Line #16 YMMV/Tropico


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2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: In ''Tropico 2'', Cap'n Hook is a Spaniard and retired inquisitor. He took to the sea to improve his interrogation techniques.
3	** Depending on how he is played, El Presidente can be the most honest, incorruptible Presidente to ever live- or the most iron-fisted dictator to exist.
4	** Is Penultimo really undertaking daring raids to steal world wonders, or, given that the relationship malus for stealing a wonder is surprisingly small, is he just having cheap replicas made?
5	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Hoo boy, where to start? Where to end? Uh...there's the first game's opening music, and then the Paradise Island opening music, and then Pirate Cove's opening music, and then that one song with the bongos and Irish flutes, and...you know what, let's just say ''every single song in the entire series'' and be done with it.
6	** Tropico 3's soundtrack stands out above the rest of the series. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac8TBp0dtfw Saxofón!]]
7	** The soundtrack of Tropico 4 is even better although it may not be as catchy.
8	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Penultimo became as fun and memetic as El Presidente. His hammy lines, borderline worship of El Presidente, and well written jokes have made him a staple of the series.
9	* GameBreaker:
10	** The Cannery in original game. It can process various goods, it is small, it is cheap and could still work efficiently without electricity, while providing some of the most expensive export commodities. Most importantly, every single island can provide ''at least'' a single raw material the cannery can use and with bit of luck, all three.
11	** Wind Turbines in 3 and 4. They don't provide that much energy, even in the most optimal spots. But you can build them ''anywhere'' and they don't require an educated workforce, fuel or a huge amount of space to run. That far-away mine you would need 5 substations to reach? Just build a wind turbine next to it and be done with it.
12	** The Blimp Ride in 4. Normally, it's a tourist attraction, but one of its operating modes is "Presidental Presence" - each building it flies over acts as if El Presidente visited it, providing a massive bonus. It can "visit" multiple buildings and provide them all with bonuses at once. And it's dirt cheap to both build and operate. Just a single flight over an industrial area (or even just ''farmland'') will recoup the construction cost a few times over thanks to the spike in exports.
13	** In 6, with the DLC Lobbistico, you have government corruption mechanics. Most importantly is the Old Boys Club that lets you invite faction leaders for nice bonuses (albeit with penalties to your economy as people skim off the top). The game breaker is that if you invite the Conservative leader, it sets the Conservative approval to 70% and keeps it there, no matter what. Then, spam Conservative propaganda to turn everyone Conservative, and you are guaranteed to never have rebels, uprisings, or to ever lose an election. This may be deliberate commentary on American Conservatives and their reputation for corruption and blind loyalty.
14	* GeniusBonus: The way how farming system and soil fertility operated on original game was based on patterns of soil erosion caused by run-off water in deforested hillsides. That is - what is destroying farmland in your average tropican, agrarian country. And the game allowed to turn that effect ''for your advantage'', using the flushed soil for less and less demanding plants as the run-off was going downhill.
15	* GoddamnBats: Nationalists used to hound you if you hired too many foreign experts in 3. This was thankfully dialed back in 4, as you need at least a couple to jumpstart your education and industry in most cases. You now need to hire an absurd amount of specialists in a short period or have an 'Open Door' immigration policy to really upset them now.
16	* HilariousInHindsight: The Pop Singer background was originally included for pseudo-JokeCharacter Lou Bega in the first game. Come 2010 though, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyclef_Jean and...]]
17	* LesYay: The Womanizer flaw is available for men AND women (well, except the first game), and there is [[HoYay no corresponding flaw regarding men.]] [[YuriFan This fact was lauded in certain circles.]]
18	** In the first game, Cabarets are only visited by men. In later games, women frequent them just as much (despite the fact that only female dancers work there). From 5 onwards, though, men ''and'' women could work at Cabarets.
19	* MemeticBadass: El Presidente, [[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/997034-tg apparently]].
20	* MemeticMutation: BUILD STATUES.
21	** Due to Juanito's chattiness and limited number of lines, he's responsible for many memes:
22	*** FILTHY SHACKS!
23	*** BIG FURRY HUG!
24	* TheScrappy: [[AnnouncerChatter Juanito]] failed to win himself many fans due to his [[BrokenRecord repetitiveness]] and LargeHam tendencies [[SensoryAbuse (which does not mix at all well with low-fi radio)]] - so much so that the ''Absolute Power'' expansion pack allowed you to [[AlasPoorScrappy execute him and shut him up for good.]] Unfortunately, this was balanced out by the introduction of the ''infinitely'' more annoying [[VoiceOfTheResistance Betty Boom.]][[note]][[TakeAThirdOption Alternatively, you can just disable the radio entirely in the options menu.]][[/note]]
25	** It's been taken further - there's now an achievement in 4 for [[FelonyMisdemeanor killing any citizen with his name]].
26	* ScrappyMechanic: For all it's worth, they are usually adressed in next game in the series, but there are still few that are universally disliked throughout the franchise:
27	** The original game and it's ever-changing rainfall patterns. Even if you ignore a complete TutorialFailure regarding how farming works and what each plant needs and so on, you are still left with heavily random fertility for your farms over the years. Except for coffee plantations (which simply need to be set up on top of hills), having your farmers to plant in different spots non-stop will be affecting both productivity and general efficiency. In particularly bad cases, it might require to switch to different crop entirely. From ''2'' onward, rainfall has been cut.
28	** ''2'' had the infamous housing system. Each and every pirate required their own, separate house, which aside eating space like crazy also required to be set up in as much "anarchy" spot as possible, thus far away from "order" locations, ie. every building with slaves. By mid-game, each map turned into desperate scramble to set up homes for additional crew members.
29	** Both the original game and ''2'' had the general issue with walking being the only means of getting around. This particularly affected teamsters, making transport capacity (or rather, the lack of it) the biggest bottleneck when it came to the functionality of your island. ''3'' introduced motor vehicles to address this, so it no longer took decades for goods to be moved from point A to B, and people were no longer unable to get to work before having to head back to fulfill their needs.
30	** ''5'' provided a few:
31	*** FogOfWar. Hoping to expand out quickly? Maybe you've seen something tantalising to use later and want to build a road out to it? Nope! The fog of war will stop you until you send out a squad of rangers to investigate a certain spot and (slowly) report back to base before they can be used again. Also, it requires $1,000 to send them out and ''an additional $1,000'' to select them in mid march to investigate another spot. In fact, this was so disliked that it was scrapped altogether by the next game.
32	*** The housing system. In previous games, players could build whatever housing they wanted and adjust the rent so that anybody could afford it. Now, each building has a minimum pay grade requirement from tenants, meaning you have to adjust each worker's pay, and even then, some of them ''still'' won't qualify, even with the use of a special edict. This also forces players to waste more money on housing in general, along with having a large amount of the population stuck in low-tier homes, which will obviously make them unhappy.
33	*** Managers are a pain in the neck to both get and properly utilise. After declaring an edict, they are slowly picked from your population. They can't be hired from abroad, their trait is picked up at random and the Census edict that reveals them has ''ten years'' worth of cooldown. On top of that, by the mid-to-late game, assigning them is just tedious due to both the UI design and the sheer size of your economy by that point. Just like the FogOfWar mechanic, this system was nowhere to be seen when ''6'' rolled around.
34	** ''6'' has wonky road-building when it comes to curving around, or when building road segments only one unit long, which results in even more unnecessary curves.
35	* SequelDifficultyDrop:
36	** ''Tropico 3'' was made much easier than the first game by introducing gameplay mechanics such as cars, which reduced the FakeDifficulty frustration, though the game still provided plenty of challenge.
37	** ''Tropico 4'' dropped the difficulty even further from ''3'', making a tropical paradise very easy to build. Brutal dictator measures became borderline pointless, except maybe ForTheEvulz.
38	* SequelDifficultySpike: Players going from ''4'' to ''5'' may be in a shock. ''5'' is ''far'' less focused on individual people, and the game's systems changed dramatically because of it, from wealth and wages, to building management, and even to island exploration. In ''4'', it was very possible to please just about everyone with enough effort. But good luck doing that in ''5'', where the needs of each faction and the people in general are far more diverse and easily-affected by much of what you do. And the elections in ''4'' were often easily-won, commonly in landslides. Whereas in ''5'', many an election can turn out to be a serious nail-biter, to the point where enacting martial law can be ''very'' tempting. With all of this, players going from one game to the other will need to do some reacclimating as they get used to Penultimo's "Great giant tropical spiders, Presidente!".
39	* StrawmanHasAPoint: Despite most of the factions being far too narrow-minded in their interests, meeting their less demanding expectations does help you progress in the game in one way or another:
40	** The Capitalists are concerned with making money, [[CaptainObvious which is vital for you to accomplish anything in the long-term]].
41	** The [[ChummyCommies Communists]] (and Religious) want the people's basic needs to be taken care of, which is crucial if you want anything done efficiently.
42	** The Conservatives want to limit immigration; too many people coming in may fill up all the job slots and overwhelm the island's services.
43	** The Environmentalists want to maintain and preserve the natural beauty of the country and reduce pollution. The former is vital for island's appeal to the tourist industry, and the latter will contribute to overall happiness.
44	** The Globalists favor social liberal and pro-free trade ideologies that make most citizens' lives happier in general.
45	** The Intellectuals want a well-educated and scientifically literate populace that's necessary for a competitive advanced economy.
46	** The Industrialists want a robust and efficient industrial sector, which helps in making the big bucks later on.
47	** The Loyalists [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou want to keep you in power]].
48	** The Militarists want the island to be safe from [[OccupiersOutOfOurCountry invasion]] and rebel threats.
49	** The Nationalists want to protect your nation's interests and not get invaded.
50	** The Religious want the [[GoodShepherd spiritual]] (and in 6, [[SaintlyChurch physical]]) needs of the people met. And since being too drunk keeps people from being efficient, easing up on the pubs may be a good thing.
51	* ThatOneSidequest: Appealing to the Environmentalists is always a huge challenge for those who want to turn a profit. Generally planting mines in areas with minerals to acquire is a necessity to get as many materials for manufacturing trade goods. Obviously, for every mine you construct results in a reputation penalty with the Environmentalists, resulting in constant protests from them unless you can turn their opinion of you around. It's usually for this reason that starting any further than the World Wars is a bad idea, because you need to establish your economy well enough to become sustainable, and the Environmentalists and Industrialists haven't been founded at that time. Building mines at the start of a Cold War/Modern Times era game is a good way to set off the Environmentalists immediately when you are in little to no position to do anything about it.
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Context YMMV / Tropico