Tropico 5 - Released

[Metro]

still better than what ea does.

Not really.

 

[Angthoron]

Tropico 4 suffered from universal solutions. Oil offshore platform, get money for College and you have unlimited money. Tourism became very unprofitable in T4, have no idea what they broke but compared to T3 it sucked.

The thing that made Tropico 3 and 4 annoying for me is the housing. It just doesn't make sense to build anything but the best housing, because it has the best population density/tile and the most happiness/type both at the same time. Sure, it's expensive, but the game sort of showered you in those houses anyway, do some quest, get a couple of free houses, stuff like that. Again a universal solution.

 

[Jugashvili]

The thing that made Tropico 3 and 4 annoying for me is the housing. It just doesn't make sense to build anything but the best housing, because it has the best population density/tile and the most happiness/type both at the same time. Sure, it's expensive, but the game sort of showered you in those houses anyway, do some quest, get a couple of free houses, stuff like that. Again a universal solution.

1 - Issue the Soviet Development Aid Edict
2 - Spam apartment buildings at half price
3 - ???
4 - PROFIT!

To be fair, T1 also had that but since workers had to flatten the land beforehand larger buildings took longer to build. In T3/4, the combination of trucks and no time required to flatten land meant you could spam them a lot easier. They also have a much smaller footprint than in T1.

 

[Turjan]

The thing that made Tropico 3 and 4 annoying for me is the housing. It just doesn't make sense to build anything but the best housing, because it has the best population density/tile and the most happiness/type both at the same time.

That's what I meant with shanties and bunkhouses being useless. I only use the first one as overflow homes for new immigrants near the port (if someone lives there, I have to build new apartments) and bunkhouses for terraforming.

It's a shame, really. The Caribbean feel is underdevoloped. In principle, you have these bunkhouses, the initial market, and the set of small rural houses, which together somehow get this right. But it's only one kind of bunkhouse, and this huge shanty. Compared to a tenement, the bunkhouse is too expensive and the shanty takes up too much space - it's huge compared to the number of people living in that palace.

 

[Turjan]

1 - Issue the Soviet Development Aid Edict
2 - Spam apartment buildings at half price

I usually issue that edict in the second year. I only build housing before that if the situation gets dangerous or the harbor is too far from town.

 

[Angthoron]

The thing that made Tropico 3 and 4 annoying for me is the housing. It just doesn't make sense to build anything but the best housing, because it has the best population density/tile and the most happiness/type both at the same time.

That's what I meant with shanties and bunkhouses being useless. I only use the first one as overflow homes for new immigrants near the port (if someone lives there, I have to build new apartments) and bunkhouses for terraforming.

It's a shame, really. The Caribbean feel is underdevoloped. In principle, you have these bunkhouses, the initial market, and the set of small rural houses, which together somehow get this right. But it's only one kind of bunkhouse, and this huge shanty. Compared to a tenement, the bunkhouse is too expensive and the shanty takes up too much space - it's huge compared to the number of people living in that palace.

I actually feel that Sim City model of housing would work best here - citizen prosperity, land value and pollution/security affecting what would grow in the area you zone: shantytowns and favelas in harbour areas, expensive cluster house residences in areas with high concentrations of security/comforts... The "select what to build" in terms of housing never worked for me in the series, somehow. I suppose you COULD micro it a bit, but overall, zoning could be a much more interesting and "organic" solution.

Edit: Hell, even the original's "3x3 cell" zoning from the very first SimCity could work better.

 

[Space Satan]

Haousing was also a good way to guarantee you 70%+ rating in election. House, clinic and a church - voila, people are as happy as a mindless EA consumer after new 25$ DLC with two maps and a skin. Loyalist faction made it even easier. Even after natural disasters you could rebuild in no time. No sense of danger. Rebels are a joke. They mostly attack in scripted scenarios.

 

[Turjan]

I actually feel that Sim City model of housing would work best here ...

Indeed. Simcity 4 is my probably most played game for a reason. In Tropico, they missed a chance. Those fancy concominiums would make excellent city center buidlings at the start, if they'd look rundown in the start. I mean, they look like remodeled old buildings, anwyay. Why not use this and go with the concept? Use apartment blocks to replace cheap bunkhouse-like structures. Make the latter cheaper and varied. If upgrading isn't automatic, let you decide, whenever you want. Not this forced upgrade shit, where you replace these wonderful, fancy-looking old-style condominiums by boring cheap-looking modern buildings. The latter even looks like a downgrade.

 

[Angthoron]

I actually feel that Sim City model of housing would work best here ...

Indeed. Simcity 4 is my probably most played game for a reason. In Tropico, they missed a chance. Those fancy concominiums would make excellent city center buidlings at the start, if they'd look rundown in the start. I mean, they look like remodeled old buildings, anwyay. Why not use this and go with the concept? Use apartment blocks to replace cheap bunkhouse-like structures. Make the latter cheaper and varied. If upgrading isn't automatic, let you decide, whenever you want. Not this forced upgrade shit, where you replace these wonderful, fancy-looking old-style condominiums by boring cheap-looking modern buildings. The latter even looks like a downgrade.

Yeah, I think a place like Buenos Aires is a great example of how such a city could look. It has such a wild range of architecture/class, and Tropico does nothing to reflect this. It's really not about shanties or mass-produced appartment blocks, it's what people have done with them in Latin/Southern America that's fascinating. Would want to see that. The rifts between social layers, or the attempts of mending said rifts when going with socialism, architectural/economical fatigue... That kinda stuff.

 

[Turjan]

Yeah, I think a place like Buenos Aires is a great example of how such a city could look.

Not sure about this. I'm fine with Caribbean feeling. If it's Caribbean feeling.

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, I think a place like Buenos Aires is a great example of how such a city could look.

Not sure about this. I'm fine with Caribbean feeling. If it's Caribbean feeling.

Well, I don't mean "Should look exactly like this", rather, the general direction of things. I believe the Caribbean looks, in ways, fairly similar. In any case, no sense fretting over what's not to be - I don't have huge hopes for T5 to suddenly take a swing towards a more dynamic environment.

 

[Borelli]

Tenements provide that "a communist government builds non luxurious but functional apartments for the masses" feeling. I don't build them as much as i should, i love my apartment blocks too much because El Presidente cares about the happiness of his people.

 

[Angthoron]

Tenements provide that "a communist government builds non luxurious but functional apartments for the masses" feeling. I don't build them as much as i should, i love my apartment blocks too much because El Presidente cares about the happiness of his people.

There's almost no sense in having tenements - sure, they're cheaper, but apt blocks are dirt cheap to spam like others here have indicated, have a possibly better (can't recall right now) population density, and on top of all that, give major boosts to popularity. Why would anyone build tenement when they're a clearly inferior option?

I'd love them to be actually useful, though. Historical tenement buildings exist not just because someone wanted to make an ugly city area with cheap production values, but the way T3 and T4 at least handle the mechanic, that reason is non-existent in the game.

 

[Turjan]

There's almost no sense in having tenements - sure, they're cheaper, but apt blocks are dirt cheap to spam like others here have indicated, have a possibly better (can't recall right now) population density, and on top of all that, give major boosts to popularity. Why would anyone build tenement when they're a clearly inferior option?

Tenements have double the occupancy (12 families compared to 6) but cost less than an apartment block. They are pretty much a no-brainer to build if you run into a quick increase in shacks or don't have enough money in the start. They also often get building discounts, or you get them for free from the USSR. With air conditioning, they reach a building quality of 50 (without, it's 35), but popularity isn't really an issue at that point of the game, anyway. Anything better than shacks is usually no problem. I'm usually stuck with a few tenements during the end game, as I don't have any space anymore to put the people elsewhere.

 

[RK47]

I actually feel that Sim City model of housing would work best here ...

Indeed. Simcity 4 is my probably most played game for a reason. In Tropico, they missed a chance. Those fancy concominiums would make excellent city center buidlings at the start, if they'd look rundown in the start. I mean, they look like remodeled old buildings, anwyay. Why not use this and go with the concept? Use apartment blocks to replace cheap bunkhouse-like structures. Make the latter cheaper and varied. If upgrading isn't automatic, let you decide, whenever you want. Not this forced upgrade shit, where you replace these wonderful, fancy-looking old-style condominiums by boring cheap-looking modern buildings. The latter even looks like a downgrade.

It's too hard to be creative when you aim for a certain thing.
What happened in Tropico is all too familiar in a sandbox game - Creative Lead said 'go with whatever that makes the game more colorful' and that's what you get with the shitty DLCs and buildings that don't fit the setting. Might as well put in Air Superiority DLC pack so you can bomb suspected rebels with drone strikes from Kwa.

 

[Space Satan]

Hands off preview

 

[Turjan]

That doesn't look exciting at all. On one hand, it pretty much looks like the same old. On the other hand, they managed to make it look even uglier, at least in my opinion. You have these very ornate buildings, but they sport very flat and ugly textures. Also, the ornate stuff doesn't look right. The "historical" buildings look like cheap modern copies of historical buildings. I can see this happening in the real world, because it's cheaper, but hey, this is a game. Oh well. I guess this one can wait for deep bargain prices.

 

[Jugashvili]

That doesn't look exciting at all. On one hand, it pretty much looks like the same old. On the other hand, they managed to make it look even uglier, at least in my opinion. You have these very ornate buildings, but they sport very flat and ugly textures. Also, the ornate stuff doesn't look right. The "historical" buildings look like cheap modern copies of historical buildings. I can see this happening in the real world, because it's cheaper, but hey, this is a game. Oh well. I guess this one can wait for deep bargain prices.

This. The whole "colonial" era thing strikes me as a gimmick, and a very dumb and uninspired one at that. The Tropico concept is meant to simulate what it is meant to simulate -- a banana dictatorship. In other words, c. 1950s to 1980s. Could be stretched back to the 1920s, with the United Fruit coup and the revolts in Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and the rise of the Somoza dynasty in the 1930s. The name of the game is repression, electoral fraud, embezzlement, insurgencies, meddling by international companies and powers, and so forth.

What they call the "colonial era" is hardly as dramatic or interesting a time period for the region. And they're probably too pussy to dare to be provocative (as Tropico 1 was provocative) by including stuff like the 19th century Cuban rebellions, people being exploited and worked to death in the sugar cane fields, machete gangs on a rampage, etc.

A clever idea for a sequel that could make the series fresh again would be a guerrilla simulator in which you are in charge of setting up the insurgency. You build up guerrilla bases on the island around the main city and increase your population by recruiting malcontents to your cause, securing support from one of the great powers and slowly working your way towards toppling the Powers That Be, or getting exterminated in the jungle by CIA-trained death squads and government mooks. Challenges would include hijacking supplies, fighting off jungle fever, spreading propaganda and slowly surrounding the government capital and denying them terrain that is out of the reach of their soldiers and patrols. A further challenge could involve resisting a counter-coup by the major power behind the former government after you eject them from power.

 

[Borelli]

Same music as before.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Would love to play Latin America Colony simulator from 1550 to 2050 but without this Disneyland look and with more Fredoom for player; How about not declaring independence or implementing Monarchy or Theocracy? Soviet System? Becoming British/French/Dutch clay? Not to mention those games should be more grim dark and AoDecadentish to not be just another Sim city clone in Jungle.

 

[tuluse]

A clever idea for a sequel that could make the series fresh again would be a guerrilla simulator in which you are in charge of setting up the insurgency. You build up guerrilla bases on the island around the main city and increase your population by recruiting malcontents to your cause, securing support from one of the great powers and slowly working your way towards toppling the Powers That Be, or getting exterminated in the jungle by CIA-trained death squads and government mooks. Challenges would include hijacking supplies, fighting off jungle fever, spreading propaganda and slowly surrounding the government capital and denying them terrain that is out of the reach of their soldiers and patrols. A further challenge could involve resisting a counter-coup by the major power behind the former government after you eject them from power.

So jagged alliance 2?

 

[Jugashvili]

So jagged alliance 2?

Sort of, but with Tropico-style gameplay and flavor.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so jagged alliance 2 with humor.
so jagged alliance 2?

 

[Angthoron]

Addeeeed mode: Why would you play Tropico when there's Jagged Alliance 2?

 

[Turjan]

Addeeeed mode: Why would you play Tropico when there's Jagged Alliance 2?

Why have more than one game, anyway? You press a key or click, and something awesome happens. What else do you need?