ORIGINAL: JocMeister
This makes defense way too powerful. You simply have no tools available to combat this. If the escort mission wasn´t so ridiculously penalized the attacker would have at least one tool to strike back at this CAP hives and would force the defender to spread out on multiple bases instead.
But I doubt the post will lead to anything. The community (well, one or two very loud individuals really [8|]) is completely unwilling to try and evolve the game and rather have a static and stagnant game because it suits their needs.
You have several tools to combat it. They just aren't the historic tools.
In short, you have to cripple the economy early enough that Japan can't:
1) Afford the HI to build the planes and engines in the first place.
2) Afford the pilot tax in the mid- and late-game.
If you let him build the planes and pilots the use of supply as a stand-in for avgas will allow huge air defenses. Changing this at its base requires blowing up the core assumptions of the game. So long as "avgas" can be produced by any and all LI with local non-Oil Resources you can't beat him in the air if you let him build. Pilot training will help the Allies some, but the quantity differences are too stark in a PDU ON game to overcome by brute force. At this point in the game's life this is pretty well known. In this particular game you had other things you had to do in 1942/1943 than destroy his economic base. But that's what you have to do to avoid late-war mega-air. And play with PDU OFF.
