This Is the Police

Game Stages Tips:
This guide will discuss how to maintain your Police Force effectively, efficiently
whilst simultaneously raising your Bank Account.

This will also include things such as:

Police Force Basics
Raising your officers' levels
Responding to Calls
How to Negotiate with the Mafia
When To Use Your Associates
How to Maintain Balance.

This Guide does include mid-game and late game spoilers so beware.

The Early Game:
The objective of This is The Police is to accumulate $500,000 by the end of 180 days
- this is a long and difficult process, so hopefully this guide will be able to help
you reach that objective.

You're about to play This is The Police (TTP) for the first time; you're ready to take
on any calls and challenges on your first day and you use every available officer for
some petty crime, only to realise that you have a robbery going on as well - you lose
respect from your officers and City Hall so you've got no choice but to restart,
but what do you do?

Your Starting Officers:
At the beginning of the game, your starting officers will be terrible - they'll
screw up basic calls, request backup on simple tasks and die super easily. Their
levels will range from 20 - 300 (ish) and a few curve balls of 700+. Fortunately,
your officers will gain experience on every call they respond to perfectly (and only
perfectly), that means: No Casualites (Civilian or Officer) and no escapes. If this
is done correctly, each officer will gain +10 experience (+5 if they were called
through backup). The more succesfull calls they go to, the better officer and more
experience they'll have. You are going to want your officers at the 300-600 xp mark
as soon as possible to ensure your Police Force is as effective as possible.
This means you are going to have to use your officers wisely when responding to calls,
and ensure that they are all used each day. Don't just send one officer out all of
the time - you can maximise the xp gain by sending low-experienced officers to easy
situations with high-experience officers to ensure a good flow of experience.

Beware: as stated previously, your officers will die extremely easily - so make sure
when sending officers to a call, that they have the appropriate amount of experience
per call. If you send a couple low-experienced officers to a tough call they will all
die and your other officers and City Hall will not be happy with you.

Responding to Calls:
Once you've gained your footing and learnt how your officers' leveling works and how
to respond to calls, you'll notice that some calls you're responding to are fake /
mislead. This requires you to read each call's information carefully and see which
calls are fake and which ones are real. Don't blindly send your officers to every call,
as some fake calls will be seen as extremely dangerous (such as bomb threats), and ask
you to send every officer, as well as a Swat Team. If you do this, not only do you
waste time, but you lose possible experience gained from sending your officers to other
calls. Responding to fake calls with every officer will paralyse you for a good few
minutes. So ensure you read these as carefully as possible.

Fake calls in the mid-game: Once you have come across the serial killer, "The Dentist",
you will be harrassed with constant fake calls about people seeing other people with a
drill. Upon the public release of the serial killer and what he does, you will receive
about 10 fake calls in one day about people freaking out - so ensure you read every call
carefully.

City Hall:
City Hall (mostly the Mayor) is a big role in this game as he will dictate how much money
you get, how many officers and detectives you have as well as some other things. As much
as you hate City Hall and the mayor, you have to abide by his absurd requests if you want
to have a comfortable experience. Some requests include: Firing all black officers,
beating up gay people in a parade, beating up war veterans etc.
Clearly these are ridiculous terms, but if you want your paycheck and a good size police
force, then you're going to want to answer some of these.

Some Tips:
At the beginning of the game, the Mayor will ask you to 'Fire All Black Officers',
but you'll see that one of your best officers is black (he'll have around 800-1200
experience). Obviously you don't want to fire him, or any of your other officers. So
you can ignore this request if you want to - I did. There isn't any major repercussions
for not following this order, except for City Hall not liking you for a bit.

You don't always have to send officers to City Hall's requests. Occasionaly during the
day, City Hall will ask for a number of officers to do something for the Mayor. This
can range from judging a Hot-Dog eating competition to protecting the Mayor whilst he
goes for a walk. Note that if you answer this and send the (will most likely be 2)
officers, you will lose those officers for that day and cannot use them until their
next shift.

The Mayor is a ???, but he's your boss. Every 5 days, you'll be able to request
something from city hall, these include: A pay rise, improvements to your SWAT Team, An
additional officer slot, and an additional detective slot. If you have a poor reputation
with City Hall, then they will deny these requests every time (and occasionally cut your
budget, meaning you'll have to fire officers - sometimes illegaly). But if you keep a
good standing with the Mayor, you'll be able to have one or more requests accepted at
the same time. By the mid game I was able to request one of everything and got accepted
every time as long as I kept a great standing with the Mayor.

The Mafia:
The Mafia, like city hall, play a major role into your game. In a few ways they are
like city hall, except you can gain more profit from associating with the Mafia. Once
you've gained a good enough reputation with the Mafia, you'll be able to requests
favours from them (for a price), and these can help a great deal especially mid-game
for reasons I will get to later. In the early game (I think - I'm basing this on memory),
you will have to decide between two different mafia gangs - the Sands or the Vargas.
Each will provide with the same benefits, but with a big difference. There will be a
gang war that will occur and will go for around 1-2 weeks. This period will take a
lot out of you as if you want to support your Mafia, you'll have to send officers to
the locations marked to side with or against the mafia of your choosing. If you want
the easy way, then side with the Sands. You are probably more comfortable with the
Sands as they are one of your first contacts in the game; whereas, the Vargas are new
and looking for a hostile takeover. Siding with the Sands is easier, as you can complete
as many calls from them as possible and help them win the Gang War. Vargas, however, is
much more frustrating as you must keep a balance between the two gangs in their wins
and losses (which are counted at the end of each day). If the Vargas are too far ahead
3 days in a row, the Sands will figure it out and kill you in the middle of the night,
resulting in a game over. So choose the Sands.

Future benefit for siding with the Sands: You'll be able to take down their gang later
on, earning you a nice $200,000. This is a long process, but it's definitely worth it.

The Mid-Game:
Now that you're experienced with the game and are at around day 70-120, you'll notice
the difficulty drastically increase with all of the new calls incoming. As well as
having new associates and perhaps you're not earning as much money as you thought you
could be.

Earning Money:
By this stage you should have around $100,000 - $200,000. (I only had about $170,000
at this stage). The early game's focus was on improving our Police Force and levelling
them up enough to be able to handle any call you want. You may start to think you won't
have enough money by the end of the game - this is not true. At this point in the game
is where the money goldmine kicks in. There are quite a few ways you can make money,
and here are the notable ones:

The Mafia: If you are still cooperating with the Mafia, you will be able to sell your
goods to the mafia and they will give you a percentage back. Say you send your officers
to take down a drug lab - if done succesfully you will have drugs such as Heroin in
your possession. You can take these to the Mafia to sell for a price. You will receive
your money the next day. The amount of cash you get from these items depend on the
items themselves, and can have a rather large range. You can sell a ficus plant for $5;
or sell an assortment of automatic rifles for $15,000. It all varies on the goods you
take. But be careful, as you will lose some of your reputation with City Hall if you do
this everytime this option comes up, so be sure to take some items back to the Police
Department. Furthermore, once you get the money from the Mafia, you have an option to
share 50% with your staff - this is useful to keep a good standing with your staff
members so they won't file reports against you (Will go into detail about this soon).

Solving Crimes: Solving crimes can be a tedious task, but can also provide you with a
nice bonus in your wallet. Plus it's good to see that you don't have investigations
pending. These investigations can give you a few thousand dollars each, and provide
some decent experience points for your detectives. This isn't the best method to get
money, but it's practical and legal enough.

Taking Down Gangs: This is by far the most effective method of gaining a decent amount
of money. Although it does take time to take down a gang, the pay off is great.
Mid-Game Spoilers coming up You can take down the Sands (if you side with them)
through a rather long string of informants. Taking down their leader (Christopher Sands)
will give you a fat paycheck of $200,000. Which will boost your money up to the
$300,000 - $400,000 mark. The best part is that this is not the only gang you can
take down - there are multiple gangs that are waiting to be destroyed.
The payout will range from the size of the gang and their notoriety. The easiest
gangs to take down (which will have about 2-3 informants, and 1 gang leader) will
grant between $40,000 and $70,000 each.

Random Calls: The Mid-Game is also the best time to be taking on random calls for
money from clients and customers. This will require you sending your officers to
these calls. A lot of which are highly beneficial in more than just a financial
standpoint. Some will grant your officers +100 experience, a better reputation
with your Officers etc. Of course, some of these can do the opposite: You can lose
your officers for the rest of the day, your officers can quit and your officers
can die (only from one I've seen). In the mid to late game, you'll be called by
some medical clinic to test a new virus on 4 officers. From my playthrough only
one of my officers died, and the other 3 were fine. I also got $80,000 from this
one call alone. So this is definitely recommended to take.

Smart Spending: Make sure that when you do spend money, that it's a wise investment.
Using money through your associates is where the majority of your cash will go.
This includes correcting mistakes, hiring new officers legally, firing officers
legally, managing accounts, and many other things. Never use the private investigator
to help you solve Investigations. $80,000 (I think) for a private detective is not
worth it; if you're struggling with the investigations, just look it up on YouTube.
Never purchase anything through the Church. It's useless and does absolutely nothing.
The Price Range will be between $2,000 - $15,000 for absolutely nothing. As much
as "praying for your officers" sounds cool, it's not. Avoid the Church at all costs
- thankfully you can take down the church later on for Drug Trafficking and
Production. (Which will give you a good $80,000 I think).

Your Associates:
You will gain and lose many associates throughout your playthrough. They can provide
some decent benefits to help you be as comfortable and untouchable as possible. At
this point you may have already been audited for poor performance, or been exposed
by your officers for corruption. There are many ways to deal with these problems,
but the most effective are through your associates. Your most useful associate is
your Deputy, as he can arrange multiple things for you, as well as allowing you to
hire a snitch. The snitch will give you valuable information for a weekly fee of
$500. Your snitch will show you your relationship between your staff, as well as
show which officers are going to testify against you in court (which could end
your game if you do nothing about this). You can also buy the silence of your
officers so they do not proceed with the court hearing. This option is the easiest
way to handle this and is quite costly at $12,000. Another great associate is
Atticus Corporation. This will allow you to hire and fire your police officers at
will for a small fee (around $1,200). As well as giving you access to a special
bank account that will not have any penalties or fines charged to it. This bank
account is very useful if you're being audited for poor performance as they will
deduct 25% of your cash from your bank account for damages.
(In my first playthrough I did not pay attention to the audit and lost around
$150,000 - so I replayed that day and put my money into the secret bank account
and only lost around $20,000).

My favourite use of Atticus Corporation is the calls you get from them, as well
as the easy firing method. Some of the calls you receive require you to send 1-4
police officers to their building for one reason or another. Your officers won't
get hurt and it's almost always an easy $6,000. The easy firing method allows you
to get rid of officers you don't want anymore by making them think they're getting
a new job offer at Atticus Corp. so they quit the police force. (When in reality
Atticus will fire them for a legal reason, effecitvely leaving the person jobless
without any harm to you). This is very useful when one of your officers, Roy,
threatens to expose you if you don't re-hire him again. (For some reason he bribes
you $15,000 to accept him because the blackmail isn't enough? oh well).
So I accepted the $15,000, spent $1,200 to have him quit and had nothing to worry
about after that. (Incase you're wondering, Roy is useless with 5 experience points
so don't bother trying to level him up. At this stage in the game I had every
officer over 400 experience and it was just an easy $13,800).

The Late Game (Spoilers):
Becoming a Wealthy, Lovable Villain
If you've read everything above, it should provide an insight on how to get
extremely wealthy mid-game. Which can leave you between $400,000 - $600,000 before
the late-game even begins. At this stage, money isn't an issue and your Police
Officers are well trained enough to handle any call you get. At this stage of the
game (day 120 onwards), it's all about surviving. You should have enough money
and enough decent officers to last the rest of the game. So unless you make really
stupid mistakes, you should be fine.

The Big One:
On one day in the late-game, you will receive an anonymous call to replace the
fuel in your officers' cars with a special fuel. You will be given $12,000 and
you'll never hear from this person again. I, stupidly and blindly, accepted this
thinking nothing of it. It wasn't until a week later that the problems occur. Your
officers will tell you about a strange sound coming from their car's engines. Then,
after a few days you'll have the first "accident". Your officers will begin crashing
on their way to calls and dying immediately. You'll then realise what a terrible
mistake you've done. For the next few weeks to come, almost every day you will
lose at least one officer thanks to this fuel. In one day, I lost 3 of my best
officer (totalling to around 4000 experience points) thanks to them crashing their
cars. These car crashes create a number of problems for you: you will most likely
fail the call they were going to; you'll lose a great officer (most likely), and
you'll have to hire new ones (who will probably be around 100-200 experience). At
this stage you will have to do your best and pray that your best officer doesn't
die. Furthermore, a lot of officers will stop going to work and skip it as it will
be close to Christmas. So these days will be especially tough.

Survive!:
Make smart decisions. Fire Officers. Kill Officers. Anything you have to do to get
to day 180. That's your only objective: Surviving with money.

The relationship between you and your officers isn't much anymore as they'll most
likely wind up dead or fired within the week. However, if you're unfortunate enough
to have an audit come in, or your officers try to expose you, then it becomes a
problem. By this stage it's just easier to fire your officers. Or you can kill them
off which may or may not create future problems for you.

The late game is quite simplistic compared to the early and mid-game stages. You
will practically be undoing everything you've worked to, as your only concern has
been about the money the whole time. As heartbreaking as it was to see my favourite
officer (who was there since the beginning of the game and had about 1200 experience)
die in a car crash, I wasn't too sad as she was also plotting against me.
By the end of the game you become an unecessary evil to survive.