechanic that both sides can abuse until it's hopefully fixed.
Artillery is nerfed into being only good for fire intelligence shells under the last patch. Here I mostly referred to the fact that with minimally adequate management Allies very soon easily will be able to provide several times of the historical troop concentration in the active theaters, and launch more planes in a single raid than they, again, historically had in the entire theater at the time. I don't remember Allies being able to commit 150 planes (including 50 Lightnings and 50 Fortresses) to a single airbase attack in SWPac on August 3, 1942, yet that's what I just did. As about Allied ground forces, they are significantly more powerful than in RL at the beginning of the game, as evidenced by the fact that Japanese simply cannot take what they took historically using the same forces against a minimally competent opponent.
ORIGINAL: Kadrin
Logistics are a 2-way street, it's easier for both sides. The only way it benefits the allies more, that I can see, is they have more ships and engineers to speed up repairs/transportation, which they did have vastly more of than the Japanese.
No, it is not. Because Allies are supposed to spend as much as four times more turns on the offensive, easier logistics, resulting in much faster operational tempo and ability to pull stunts, that would have been crazy in RL, rewards them disproportionally.
ORIGINAL: Kadrin
If I'm not mistaken, the Japanese do get few bonus', one of which being their invasion bonus which minimizes disruption and fatigue for land units for the first 4 months.
This is a mechanics that serves to compensate for the fact that fighting ability of early-game Allied troops is boosted, compared to RL (I dare you to try taking Palembang by paradrop, even against the initial garrizon), and both of them are probably in the game to allow for a greater degree of deviation from history in operation planning, while still preserving the balance of power, to an extent.
ORIGINAL: Kadrin
Your game experience may vary depending on what you and your opponent do, but from what I've seen Japanese fighters are not nerfed. Most of them were worse than contemporary Allied fighters and only attained success through numbers and surprise
No, they weren't. Ki-43 was equal or better and Zero was generally better than Allied fighters that opposed them in 1942. It is impossible to argue that IJAAF fighters are perform as they did historically, because it is obvious that they don't. Take, for example, Ki-27. Read, say, this
http://www.warbirdforum.com/lucky.htm
and try telling me with a straight face that exchange ratios like mentioned there are at all possible against AVG in the game. Even I-15s generally fight Ki-27s to a draw in air combat, despite being operated by incredibly poor pilots, while in RL Ki-27 dominated I-15 completely. Also, just try shooting down even Chinese bombers with them, and you'll start to wonder, why they have such problems taking down SB-3s, if they hadn't at Nomonhan.
Same argument can be made for Ki-43s and so on, just with Ki-27 the problem is most salient and easiest to identify.
And I can don't really mind stuff like this, by the way, as Allied equipment has its own gameplay quirks. Just don't tell me, that Allies are shafted exlusively, because that's pretty clearly not true.
ORIGINAL: Kadrin
As for naval combat, what made the Japanese horribly inferior was radar. I'm pretty sure they've toned it down now since it was far to effective in the early months when it wasn't that developed.
Except, where is that horrible inferiority you're talking about? If you're talking about the increse in Allied night fighting successes in Solomons, keep in mind, that Allies had a massive tactical advantage by the very nature of their missions (intercepting fast troop convoys in the area where Allies had air superiority by daylight) in nearly all battles there, and still their record, although improved, wasn't exactly a string of victories. (As about radar, Japanese had it in widespread use by the middle of 1943.) The only daylight artillery battle of 1943 was won by Japanese. And in 1944 Japanese lost one surface battle where they weren't doomed from the beginning by not having sufficient forces - and there they were costantly plastered from the air.
ORIGINAL: Kadrin
Are the Allies advancing too fast in every game?
We don't know, because due to very nature of PBEM play most games are still in 1942, so we can just tell that it is very possible to rout Japan in 1942, because this happened in at least three AARs and is going to happen in the fourth. On the opposite side, there was one example of Japanese point victory in the beginning of 1943. Once more games go through 1943, we'll be able to say for sure.
