Tropico 4

The Steam Edition comes with a bonus island: Isla Nublar.

What?

3 was okay, I liked being able to move the camera around.

Oh hey, raptors.

I'm really interested in getting this game.

Is it good?

Just downloaded it. Yes, it's good. It's the same as Tropico 3, but expanded. There are more buildings, you can import as well as export, there are other powers, such as the EU, the UK, the Middle East and China, and you can appoint a Cabinet, among other things. There is also a whole host of DLC for it.

Another great thing is that it added in the ability to immediately complete certain structures, so you don't have to bother your lazy-ass builders.

Also the islands are noticeably bigger; at least twice the size as the ones in Tropico 3.

I really like simulation games, and this one is no exception. Sometimes I'm too much of a nice guy; I like my citizens to have good education, health care and plentiful food. Even when I'm a brutal authoritarian dictator, the people still love me 'cause I'm just that awesome. No freedom, but also no crime, no poverty, no unemployment.

In the Tropico series, being a cruel or militaristic ruler tends to be less than cost effective anyway.

edited 13th Jun '13 8:41:58 AM by KnownUnknown

I've only ever had to imprison one faction leader, and that's because I was playing in a campaign where the USSR asked me to arrest the Capitalist leader. At the time I was playing as a die-hard capitalist, so I figured my popularity could take the hit.

Oh, also with Tropico 4 you get three "traits", instead of two advantages and two drawbacks. Being a paranoid flatulent moron actually does give you a bonus with certain elements on the island. And each time you complete a mission with one of those traits, it gets upgraded into a more potent version.

In Tropico 3 my favorite combination of disadvantages were Alcoholic and Womanizer. My favorite advantages were Hardworking and Administrator. I figure he spends all day hard at work, and all night boozing and whoring it up to relieve the stress.

I think just once I'll play as a ruthless militaristic tyrant, just to see if I can do it. Conscript the populace into my military, then send them against rebels. Use the secret police to assassinate anybody who dares oppose me. Force the people to work long hours in the mines and factories for little pay. Turn the island into a blighted, polluted wasteland. Send roving death squads around to murder criminals.

Oh yes, in Tropico 4 there is a "Loyalist" faction. Make them happy enough and you can turn them into your personal death squad. (Shudder)

So anyway, the game also has challenge scenarios. I spent hours last night contending with the "Meet the Rebels" challenge. The game starts in 1948 and the first rebels attack in 1955 and about every other year thereafter. Rebels number in the 50s or 60s and every time they've overwhelmed me and destroyed my palace by their third attack in 1960.

So far I haven't been able to build up a good or large enough military to fend them off. Seriously in order to match them on numbers alone you'd need like 2 army bases, an armory, and the 9 guard towers they'd let you build. That gives you 57 soldiers, 6 generals, 4 palace guards and El Presidente himself/herself.

The last few times I've played as the Generalissimo who came to power through a Military Coup, immediately hired a Defense Minister and passed Modernization and Conscription and set all military buildings to Spec Ops training. The trick is getting enough exports to pay for my hugely massive military and the necessary educational infrastructure to fill in the ranks with qualified soldiers and enough factories to churn out exports to pay for them, and the Immigration building to import enough new blood.

edited 18th Jun '13 11:41:29 AM by Lawyerdude

The Modern Times expansion is great. It adds a whole new dimension to the game, including high-rises, new Edicts, new farms and ranches, and a Space Program.

I wound up with a population of nearly 700, all factions at 100% happiness, living in modern apartments and working well-paying jobs (I was a cheapskate, so I just set all wages to $25, from salt miners to doctors). Everybody had access to TV, and the general standard of living was very high. Tropico was an industrial and financial powerhouse with free housing, ample food and top-quality healthcare. The only thing the citizens needed to worry about was on what form of entertainment to spend their money. Sports arenas, art galleries, the theater, gourmet cooking, gambling or dancing at nightclubs?

Meanwhile, the skies above the city are patrolled by zeppelins, my secret police keep constant wiretaps on the phones, the unemployed can be conscripted into the army, malcontents can go to the Sanitorium for brainwashing, and my armed death squads root out all criminals and have them shot on sight.

It's a bizarre mix of utopian paradise and Orwellian police state.

I guess I'll bump this again with another observation about the Tropican economy.

By default, citizens get access to free food, health care, transportation and education. You can give them free housing if you want. I prefer to deal with unemployment and homelessness by constructing a tenement district so they don't have to build shacks, and I can keep the unemployed in one place. And if you have Social Security, the state also provides them an income while in school and in retirement.

So ultimately the only other spending decision Tropicans make is on entertainment. I assume that the citizens will spend as much as they can on entertainment, since that's all they can decide.

Which leads to questions regarding the country's banking system, once you have one. There's no incentive to save or invest because there's nothing to save for or invest in. All businesses and property are owned by the state.

But when you build a bank, I presume that Tropicans deposit their money in it while deciding how to spend it. But if it's a Development bank, then how does it lower the prices of buildings? I suppose that the bank is lending money back to the government interest-free, so only a portion of the cost is borne by the national treasury.

I don't know, these are the sort of things I think about.