prestige in the campaign ?

[soldier1]

The first time i played the axis campaign i spent all my prestige and bought up all the reinforcements i could in the early scenarios, only to have great difficulties in the latter scenarios where axis "extras" (air supply and strikes) are limited.
So i restarted the campaign and tried to save prestige and avoid using any OKH reinforcements so I'd have more stuff to buy later when i really needed it. I managed to earn another 105 points to my total in the first 2 scenarios but after case blue i lost 175 points and I'm not sure why. I did place a bunch of mech and armour units in the north that were available in the force pool. My understanding, from the manual was that force pool units that become available don't cost prestige but the extra stuff that's in OKH reserve does, so what happened. Why did i still lose money in case blue ?

[soldier1]

i checked history mode, seems i did buy some OKH stuff on turn 1 [:@]

[lparkh]

If you want a tip.. otherwise don't read further.. what worked for me was for early scenarios only buying specialist steps for the key units (panzers, panzergrenadiers) to some extent. Usually most tanks, some PGs. So bottomline is I spent moderately. Didn't buy any reinforcements. THen started spending aggressively on specialist steps in the later scenarios and I think finally bought one or two reinforcements. I was able to win the campaign this way (though I admit to a fair number of restarts of some scenario )

[soldier1]

any help is appreciated, There were a couple of scenarios i couldn't quite crack at the end before i took a break from it. Its a tough game.

[lparkh]

It really is quite tough and I almost gave up several times so...
Well my first tip is give yourself a break on impossible situations. Quite a few times I started a scenario missed one little flaw and had my whole supply line cut Game over. So if you search on google you will find where unity save games are saved. Just remove the one for the current game and it will restart the scenario. I had to do this a few times I confess. But honestly Unity is a bit of a puzzle game from my experience. You have to figure just where to attack and sometimes there is a :key insight" for a given scenario.
General tips:
1) there is a tips thread
2) give your spear heads specialists. engineers are really good even for armor and help with cities a lot
3) pay attention to suppression generated not just damaged generated.. in the predictions. THis is key with soviets who will have to make attacks where they cause no damage just suppression and gradually wear down the germans
4) think out the sequencing of attacks so that you leave units closest to attack last ideally so that you can extend your blitzing penetration as far as possible. The game is all about encirclements.
5) plan for the AI's counter attack. Is your thin encirclement line strong enough everywhere?
6) Certain scenarios really are about a key trick.. so tell me a scenario you are having trouble with in particular..

Good luck!