alyona, I think it would be best said that pp's do not have a loan. if it was a loan you would get the big reward on first position played. so your payouts is your return investment.
so simplify the response. it is not about getting anything it is about investing troops. the payouts come after you knock down a certain amount of levels, nothing else. best to go in order.1-170. if you have to wait a few days to continue where you left off do so, if not your rewards will diminish.
receiving large payouts varies depending on what is going on in game. at the end of long tournaments the payouts come at the max level of positions you need to knock down in off times it is not so hard. but everyone talks about the myths or superstitions of pp rewards. the rewards are fixed on a certain amount of power to be given back. you will not get anything higher than that. so the whole point of this part of the game is efficiency in troop usage so you can stretch out what number of units you have into defeating a certain number of positions. if you attack the wrong position with wrong troops then you will not have enough to finish off the number of positons needed for reward this = loss of army. certain troops do add to the resources, but it does not matter. if you play exactly right every position or play completely wrong your reward will be the same. if you use the wrong troops they are lost and do not count towards reward. I know for sure about this I have killed over a million cav playing pp and never get anything higher than 20-30 mil def, and 25-50 mil off. so sometimes when you lose your army the reason is you sent wrong troops to wrong position. do not listen to them about your investment is still there. it is gone forever. but in a couple of weeks of playing you can get enough troops to play until you get a nice payout. pp will keep you going. you have to use a calculator. it is about precision. pvp is attacking with X10 force in power; pp is attacking to the least amount of force possible. the game is also judging you on what you are doing. even when you play with full resources you still get resources in your payouts, also pay attention on large payouts about every 4-6 of them you will get 200k resources with full split pays. do not lose these resources they are your guide to let you know about when you next payout is due. every mil in resources given should have a large payout. your reward is not lost because you have not earned it yet. your troops are lost. think about this, the more you play the more interest you have to pay back. I get destroyed now when I play since I have played so much. my bank seems to be closer to 25% interest for next payout most days. they change up everything about them and it is clear to see once you have played them enough times. but the basic strategy is always the same. the only thing I will say about this is some days it takes way less units to knockdown positions and some days it is way over the normal amount of force.