I built a bunch of farms, but 3 people starved to death anyway. Also it doesn't look like the farms are producing anything; their exports are all at 0. How do I see how much food is actually being produced vs how much my people need to not starve?
I wasn't sure how to tell whether you have enough housing for people at first, but it soon becam obvious. If you don't give them housing, they build shacks and shanties themselves. Which is just awesome.
What kind of farms? Some (corn, papayas, bananas) are eaten by your people with whatever's left over exported, others are purely cash crops. It's possible that not all of your population had access to the farms, in which case building a marketplace would have solved your problem. Also, never ever implement the "food for the people" edict; it always lead to starvation in Tropico 1 and Tropico 3 is no different. Some damn advisor convinced me to do it in the second scenario and by the end dozens of people were dying of starvation. Still had a happiness rating of 60%, though.
They were happy to be thin, sure starving but they looked great in a bikini right until they died
For a time it seemed that the people loved me. But then some small men got the notion in their heads that they were somehow entitled to more. More than the jobs I'd given them, or the homes I had built. That the food I put on their plates and the paradise I let them enjoy was just not enough. These were men with ideas.
For a time it seemed that the people loved me. But then some small men got the notion in their heads that they were somehow entitled to more. More than the jobs I'd given them, or the homes I had built. That the food I put on their plates and the paradise I let them enjoy was just not enough. These were men with ideas.
El presidente, yes! I did not expect this to be so pleasant to play.
Not at all.
The way my downtrodden comrades can actually walk to their destination without benefit of a road leading directly to it and their habit of putting up temporary housing by themselves makes everything feel much smoother than some city building games I could name.
El presidente, yes! I did not expect this to be so pleasant to play.
Not at all.
The way my downtrodden comrades can actually walk to their destination without benefit of a road leading directly to it and their habit of putting up temporary housing by themselves makes everything feel much smoother than some city building games I could name.
I remember in Tropico 1, I used to not build any housing at all (aside from the military base) and sent anyone who protested to jail for reeducation. My island was a massive shanty town with four prisons in the center of it.
Yeah I installed Caesar IV to try and scratch the itch, and it just wasn't the same. Everyone was so picky about goods and water and whatnot. I think my problem with most city builders is that you have to have a perfect layout so that each house has access to every little detail it needs.
Tropico was a little more forgiving, and has much more style.
*edit* I think i'm too good at this. I want to see more conflict, drag people off to my secret prisons and do unspeakable things to them like a REAL dictator. I probably shouldn't have picked "professor" and "elected capitalist" for that really. I guess I don't really see the *point* of not just giving your people whatever they want. Its not like you even have to appease all of them, just 51%. I'm sure oppressing the fuck out of your people is more fun (I will be trying this tonight after my installation by the KGB), but I don't see the point if you're not actually going to get to your goal faster as a result.
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
For a time it seemed that the people loved me. But then some small men got the notion in their heads that they were somehow entitled to more. More than the jobs I'd given them, or the homes I had built. That the food I put on their plates and the paradise I let them enjoy was just not enough. These were men with ideas.
I had them all shot, of course.
It's good to be el presidente.
This reminds me. Can you actually have your military fight in this game? And I don't mean just scaring off the occasional rebel. I mean actually do the whole "defend the isle against a hostile invader" thing.
Nothing pissed me off more than automatically losing in the first game, despite having a kickass military, just because I pissed off one super-power too much.
Loved how Tropico 2 rectified that, though. You could actually fight off invasions and rebellions, if I recall. You just couldn't let them reach your palace or they'd get inside and butcher you.
I could see you doing some interesting stuff in this one if you can do that. Like evacuating el presidente out of the city, and to a secure military compound when a war starts to make sure you don't have as high of a chance to lose the game.
Edit: Maybe that trailer is mis-leading, but it looks like you actually can. And that cities can be damaged. If this is true, i'm going to make it a point of order to create one game where there's a city/island that's nothing but one giant death-match between the army and the rebels.
*edit* I think i'm too good at this. I want to see more conflict, drag people off to my secret prisons and do unspeakable things to them like a REAL dictator. I probably shouldn't have picked "professor" and "elected capitalist" for that really. I guess I don't really see the *point* of not just giving your people whatever they want. Its not like you even have to appease all of them, just 51%. I'm sure oppressing the fuck out of your people is more fun (I will be trying this tonight after my installation by the KGB), but I don't see the point if you're not actually going to get to your goal faster as a result.
You're not too good at the game, you're playing the three easiest levels in the game.
And Archonex, I got invaded by the US the other day. I don't think you can fight them off. Realistically, how COULD a tiny island fight off a superpower?
*edit* I think i'm too good at this. I want to see more conflict, drag people off to my secret prisons and do unspeakable things to them like a REAL dictator. I probably shouldn't have picked "professor" and "elected capitalist" for that really. I guess I don't really see the *point* of not just giving your people whatever they want. Its not like you even have to appease all of them, just 51%. I'm sure oppressing the fuck out of your people is more fun (I will be trying this tonight after my installation by the KGB), but I don't see the point if you're not actually going to get to your goal faster as a result.
You're not too good at the game, you're playing the three easiest levels in the game.
And Archonex, I got invaded by the US the other day. I don't think you can fight them off. Realistically, how COULD a tiny island fight off a superpower?
Wait, three? Are you including the tutorial in that, or have I missed a 3rd playable level somewhere? There's the tutorial, the one where you have to export food, and the one where you have to export iron AFAIK.
And yeah, I guess I am only playing a small portion of the game, i'm just a little dissapointed that once I got the basics down I totally breezed through the second (in theory harder) mission. I guess if I want to see stuff like the US invading e.t.c i'm going to have to shift my strategy somewhat. Probably towards putting as much money into my Swiss bank account as possible.
I guess we could always make a challenge of it, start posting scores / swiss bank $$ at the end of "Last Chance" and compare E-peens.
Well thats kind of the point isn't it? :P And the game has achievements now, and in the full version you can upload your scores. I'm sure we'll see people getting ridiculous amounts of money into that swiss bank account.
The US invaded me. All I did was ignore them and piss them off. And yes, you breezed through the SECOND MISSION after mastering the incredibly limited number of options available to you in the demo. That's part of the learning process. Things get harder when you have to choose between a prime location for a power plant to keep your hi-rise hotels swanky or a college to educate enough doctors to provide health care for the people before they decide to revolt or vote you out.
Well thats kind of the point isn't it? :P And the game has achievements now, and in the full version you can upload your scores. I'm sure we'll see people getting ridiculous amounts of money into that swiss bank account.
More likely we'll see people getting ridiculous amounts of money into that swiss bank account for the first couple of days, then someone will figure out how to hack the high-score system (or the game) and they'll all be stuck on 999,999,999,999 forever. I've never seen an online scoring system for a game that wasn't broken as fuck.
I'm happy to compare scores with PA peoples however. Just remember, screenshot or it never happened
Oh god! Listening to the tropico 2 soundtrack again is blissful! It is still easily my favourite game soundtrack, and I had never been able to find it before so MASSIVE thanks to the OP. Will be downloading the demo at some point, but not till the release date is near at hand. Otherwise i'll be pining for it and have to drop days and days into one and two ... again.
The beauty of it is that if you've got building permits enabled, fulfilling the wildest dreams of your loving citizens and lining your pockets are goals that come hand in hand.
Funding endless urban renewal projects has never felt so authentic.
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
I can't get the demo to run . Haven't had time to figure out what the problem is, but still, sadface.
The beauty of it is that if you've got building permits enabled, fulfilling the wildest dreams of your loving citizens and lining your pockets are goals that come hand in hand.
Funding endless urban renewal projects has never felt so authentic.
It will also make the smart ones disrespect you, but who cares right? You can't even build a college in the demo!
The beauty of it is that if you've got building permits enabled, fulfilling the wildest dreams of your loving citizens and lining your pockets are goals that come hand in hand.
Funding endless urban renewal projects has never felt so authentic.
It will also make the smart ones disrespect you, but who cares right? You can't even build a college in the demo!
Yes you can. Where else are you going to get bankers to pour even more money into you swiss bank account?
The beauty of it is that if you've got building permits enabled, fulfilling the wildest dreams of your loving citizens and lining your pockets are goals that come hand in hand.
Funding endless urban renewal projects has never felt so authentic.
It will also make the smart ones disrespect you, but who cares right? You can't even build a college in the demo!
Yes you can. Where else are you going to get bankers to pour even more money into you swiss bank account?
Immigration? I'm positive the college was disabled in the demo but I could be wrong, I didn't build one at least though.
Holy cow this game is gonna be great, playing the demo was so much fun.
However, I'm afraid I will be a too benevolent dictator, I totally ignored the swiss bank account thingy and tried to make my tropicans happy...
Can't wait for the game to become available!
Ah, you're not the only one.
The Building Permit, while making you filfthy rich, pisses intellectuals off and does make everything more expensive. Furthermore, this time around, only half of the lost money goes to the Swiss Bank Account. I preferred using banks (albeit late in the game), but even then, it was much more efficient just to select 'Uncorruptible' as a character trait.
Besides, El Presidente always ended his five consecutive ten-year office terms canonized as a Saint by the Tropican people and beloved by the working man. Who needs a Swiss Bank Account when you can spend your golden years shuffling about the island, getting everything for free, from haircuts to booze (I usually picked 'alcoholic' as a flaw). Of course, keeping the capitalists was hard, but I could usually keep them satisfied by chasing the Yanqui tourist dollars with a luxury hotel and the like.
I really want to do a great job early on but if you try to get everything right at the beginning you end up bankrupting yourself. So my tropicans live in filthy shacks while the mining, logging and farming industry booms, and then the tenements begin cropping up EVERYWHERE! So far I've found getting a newspaper, highschool and a college up early gives you 100% with intellectuals so with a highly educated workforce you can easily win the first election and then start improving other parts.
For the full game though I'm seriously considering just giving the religious faction the finger, because fuck 'em :P
Yeah, the stereotypical Tropico 1 ending generally has the religious people giving you the cold shoulder because your cathedral isn't running at 110% capacity or something.
Seriously, they're a pain in the ass. And they're also very easy to shrink as a faction. Stick with pleasing the communists and militarists, and then the capitalists and environmentalists.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
uh i built a college in the demo so it definitely wasn't disabled
Yeah, the stereotypical Tropico 1 ending generally has the religious people giving you the cold shoulder because your cathedral isn't running at 110% capacity or something.
Seriously, they're a pain in the ass. And they're also very easy to shrink as a faction. Stick with pleasing the communists and militarists, and then the capitalists and environmentalists.
You can pick a "like it or leave it" policy in the immigration office and unhappy tropicans will start leaving, so I'm definately shitting on the religious types. Although it could be fun to mix it up once in a while and run a dystopian millitarist society with no elections :P
Yeah, the stereotypical Tropico 1 ending generally has the religious people giving you the cold shoulder because your cathedral isn't running at 110% capacity or something.
Seriously, they're a pain in the ass. And they're also very easy to shrink as a faction. Stick with pleasing the communists and militarists, and then the capitalists and environmentalists.
They're extremely handy for an oppressive dictatorship though. The Inquisition edict is about the only thing that can stop military coups from happening every five years if you have a lot of generals, at least in Tropico 1.
Yeah, the stereotypical Tropico 1 ending generally has the religious people giving you the cold shoulder because your cathedral isn't running at 110% capacity or something.
Seriously, they're a pain in the ass. And they're also very easy to shrink as a faction. Stick with pleasing the communists and militarists, and then the capitalists and environmentalists.
They're extremely handy for an oppressive dictatorship though. The Inquisition edict is about the only thing that can stop military coups from happening every five years if you have a lot of generals, at least in Tropico 1.
Yeah, but the problem is they're a pain in the ass to keep happy. I mean, if you want to go a-persecutin' (and I'm not judging), there are much easier ways (a few well-staffed jails can do the work of the entire religious faction, and even better, they don't stop just because they disagree with you).
I honestly never had a problem with military coups, though by 2000 in Tropico, I 'only' had six generals (and honestly, that was probably more than I needed). Even then, simply arresting generals before the coup is a lot easier.
Long story short, there are easier ways to be oppressive. Keeping the religious faction happy is disproportionately expensive compared to the actual overall happiness. Keeping communists happy can be done at something around 1/5 the cost per person, I would say (plus, it's actually kind of crucial, since one thing that makes the communist faction happy is having a working economy). Same to the capitalists (except maybe 1/2). It wouldn't be such a problem if clergy actually had some dedication to remaining clergymen, like in reality. I shouldn't have to pay a bishop (or whoever works at the Cathedral) almost twice as much as one of my generals! Hell, he's a goddamm holy man, I shouldn't have to pay him at all! I was already paying to keep his Cathedral in tip-top shape, for god sakes!
You can pick a "like it or leave it" policy in the immigration office and unhappy tropicans will start leaving, so I'm definately shitting on the religious types. Although it could be fun to mix it up once in a while and run a dystopian millitarist society with no elections :P
Since you could only have one immigration office at a time (at least in the original game) I almost always set it to "Skilled Workers Welcome". Love it or Leave it would have been very useful, but I had a bad habit of having overemployment ("Just one more cigar factory couldn't hurt....and it'll pay for itself in a year!"), even with pretty healthy immigration. Especially people with high school diplomas. I'm pretty proud of the number of immigrants I would get from Miami, Moscow, and Pretoria.
One thing I wish they'd include would be an edict requiring mandatory high school education for all children (perhaps once you had a sufficient number of staffed high schools). The sort of thing you have in Cuba, not to mention pretty much every country in the world that has some focus on education (including the US--though I think we stop at 10th grade here? Not sure). It might upset people since they couldn't send their children off to work immediately, but it would force el President to raise wages. I for one would gladly do that if it meant stopping my schools from being empty constantly.
I think i'll go to steam and buy the tropico pack (15 dollars) right now..
The reason Im a giant tool..I love sim city I still play sim city 4 all the damn time and after looking at the game description I think I will love this game as well...the reason I never played it/payed attention it was I thought it was an old nes game....lets see if i can google it...nope no luck...but it was a NES action/adventure game, set on a tropical island and while fun at the time, was not great...
I think i'll go to steam and buy the tropico pack (15 dollars) right now..
The reason Im a giant tool..I love sim city I still play sim city 4 all the damn time and after looking at the game description I think I will love this game as well...the reason I never played it/payed attention it was I thought it was an old nes game....lets see if i can google it...nope no luck...but it was a NES action/adventure game, set on a tropical island and while fun at the time, was not great...
so yeah...tool
Well, it's okay, because now's the perfect time to get on board the Tropico Train.
Yeah, but the problem is they're a pain in the ass to keep happy. I mean, if you want to go a-persecutin' (and I'm not judging), there are much easier ways (a few well-staffed jails can do the work of the entire religious faction, and even better, they don't stop just because they disagree with you).
I honestly never had a problem with military coups, though by 2000 in Tropico, I 'only' had six generals (and honestly, that was probably more than I needed). Even then, simply arresting generals before the coup is a lot easier.
Long story short, there are easier ways to be oppressive. Keeping the religious faction happy is disproportionately expensive compared to the actual overall happiness. Keeping communists happy can be done at something around 1/5 the cost per person, I would say (plus, it's actually kind of crucial, since one thing that makes the communist faction happy is having a working economy). Same to the capitalists (except maybe 1/2). It wouldn't be such a problem if clergy actually had some dedication to remaining clergymen, like in reality. I shouldn't have to pay a bishop (or whoever works at the Cathedral) almost twice as much as one of my generals! Hell, he's a goddamm holy man, I shouldn't have to pay him at all! I was already paying to keep his Cathedral in tip-top shape, for god sakes!
*grumbles angrily at broken game mechanic*
I dunno. On the hardest political difficulty level I had to deal with coups constantly until I got both the army base and the inquisition. I couldn't rely on the police because my economy was always pretty poor and I had other people to throw in prison, not to mention generals are expensive. I never actually found the religious faction hard to please actually; that may be because I usually select religious zealot as my flaw when I play as a totalitarian dictator.
That being said, I put the bare minimum in to make people happy in those games. I did take good care of my army though, so I doubt throwing up some more tenements would have made much of a difference as far as coups go.
Yeah, but the problem is they're a pain in the ass to keep happy. I mean, if you want to go a-persecutin' (and I'm not judging), there are much easier ways (a few well-staffed jails can do the work of the entire religious faction, and even better, they don't stop just because they disagree with you).
I honestly never had a problem with military coups, though by 2000 in Tropico, I 'only' had six generals (and honestly, that was probably more than I needed). Even then, simply arresting generals before the coup is a lot easier.
Long story short, there are easier ways to be oppressive. Keeping the religious faction happy is disproportionately expensive compared to the actual overall happiness. Keeping communists happy can be done at something around 1/5 the cost per person, I would say (plus, it's actually kind of crucial, since one thing that makes the communist faction happy is having a working economy). Same to the capitalists (except maybe 1/2). It wouldn't be such a problem if clergy actually had some dedication to remaining clergymen, like in reality. I shouldn't have to pay a bishop (or whoever works at the Cathedral) almost twice as much as one of my generals! Hell, he's a goddamm holy man, I shouldn't have to pay him at all! I was already paying to keep his Cathedral in tip-top shape, for god sakes!
*grumbles angrily at broken game mechanic*
I dunno. On the hardest political difficulty level I had to deal with coups constantly until I got both the army base and the inquisition. I couldn't rely on the police because my economy was always pretty poor and I had other people to throw in prison, not to mention generals are expensive. I never actually found the religious faction hard to please actually; that may be because I usually select religious zealot as my flaw when I play as a totalitarian dictator.
That being said, I put the bare minimum in to make people happy in those games. I did take good care of my army though, so I doubt throwing up some more tenements would have made much of a difference as far as coups go.
If you have traits like religious zealout--something that makes the religious faction happy while pissing everyone else of--yeah, keeping them happy is probably a lot easier.
Otherwise, it's a pain in the ass. The religious faction seems immediately against what makes other factions happy when it comes to traits. Church and cathedral employees expect ridiculous salaries for providing exactly one function. Even soldiers do more than one thing: raise loyalty and security. Plus, they fight off rebels. Priests? They fulfill religious requirements. They don't fight rebels. They don't fight coup plotters. They don't improve the security or loyalty levels. Hell, a church with only one priest improves the environment as much as one at full capacity. They're basically bankers, except you pay them more for a more important service. Even the capitalist faction doesn't expect you to put the bankers on a pedestal, they're just happy if they're there. Totally goddamn useless in every game I've played.
Not worth it in my opinion. Honestly, even if I were playing a game where my object was to keep the whole island as miserable as possibly, why bother sparing the religious faction? They're at least twice as hard to keep happy as the other factions, and the only faction smaller than them are the environmentalists. Plus, a bunch are going to be pissed off because they're members of other factions. Fuck that noise, I'm not bending backwards just so I can maybe label a few heretics or other measures that may or may not work. :?
Really, setting up an oppressive capitalist, communist, or flat out military/fascist dictatorship is so much easier. Plus, unlike jails, the effectiveness of an inquisition is directly tied to how big the religious faction is. If it has only 30 members and 300 detractors, it's not going to do shit.
Note--I only played on the hardest difficulties once. My memory is fuzzy, but I think it ended with my retirement in 30 years, and pretty much two-thirds of the diehard religious faction in jail. I was very tempted to flat out close all the churches, but instead, I just reduced all the salaries to 5 and told anyone who didn't like it to take a hike. Put the money towards bribing my generals--something useful.
I should add that I also had good relations with the communists and military. I didn't pursue good relations with any faction to make people happy, I pursued those three to a) make the USSR happy, b) make the military happy, and c), enact the inquisition. Also religious zealot only made the intellectuals hate you, and the inquisition's effectiveness didn't depend on the religious faction's strength, it just increased it.
I'm not saying it's the most effective way to play; it's just the most effective way to stay in power at all costs IMO. If you want to advance beyond an island full of shacks and an agrarian/miner economy it's a terrible way to play.
So i bought the tropico pack. First experience in tropico games.....i liked it,but i kinda suck at it. Really hard.
I don't know if this is the best way to play, but I always start off by building a mine if there's a mineral deposit within a reasonable distance. They're good for early money. Also, logging camps are pretty good for a shot in the arm to the economy. Then when I have some decent money I build tenements and a clinic. And depending on the conditions, some money crops like tobacco or sugar.
So I think I like this game, but I don't think I like the music as much. It's good, but not quite as awesome as the first two it seems like. I think more puzzling are the odd periods of silence that crop up in the demo, but I'm going to assume that wont happen with more tracks in the full version. Oh, and new advisor guy isn't nearly as good as the first one, but that's to be expected.
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They were happy to be thin, sure starving but they looked great in a bikini right until they died
I had them all shot, of course.
It's good to be the president.
Not at all.
The way my downtrodden comrades can actually walk to their destination without benefit of a road leading directly to it and their habit of putting up temporary housing by themselves makes everything feel much smoother than some city building games I could name.
Tropico was a little more forgiving, and has much more style.
HALP.
*edit* I think i'm too good at this. I want to see more conflict, drag people off to my secret prisons and do unspeakable things to them like a REAL dictator. I probably shouldn't have picked "professor" and "elected capitalist" for that really. I guess I don't really see the *point* of not just giving your people whatever they want. Its not like you even have to appease all of them, just 51%. I'm sure oppressing the fuck out of your people is more fun (I will be trying this tonight after my installation by the KGB), but I don't see the point if you're not actually going to get to your goal faster as a result.
This reminds me. Can you actually have your military fight in this game? And I don't mean just scaring off the occasional rebel. I mean actually do the whole "defend the isle against a hostile invader" thing.
Nothing pissed me off more than automatically losing in the first game, despite having a kickass military, just because I pissed off one super-power too much.
Loved how Tropico 2 rectified that, though. You could actually fight off invasions and rebellions, if I recall. You just couldn't let them reach your palace or they'd get inside and butcher you.
I could see you doing some interesting stuff in this one if you can do that. Like evacuating el presidente out of the city, and to a secure military compound when a war starts to make sure you don't have as high of a chance to lose the game.
Edit: Maybe that trailer is mis-leading, but it looks like you actually can. And that cities can be damaged. If this is true, i'm going to make it a point of order to create one game where there's a city/island that's nothing but one giant death-match between the army and the rebels.
You're not too good at the game, you're playing the three easiest levels in the game.
And Archonex, I got invaded by the US the other day. I don't think you can fight them off. Realistically, how COULD a tiny island fight off a superpower?
Wait, three? Are you including the tutorial in that, or have I missed a 3rd playable level somewhere? There's the tutorial, the one where you have to export food, and the one where you have to export iron AFAIK.
And yeah, I guess I am only playing a small portion of the game, i'm just a little dissapointed that once I got the basics down I totally breezed through the second (in theory harder) mission. I guess if I want to see stuff like the US invading e.t.c i'm going to have to shift my strategy somewhat. Probably towards putting as much money into my Swiss bank account as possible.
I guess we could always make a challenge of it, start posting scores / swiss bank $$ at the end of "Last Chance" and compare E-peens.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
More likely we'll see people getting ridiculous amounts of money into that swiss bank account for the first couple of days, then someone will figure out how to hack the high-score system (or the game) and they'll all be stuck on 999,999,999,999 forever. I've never seen an online scoring system for a game that wasn't broken as fuck.
I'm happy to compare scores with PA peoples however. Just remember, screenshot or it never happened
However, I'm afraid I will be a too benevolent dictator, I totally ignored the swiss bank account thingy and tried to make my tropicans happy...
Can't wait for the game to become available!
Funding endless urban renewal projects has never felt so authentic.
It will also make the smart ones disrespect you, but who cares right? You can't even build a college in the demo!
Immigration? I'm positive the college was disabled in the demo but I could be wrong, I didn't build one at least though.
Ah, you're not the only one.
The Building Permit, while making you filfthy rich, pisses intellectuals off and does make everything more expensive. Furthermore, this time around, only half of the lost money goes to the Swiss Bank Account. I preferred using banks (albeit late in the game), but even then, it was much more efficient just to select 'Uncorruptible' as a character trait.
Besides, El Presidente always ended his five consecutive ten-year office terms canonized as a Saint by the Tropican people and beloved by the working man. Who needs a Swiss Bank Account when you can spend your golden years shuffling about the island, getting everything for free, from haircuts to booze (I usually picked 'alcoholic' as a flaw). Of course, keeping the capitalists was hard, but I could usually keep them satisfied by chasing the Yanqui tourist dollars with a luxury hotel and the like.
For the full game though I'm seriously considering just giving the religious faction the finger, because fuck 'em :P
Seriously, they're a pain in the ass. And they're also very easy to shrink as a faction. Stick with pleasing the communists and militarists, and then the capitalists and environmentalists.
You can pick a "like it or leave it" policy in the immigration office and unhappy tropicans will start leaving, so I'm definately shitting on the religious types. Although it could be fun to mix it up once in a while and run a dystopian millitarist society with no elections :P
Also why is the gun fighting so... lame? Do the guns even have muzzle flashes?
They didn't want to turn it into Age of Empires: Rise of Rum. It's a city building game, not an insurgency simulation tool.
Brilliant.
Yeah, but the problem is they're a pain in the ass to keep happy. I mean, if you want to go a-persecutin' (and I'm not judging), there are much easier ways (a few well-staffed jails can do the work of the entire religious faction, and even better, they don't stop just because they disagree with you).
I honestly never had a problem with military coups, though by 2000 in Tropico, I 'only' had six generals (and honestly, that was probably more than I needed). Even then, simply arresting generals before the coup is a lot easier.
Long story short, there are easier ways to be oppressive. Keeping the religious faction happy is disproportionately expensive compared to the actual overall happiness. Keeping communists happy can be done at something around 1/5 the cost per person, I would say (plus, it's actually kind of crucial, since one thing that makes the communist faction happy is having a working economy). Same to the capitalists (except maybe 1/2). It wouldn't be such a problem if clergy actually had some dedication to remaining clergymen, like in reality. I shouldn't have to pay a bishop (or whoever works at the Cathedral) almost twice as much as one of my generals! Hell, he's a goddamm holy man, I shouldn't have to pay him at all! I was already paying to keep his Cathedral in tip-top shape, for god sakes!
*grumbles angrily at broken game mechanic*
Since you could only have one immigration office at a time (at least in the original game) I almost always set it to "Skilled Workers Welcome". Love it or Leave it would have been very useful, but I had a bad habit of having overemployment ("Just one more cigar factory couldn't hurt....and it'll pay for itself in a year!"), even with pretty healthy immigration. Especially people with high school diplomas. I'm pretty proud of the number of immigrants I would get from Miami, Moscow, and Pretoria.
One thing I wish they'd include would be an edict requiring mandatory high school education for all children (perhaps once you had a sufficient number of staffed high schools). The sort of thing you have in Cuba, not to mention pretty much every country in the world that has some focus on education (including the US--though I think we stop at 10th grade here? Not sure). It might upset people since they couldn't send their children off to work immediately, but it would force el President to raise wages. I for one would gladly do that if it meant stopping my schools from being empty constantly.
I think i'll go to steam and buy the tropico pack (15 dollars) right now..
The reason Im a giant tool..I love sim city I still play sim city 4 all the damn time and after looking at the game description I think I will love this game as well...the reason I never played it/payed attention it was I thought it was an old nes game....lets see if i can google it...nope no luck...but it was a NES action/adventure game, set on a tropical island and while fun at the time, was not great...
so yeah...tool
Well, it's okay, because now's the perfect time to get on board the Tropico Train.
That being said, I put the bare minimum in to make people happy in those games. I did take good care of my army though, so I doubt throwing up some more tenements would have made much of a difference as far as coups go.
If you have traits like religious zealout--something that makes the religious faction happy while pissing everyone else of--yeah, keeping them happy is probably a lot easier.
Otherwise, it's a pain in the ass. The religious faction seems immediately against what makes other factions happy when it comes to traits. Church and cathedral employees expect ridiculous salaries for providing exactly one function. Even soldiers do more than one thing: raise loyalty and security. Plus, they fight off rebels. Priests? They fulfill religious requirements. They don't fight rebels. They don't fight coup plotters. They don't improve the security or loyalty levels. Hell, a church with only one priest improves the environment as much as one at full capacity.
Not worth it in my opinion. Honestly, even if I were playing a game where my object was to keep the whole island as miserable as possibly, why bother sparing the religious faction? They're at least twice as hard to keep happy as the other factions, and the only faction smaller than them are the environmentalists. Plus, a bunch are going to be pissed off because they're members of other factions. Fuck that noise, I'm not bending backwards just so I can maybe label a few heretics or other measures that may or may not work. :?
Really, setting up an oppressive capitalist, communist, or flat out military/fascist dictatorship is so much easier. Plus, unlike jails, the effectiveness of an inquisition is directly tied to how big the religious faction is. If it has only 30 members and 300 detractors, it's not going to do shit.
Note--I only played on the hardest difficulties once. My memory is fuzzy, but I think it ended with my retirement in 30 years, and pretty much two-thirds of the diehard religious faction in jail. I was very tempted to flat out close all the churches, but instead, I just reduced all the salaries to 5 and told anyone who didn't like it to take a hike. Put the money towards bribing my generals--something useful.
It takes a while to get used to. A long while. You might want to consider dabbling in sandbox mode, at least economically if not politically.
I'm not saying it's the most effective way to play; it's just the most effective way to stay in power at all costs IMO. If you want to advance beyond an island full of shacks and an agrarian/miner economy it's a terrible way to play.
I don't know if this is the best way to play, but I always start off by building a mine if there's a mineral deposit within a reasonable distance. They're good for early money. Also, logging camps are pretty good for a shot in the arm to the economy. Then when I have some decent money I build tenements and a clinic. And depending on the conditions, some money crops like tobacco or sugar.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...