Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Tropico 6 from Limbic Entertainment

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
Tropico 1's genius was pulling off a black comedy about poverty, despotism and cold war skullduggery on some barren atoll in the mid-20th century Caribbean. It was grounded enough in reality that you actually felt for the colorful little sprites with names and jobs and families -- the true protagonists of the game -- that eked out a living in their absolute shithole of an island while you mismanaged and embezzled and engaged in diplomatic shenanigans. And even when you did succeed, the game kept it real -- the island was still a third world shithole, just one where people didn't starve to death or live in corrugated iron shacks.

:salute:

And in the newer games, the dictatorial path isn't really an option for an efficient game. It's too easy to please the majority and win elections. The game never feels oppressive, if you execute people, it's rarely because you have to in order for your regime to survive, but because you are bored and do it for a diversion (which is a kind of evil that doesn't fit the theme).

Not to mention that a few minutes into the game your island already has pristine asphalt roads, multi-storey parking lots and more cars per capita than your average Amurikkan neighborhood. Fast forward a few more minutes and the place looks like effin' Miami. Is it too much to ask that the towns in a Caribbean shithole simulator should be more like Kingston or Port-au-prince? It's almost like the devs have never set foot outside their own country.

Well, tbh, my communist policy would be perfect and result in basically a beautiful utopia so the game's actually more realistic.
 

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
Location
Tampon Bay
Tropico 1's genius was pulling off a black comedy about poverty, despotism and cold war skullduggery on some barren atoll in the mid-20th century Caribbean. It was grounded enough in reality that you actually felt for the colorful little sprites with names and jobs and families -- the true protagonists of the game -- that eked out a living in their absolute shithole of an island while you mismanaged and embezzled and engaged in diplomatic shenanigans. And even when you did succeed, the game kept it real -- the island was still a third world shithole, just one where people didn't starve to death or live in corrugated iron shacks.

:salute:

And in the newer games, the dictatorial path isn't really an option for an efficient game. It's too easy to please the majority and win elections. The game never feels oppressive, if you execute people, it's rarely because you have to in order for your regime to survive, but because you are bored and do it for a diversion (which is a kind of evil that doesn't fit the theme).

That's also my main criticism of the game. I had a clear vision what my island was gonna be, I wanted to build a huge labor camp with tobacco and coffee farms everywhere that work solely for export and poverty wherever you look, contrasted by extravagant areas with tourists in white suits, casinos, tasteless architecture and all kinds of prostitution. I wanted all that, but ended up building new schools, hiring teachers abroad, micro managing fruit markets and cheap communal housing for my own people, which was more like a socialist state than a dictatorship. I ende up this way no matter what I did because otherwise my investment would destroyed and my army was a joke.
 

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,216
Location
Space Hell
It was near-impossible to lose an election. Promise some cheap stuff and then build it. Your ratings skyrocket. Games were too easy. And it was mostly one strategy for every mission. Get oil baron trait, survive initial deficit from building oil refinery and oil well and bathe in endless money. When they added inexhaustible sea oil reserves you could forget about money shortages completely.
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
Messages
2,815
Location
inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
jMFMbHk.png
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Yeah, wtf.
Calling it a gameplay trailer just to show some moving camera around an island?
Weird, just weird.

I liked both 4 and 5, tbh. Although 5 was a clear step down.
Kinda curious where this one will be going.
 

wwsd

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Messages
7,622
I've played Tropico 1 endlessly in the past and they had the whole series on sale at GOG a few months ago, so I did what I usually do: buy them and then forget about it for three months. But now I'm playing Tropico 3 and it's pretty fun, although it's basically just the first game with more modern graphics, and sometimes specific objectives (e.g. a communist path on one map where you need to have a big population and high happiness). Still, without those objectives, I think the path to victory is usually just to be a nice capitalist who builds apartments and holds elections to keep everyone happy. Even the first game had this to some extent, but the challenge was bigger, the economical situation more volatile.

In Tropico 3 at least you have "garages" where people can take the car to get to jobs further away from home. The game lampoons the silliness of this by saying that this is the only form of magic in Tropico, since cars magically appear. But it beats the situation in Tropico 1 where everything is done on foot and even basic infrastructural management is not really possible because you only have dirt roads that people don't even walk on most of the time. I wonder if any of the later games have some rudimentary public transport, like "import some shitty buses from East Germany that travel 2 times a day".

How good are 4 and 5 anyway? I'm getting some mixed signals about them from previous threads here. The trailers for the 6th part make me think that they don't really understand the charm of the game, although it's there superficially. Having an archipelago with lots of huge bridges is nice I guess, but I can imagine that in a proper third-world island shithole, people would just get around with boats unless it develops into some tourist paradise. I don't see the point of stealing or building national wonders. I already hated that shit way back in SimCity 3000: build the Statue of Liberty for $0 and all you can do is look at it. From the preview and the list of features, I see that "election speeches are back". This is a feature from Tropico 3. Am I to assume that it was removed in 4 and 5? That's how to make a franchise: implement a feature in one game, remove it in the sequel, then add it back in for the next sequel so all the journalists will gush at the new feature.

What I would like to see at some point (I don't know if 4/5/6/ have it) is the basic mechanics and atmosphere of Tropico 1 and 3 with the political intrigue of Hidden Agenda from way back in 1988, where keeping everybody happy is basically impossible, where communists, capitalists, and fascists are actually trying to gain power for themselves instead of just influencing you, and where they will fuck you over if you don't do land reform quickly enough or something.
 

Jugashvili

管官的官
Patron
Joined
Aug 20, 2013
Messages
2,608
Location
Georgia, Asia
Codex 2013
What I would like to see at some point (I don't know if 4/5/6/ have it) is the basic mechanics and atmosphere of Tropico 1 and 3 with the political intrigue of Hidden Agenda from way back in 1988, where keeping everybody happy is basically impossible, where communists, capitalists, and fascists are actually trying to gain power for themselves instead of just influencing you, and where they will fuck you over if you don't do land reform quickly enough or something.

Beating Hidden Agenda is EZ though.

Don't appoint any ministers. Just go through encounters and say YES to everybody. Implement reform when asked to, then repeal it when asked to, then implement it again. A coup will be attempted against you and you will win. Eventually all of your opposition will be dead or in exile.
 

wwsd

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Messages
7,622
What I would like to see at some point (I don't know if 4/5/6/ have it) is the basic mechanics and atmosphere of Tropico 1 and 3 with the political intrigue of Hidden Agenda from way back in 1988, where keeping everybody happy is basically impossible, where communists, capitalists, and fascists are actually trying to gain power for themselves instead of just influencing you, and where they will fuck you over if you don't do land reform quickly enough or something.

Beating Hidden Agenda is EZ though.

Don't appoint any ministers. Just go through encounters and say YES to everybody. Implement reform when asked to, then repeal it when asked to, then implement it again. A coup will be attempted against you and you will win. Eventually all of your opposition will be dead or in exile.

Of course, it's basically an educational game from the late 1980s with lots of weird glitches. This path to victory that you describe shouldn't really be possible. But the general mechanics of factions are interesting since they are actually vying for power and they have long-term strategies. Whereas in Tropico the communists are happy as long as everyone has an apartment, even if you are a massive capitalist otherwise. The difference is that in Hidden Agenda, you're the relatively ineffectual head of a post-revolutionary junta, whereas in Tropico you're el Presidente and you have far more power. But there is basically no reason in Tropico not to have a democracy except just to experiment.

I'll try Tropico 4 when I'm bored with 3, which should be soon. What about 5, is it any good?
 

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
한양
Strap Yourselves In
I agree completely that they should have gone more in the direction of Hidden Agenda. What I liked most about Tropico was that you start off with an impoverished shithole and you have to keep improving it as your citizens' expectations grow. If you're not solving their problems fast enough, they'll get rid of you and replace you with someone who can. In the sequels I never felt that same pressure.

I doubt we'll ever get a game like that though. Millenials just aren't interested in anything besides first world problems and they can't even comprehend what global poverty in the 20th century was like.
 

BrotherFrank

Nouveau Riche
Patron
Joined
Apr 19, 2012
Messages
1,574
How good are 4 and 5 anyway?

Tropico 4 and 3 are similar enough that I honestly struggle to remember what the key differences are other then tropico 4 being the start of their mini dlc deluge tendencies. The modern times expansion added a bunch of stuff, though for those who already feel tropico has lost touch with the concept of being the dictator of a shitty 3rd world banana republic that expansion will just add salt to the wounds since by the end of a game your island will be neo tokyo.

Tropico 5 is...eh im not sure what to rate it. Thing is its multi/coop, and the idea of playing tropico with a pal is enough to make me more forgiving then if it was a straight sp sequel. And thank goodness because the overall simulation aspect has been heavily dumbed down, as a city builder its easily the worst of the series because of it. Ffs even the almanac is shit and lacking in info and stats.
Otherwise the era system is okayish and the combat system is bad but then this is the first time in the series you control them and you can fight the kwans or the ruskies instead of it being an auto game over.
If you like the idea of a coop tropico then 5 can suffice, otherwise stick with 3/4.

Anyways add me to those who don’t believe tropico 1 will ever know a true sequel to its themes. At this point tropico is just a chilled city builder series with an island theme and a very light millenial friendly approach to politics.
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom