Tropico Has Arrived!

[John-SJ]

In fact, it's at my house waiting for me to get home from work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Tropico will live up to expectations. I'll post some impressions in a day or two.

Anyone else have this? Are you planning on getting it?

John-SJ

[John-SJ]

I just finished the tutorial. My first impression? AWESOME! Everything is simulated! Each resident is unique, simulated individually. TONS of interactions! And there are a whole bunch of reports, logically laid out, very informitive, very intuitive!

I think (I hope) PopTop did this one RIGHT!

John-SJ

[Imran Siddiqui]

NEED GAME! Must get game!!! Argh!

[LandBuilder]

I played game now for 2 days- I like it very much. Nice not to really have to worry about an army. Worth a look for any Civer!

[John-SJ]

OK, I've had Tropico for almost a week now and I am still looking for the bottom! This is a game of real depth! I love it!

Tropico is a builder game like SimCity or the Caesar series, but is so full of strategy that I think of it more as a really good strategy game rather than a builder.

You are the "Presidente" of a small Caribean island, you can assume the role of one of about 30 real world leaders from Fidel Castro to to "Evita", or you can build your own personality into a custom leader, selecting traits similar to an RPG. You can run a capitalist or communist form of government, woo either the U.S. or Russia for foreign aid, build an agricultural economy, or an industrial or tourist one. You must keep all of the political factions (e.g. militarist, enviromental, religious, communist, etc) happy or they will run against you in the next election. If they are really unhappy they may even foment a rebellion! And, for a little added excitement your own miliary can stage a coup if they are not well taken care of.

But you are not totally helpless against all of these political threats, you're not a president of a democracy, you're a dictator of a small island. Your opponents can be bribed, given preferential treatment, jailed, or just made to disappear. You have to be a little careful though, the U.N. watches all elections and if they are not on the up and up you can inherit all kinds of grief. One fun tactic I've found is to pamper the faction that is spearheading the election effort, give them whatever they've been asking for (for a year anyway) and watch their support for your opponent diminish.

I've played a couple of games as a capitalist and done OK, there is so much to learn, the interactions seem to be about as intricate as in a Civ game, but before too long I want to try a game as a truly ruthless totalitarian too. There's plenty of room to experiment in this game, and I don't think there are a few killer strategies, it seems as though there is a wide range of willing possibilities.

BTW, The interface is clean, simple, and easy to use. Takes about 2 minutes to learn it.

This is a GREAT game! Get it! This could be a new addiction for a LOT of people!

John-SJ

[Bosh]

I ordered it last night, should have a run time doing a Jonestown reenactment sans the poison punch...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Got game! Really nice... played an easy Capitalist game for the first one. My new game has me as a Religious Scholar type... first building: Church. Should be fun .

[John-SJ]

Don't forget to visit Cafe Tropico. They have a pretty active forum community, lots of strategy tips and questions answered. Check it out!

John-SJ

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, that seems to be the 'Apolyton' of the Tropico World.. Of course the Civ world is much better .

[Comrade Tribune]

Yes, this is a really great game. Comes as close to a real political simulation as I have ever seen. Plus, great replay value, as You can be a totally different type of person each game. Plus, unlike SimCity3000, the game is not too easy. Getting decent results on a high diff level can be a tough challenge. And the great atmosphere does draw You into it. Addictive!

[Bosh]

If you haven't seen my on ICQ much lately, Tropico is the culprit

Well in my latest game the US sent in the marines and all I did was be elected as a socialist and have tourettes syndrome. Hell I even had a nice little jail which I didn't throw anyone into (well one person I wanted to jail died on her own and the other one kept on running and losing horribly since everyone hated him and his family) and I fired my army. Serves me right for builing a bunch of statues of myself all over the place instead of the diplomacy building and asking for a Russian military base. Oh well kicking ass in three elections with stability on hard was a good enough accomplishment.

I really like Tropico, in the last two games I've played (EU and CTP: II) it was relatively easy to get a routine down and just carry it out. In CTP I NEVER had to do any strategic thinking and in EU the only thing that required in-detpth thought was, "who do I attack next?"

In Tropico there's SO many things to worry about and juggle that I've barely started formulating a strategy. And it seems so customizable and there's so many custom goals you can set for yourself (ie play without "sinful" buildings, have a completely rural society, etc. etc. it really lends itself to roleplaying in a way that SimCity or even Civ doesn't).

Some tips:
-If you're playing on medium difficulty or below be a dictator the people will ***** but they won't do much if you play half-way intelligently (or if the world banks forces you to pay your generals normal wages and you're too lazy to fire them ).
-If the enviros ***** build fountains, that seems to shut them up.
-Don't do too much lumbering, its not that great of a money earner and it killed the environment.
-Gold is GOOD!
-Get some tenements up FAST.
-Have a bunch of farms farming the same thing and then have them all feed into one factory. Factories a good.
-High schools are a pain in the ass and your people don't seem to like studying much, its cheaper to just import people.
-Having "farmer" as a background kicks all kinds of all, especially early on.
-If your army's annoying fire the lot of them
-Sprawl's a *****. I hate having to deal with much more than a hundred people in one area. Keep immigration down and if population gets big establish seperate villages.
-Pay your soldiers insane amounts of money and make sure they get top of the line housing if you don't want them shooting at you.
-Put annoying people in jail, its great fun!

Strange things that've happened to me:
-The Americans set up a military base on my island RIGHT in the middle of my resort village. The tourists seemed to like it though even if it took up some space I was saving for a hotel
-At one point the person who respected me the most was homeless and unemployed and had just been released from jail (yay brainwashing!)
-Coments like "as long as I can see the birds I'm still free" from jailed people
-Me putting two people in jail at once whose only crime was being old religious ladies (goddam religious people didn't appreciate my communist dictatorship).
-People immigrating from the US to be underpaid farmers etc.
-People not wanting to become bar maids for YEARS despite me offering them almost 50% more pay than farmers.
-Priest shacked up with showgirls and hogging all the space in the Church.
-The Franco family. They're always there and they're always annoying. I had one Franco who was the son of one of my origonal soldiers who had no political views and loved living in a shack, I demolished his shack about five times but he kept on building new ones even though there was good housing open right next to the palace.

------------------
Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.

[Grumbold]

I'm afraid I have to agree with the PC Gamer (uk) on this one. Tropico is ok but it could have been so much better. I won't say what I do like (already covered in earlier posts) but here are the things I found disappointing:

- Crashbugs. Annoying and still happening with 1.01
- Buildings of a certain type are all identical. No characterisation, variation or slow degradation from pollution etc that you get with SimCity3K
- Workers won't travel more than about 200 yards to work but you can't be shown their maximum radius - leading to absurdities like chains of construction offices needed just to build one mine in a remote location.
- No vehicles or tarmac roads even once the country is wealthy. El presidente wants a smooth ride in a limo from the airport and an armoured truck for his valuables. A clapped out bus to get workers round the island and tourists to the bars would help too.
- All employees/tourists in the same role look identical
- Despite all countries learning how to build on steep hillsides for centuries even with primitive techniques, in Tropico the land has to be flat and you cant build adjacent to another building if the flattening can't be done. Aaaargh!! Transport Tycoon worked this one out back in 1993!
- The whole island looks and plays like smalltownsville. You can't get a feeling of running Cuba because the best you can manage is about a population of 800.

An opportunity missed IMO. The crashes allowed me to return the game with a clear conscience. Transport Tycoon Deluxe remains my favourite but for wannabe dictators I'd recommend SimCity3K with a hilly map and no attempt to build any of the 3x3 or larger buildings. As Forrest Gump would say "That's all I have to say about that"

[John-SJ]

Grumbold,

Sorry you didn't enjoy Tropico, as with all games I guess it's not for everyone. However, if all you are looking for in a game is it's deficiencies I think you could make a case for any game being OK at best, even Civ or SMAC. (looking at your criticisms about 80% of them apply equally well to Civ II, is Civ II merely OK?) If you had looked for what the game is rather than what it is not you may have found much of the same addictiveness as I've found with Civ games, and for many of the same reasons.

My only problem with Tropico is the more time I spend playing it the more ways I find to play it. On the surface Tropico appears to be a very simple game and some would say rather limited. But as you dig into it you begin to see that Tropico is really a very intricate and well thought out simulation. One of my standards for a great game is one that includes a relatively small set of well understood game elements that interact in a nearly infinite number of ways. Civ is one of the standard setter games, Tropico meets this standard, high praise indeed.

John-SJ

[joseph1944]

John: patch 1.02 is out plus map editor.

------------------

[John-SJ]

quote: Originally posted by joseph1944 on 05-17-2001 12:14 PM John: patch 1.02 is out plus map editor.

Yes, thanks. I got it the day it was available.

John-SJ