How do I accumulate political points?

[Vimy Varmint]

I am about 12 months into the The Reluctant Admiral scenario as the Japanese player and I am not accumulating any political points. I have not spent any PP but right now my PP stands at zero, making it impossible for me to activate the troops I need to mount an offensive. Any advice would be appreciated, as the manual isn't much help.

[witpqs]

Look in your operations report. In each scenario you get so many PP per day, so you must be spending them on penalties for not withdrawing either ships, air groups, or both.

[Vimy Varmint]

Thanks for the tip. I checked and my overdue air groups were sucking up most of them. The rest seem to be from objectives lacking garrisons.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Vimy Varmint

Thanks for the tip. I checked and my overdue air groups were sucking up most of them. The rest seem to be from objectives lacking garrisons.

Those take away VP, but not PP.

[jmalter]

Make regular checks for required ship withdrawals, too. Hotkey 'I' for the Intelligence screen, then 'w' for the ship withdrawal schedule. Click on the 'Days' column - anything less than 45, you've got to move them to a port that will accept the withdrawal.

But note, you can transfer any embarked aircraft to a base, before withdrawing the ship. You won't lose any PP by doing so. Many 'arriving' ships of the British persuasion arrive w/o a float-plane group, you'll be happy if you saved groups from withdrawn ships.

And note, some ships will return! Check to see if they've got an upgrade in their future, turn it ON before clicking the Withdraw button, so they'll already be upgraded when they return.

Similarly, some ships will want an upgrade BEFORE they're scheduled to withdraw. If you allow the upgrade to occur, you'll be unable to withdraw the ship while it's in 'refitting' status, & lose bulk PP until the refit is finished.

[Vimy Varmint]

Thanks for the tips guys. Withdrawing overdue air groups saved me 150 PP right off the bat. However, I still have 3 air groups that are overdue but the option to withdraw is greyed out. Any ideas?

[jwolf]

I think they have to be disbanded.

[crsutton]

There are a lot of fine points to saving PP, some slick and some gamey. Basically as the Allied player unless you plan and are very careful, you will not be able to buy out all of your troops. Here are a few tips that might help you save PP. For Australian troops, do not buy them out to a theater but to the 1st Australian Corp. Cost about half the PP to do so. Indian and British units are the most difficult. That is if you are following one of the most common house rules which prohibit restricted units from moving out of India unless they are bought out and active. Best way to do this is to buy out units when they are just cadres. I even will disband some full restricted units in India and buy back units lost early in the war. You save PP buy buying out and rebuilding these units. The downside is the time lost while rebuilding but considering it will cost you 2,000 PP to buy out a full division, it is worth the effort. You will need some brigade sized units but basically divisions are much more useful that brigades. Buy divisions first.

Be judicious when replacing unit commanders. Replace the really bad ones but sometimes it just pays to keep the average ones until later in the war. Don't buy out every air unit either. You won't have enough planes for them anyways. A lot of new players go whole hog wild on these things early on when you need PP to buy out troops and get them to your active theaters.

[bigred]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

There are a lot of fine points to saving PP, some slick and some gamey. Basically as the Allied player unless you plan and are very careful, you will not be able to buy out all of your troops. Here are a few tips that might help you save PP. For Australian troops, do not buy them out to a theater but to the 1st Australian Corp. Cost about half the PP to do so. Indian and British units are the most difficult. That is if you are following one of the most common house rules which prohibit restricted units from moving out of India unless they are bought out and active. Best way to do this is to buy out units when they are just cadres. I even will disband some full restricted units in India and buy back units lost early in the war. You save PP buy buying out and rebuilding these units. The downside is the time lost while rebuilding but considering it will cost you 2,000 PP to buy out a full division, it is worth the effort. You will need some brigade sized units but basically divisions are much more useful that brigades. Buy divisions first.

Be judicious when replacing unit commanders. Replace the really bad ones but sometimes it just pays to keep the average ones until later in the war. Don't buy out every air unit either. You won't have enough planes for them anyways. A lot of new players go whole hog wild on these things early on when you need PP to buy out troops and get them to your active theaters.

Too expand these comments, Austrailia has 2 corps that can be reassigned to a different theatre command, I and II. For 1st 2 years of war the AUS can place more units into these corp for overseas shipment than amphib ability to use them in combat. So allies have plenty of time and can save these points for the 2nd half of 43 when you start to see where the units need to go. A restricted unit placed into a corp within the same theatre should cost only 25% of regular cost. I like to place 2 divisions and 2/3 armor units into each corp hq. Later I may reassign the corp with both divisions to another theatre and send all these units to a different theatre command with the corps. If u reassign the corps to a different theatre the corps only pays for the PP cost(attached units are paid up earlier and go w the corps) i I never place base forces, AA, CD, or eng units into a corp(I did to begin with, but I think it was a mistake, unless they are restricted). These units should stay at theatre command level.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Vimy Varmint

Thanks for the tip. I checked and my overdue air groups were sucking up most of them. The rest seem to be from objectives lacking garrisons.

Those take away VP, but not PP.

Actually they give VPs to you opponent......which is essentially the same thing.

[Vimy Varmint]

I checked that out, but that option isn't available.