Can't assign admirals, period

[Remise_slith]

In fact, I don't seem to have any. It is mid-1943 in a PBEM game in which I have not done very well -- heavy losses, Japs took Port Moresby and Ceylon -- and as a consequence, I have zero Political Points.

That is fine and fair enough, but is that the reason I am not only unable to change the command of any of my units anywhere, I am also unable to get even a bad admiral to command a task force? It seems sort of silly to have six fleet carriers three BBs, and a variety of other warships commanded by a worse than mediocre captain. "Silly" is the nice word.

Maybe, besides poor gameplay, I am doing something wrong here, but please don't tell me I have to win more battles before I can have an admiral in the U.S. Navy, as surely this cannot be possible.

Thanks,

B.C. Milligan

[topeverest]

political points are not typically caused by base losses. They are typcially caused by not withdrawling air and naval units that are tagged for such

Go to the intel icon and sequentially select the air and naval withdrawals. Determine if you have withdrawn the necessary units. My guess is you have not. Holding on to only one or two of these units can cause the loss of enough PP that you will have 0 each turn - and thus you wont be able to swith naval commanders or Command HQ commanders, etc.

[Nomad]

If you have zero PPs, you will not be able to appoint any new commanders.

[Rob Brennan UK]

I'd put money on it being non withdrawl of units. Do as topeverest suggests and you should start accumulating PP's again.

And Nomads 100% correct .. no PP's, no commander changes unless its a 0 cost one.

[Remise_slith]

Thanks to your both for your responses. I had forgotten training cuts into supplies, and I will fix that. As far as Political Points, etc., I knew about that -- I just couldn't believe that it would really be the case that the game would punish me for failure by insuring that I would continue to fail, i.e., by making it impossible to put any admiral, or at least a decent captain, in command of any of my fleets. I had forgotten about withdrawals, and will see if that helps, but this still doesn't make sense to me.

Please don't feel obliged to reply again, but I would sure like to know what sort of logic would support this sort of a system.

Thanks again,

B.C. Milligan

[Smeulders]

Definitely the withdrawals, as there is (AFAIK) no other ways to lose PP besides actions that you actively take. Take a look at the following link for info on withdrawals.
http://hc-strategy.com/ae/wiki/index.php?title=Unit_Withdrawal

As for the logic, if the admiralty has been yelling at you for the last couple of months to give back their Battleships, they're not really going to lend you a new admiral I believe.