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Tropico 5 - Released

Pantalones

Prospernaut
Joined
May 25, 2014
Messages
286
I've had a little tickling for some Tropico lately and notices this thread for the release of Tropico 5. I guess I missed 3 and 4 somehow. Doesn't look very good, though.

I liked Tropico 2 quite a bit. You guys seem pretty hard on Tropico 4 and I agree that megabuildings is a really bad way to go.

Should I pick up Tropico 3 or just replay Tropico 2 again?
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
I've had a little tickling for some Tropico lately and notices this thread for the release of Tropico 5. I guess I missed 3 and 4 somehow. Doesn't look very good, though.

I liked Tropico 2 quite a bit. You guys seem pretty hard on Tropico 4 and I agree that megabuildings is a really bad way to go.

Should I pick up Tropico 3 or just replay Tropico 2 again?
3 and 4 are basically the same game. 4 is surprisingly more optimized though. Megabuildings are mostly coming from DLCs though, so in "regular" non-DLCed game you'd not get much of those. If you see them both at the same price range (and 4 is quite often on discount/bundles), then might be worth grabbing 4 instead.

Then again, I've never looked TOO in-depth into it, so I'm sure some hardcore Tropico player will point me out to be wrong with a five hundred bullet point list citing all the minute differences. To me, they felt pretty much the same except, yeah, 4 ran much better for me.
 

Pantalones

Prospernaut
Joined
May 25, 2014
Messages
286
3 and 4 are basically the same game. 4 is surprisingly more optimized though. Megabuildings are mostly coming from DLCs though, so in "regular" non-DLCed game you'd not get much of those.

Thanks. In that case I will look out for 4, without the DLC.
 

Calapine

Educated
Patron
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
52
Location
Marchia orientalis
Codex 2014
3 and 4 are basically the same game. 4 is surprisingly more optimized though. Megabuildings are mostly coming from DLCs though, so in "regular" non-DLCed game you'd not get much of those.

Thanks. In that case I will look out for 4, without the DLC.

The Modern Times DLC does have some nice features. New edicts, modern housing, etc. Of course some of it is overpowered, but if you can get the entire game (plus DLCs) at a discount there is no reason not to use them and just adopt some house rules. Modern Times is de-activateable within the game as well should you find yourself to dislike it strongly.
 

Heresiarch

Prophet
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
1,451
I've just bought 4 with all DLCs as a 10 euro package. Meanwhile also downloading a TPB demo version of 5 to compare them both a bit. Can anyone here who have played both and what's the thought on the differences? I've heard 5 is worse in some ways such as worse humor and worse information delivery.

Personally I've only played Tropico 1 (which I looooved), skipped 2, and played 3 only for a couple of hours.
 

Whisky

The Solution
Joined
Feb 22, 2012
Messages
8,555
Location
Banjoville, British Columbia
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera
I've just bought 4 with all DLCs as a 10 euro package. Meanwhile also downloading a TPB demo version of 5 to compare them both a bit. Can anyone here who have played both and what's the thought on the differences? I've heard 5 is worse in some ways such as worse humor and worse information delivery.

5 has an arrow in the knee joke in a 2014 game. That's all you need to know about the humor.
 

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,216
Location
Space Hell
For fuck's sake it has only...5 or 6 mission campaign, that doesn't reach modern times. You just build nuclear program and...game ends.
Overall it's worse than tropico 4.
Main reasons:
- Tourism available only at modern times. Logical but not entertaining. No more special tourist buildings and ports - tourists arrive from your industrial port and go through all dirty streets and slums. Only hotels are available for tourist building.
- Production is streamlined. You build the same factories time and time again. There's no reason to specialize.
- No choices. There's no choice like tenement or apartment. You are given the option to upgrade tenements to apartments and then into skyscrapers.
- Trade is worthless, just additional micromanagement to get a bit more profit.
- Dumbed down(!!!) service buildings. I have no idea how could they do it but now you have only X/Y visitors for clinics, churches etc. No info how they work. Do they cover territory or count towards total population.
- Pollution, religion and everything else are fucked. You can ignore everything. No more people appealing to you about isle problems - you can buy any demonstration or disperse it with military.
- Rebels are a joke.
- Population now no longer divided into lolyalists, communists etc, they are just amorphous mass with some sympathies.
- Noone is pushing their demands.
- Foreign relations also dumbed down.
Etc et etc. The game could be described by just two words - "Dumbed down". Tropico 3 and 4 was not a complex game, but Kalypso managed to outdo themselves and create a shit out of potentially great economic simulator.
 
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Renegen

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
4,062
I haven't played the game but Tropico was never an economic simulator, the economy was too easy; it was a political simulator, that failed at that too. How many times did you feel stressed to satisfy different population groups in Tropico 4? Apparently you had these major negative things that happened to you when a group hated you, such as intellectuals shutting down all your schools or capitalists stealing 20% of all profits, but I never received them, game too easy. Becoming Fidel Castro wasn't exactly interesting either as you could easily please all foreign powers and all domestic groups simultaneously, your background choices didn't matter too much besides choosing what industry to break the economy with. It failed as a political sim and so it had to go in a new direction.
 

baturinsky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
5,526
Location
Russia
Tropico 1 had early elections easy, but people's demands gradually growing with each elections. Tropico 3/4 removed demand growth. Not sure how it works in Tropico 5, I have not played in sandbox long enough to notice. But elections definitely seems harder than in 3/4.
 

Renegen

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
4,062
I agree. The ever increasing demands from electors in Tropico 1 meant that if you wanted to style yourself as a democratic capitalist, it was very hard to continue down that road as the years wore on. The same way, if you considered yourself a champion of the proletariat and had little interest in the more complex buildings and luxury goods, it would bite you eventually. As a result, you could either try to power game Tropico 1 or you could go full out on one political path and play it to the fullest, making use of rigged votes, assassinations, bribes, tax cuts etc anything that conformed to your strategy and might work. The need to try new strategies to stay in power basically allowed you to make choices to what type of ruler you really were. And that's what good role playing is, making meaningful choices. /whatisanrpg
 

Whiran

Magister
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
641
For fuck's sake it has only...5 or 6 mission campaign, that doesn't reach modern times. You just build nuclear program and...game ends.
Overall it's worse than tropico 4.
Main reasons:
- Tourism available only at modern times. Logical but not entertaining. No more special tourist buildings and ports - tourists arrive from your industrial port and go through all dirty streets and slums. Only hotels are available for tourist building.
- Production is streamlined. You build the same factories time and time again. There's no reason to specialize.
- No choices. There's no choice like tenement or apartment. You are given the option to upgrade tenements to apartments and then into skyscrapers.
- Trade is worthless, just additional micromanagement to get a bit more profit.
- Dumbed down(!!!) service buildings. I have no idea how could they do it but now you have only X/Y visitors for clinics, churches etc. No info how they work. Do they cover territory or count towards total population.
- Pollution, religion and everything else are fucked. You can ignore everything. No more people appealing to you about isle problems - you can buy any demonstration or disperse it with military.
- Rebels are a joke.
- Population now no longer divided into lolyalists, communists etc, they are just amorphous mass with some sympathies.
- Noone is pushing their demands.
- Foreign relations also dumbed down.
Etc et etc. The game could be described by just two words - "Dumbed down". Tropico 3 and 4 was not a complex game, but Kalypso managed to outdo themselves and create a shit out of potentially great economic simulator.
Those all sound like upcoming DLC packages!
 

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
3 and 4 are basically the same game. 4 is surprisingly more optimized though.
They changed the engine between those games. As they used the same building models, it's hard to see. If you ever wondered why Tropico 3 looks slightly better than 4, that's the reason.
 

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
The Modern Times DLC does have some nice features. New edicts, modern housing, etc. Of course some of it is overpowered, but if you can get the entire game (plus DLCs) at a discount there is no reason not to use them and just adopt some house rules. Modern Times is de-activateable within the game as well should you find yourself to dislike it strongly.
I absolutely hated that the new buildings just replaced the old ones. The time window where you are able to build these very nice modernized old-style condos with 5 different models is just too short, and it just gets replaced by some boring glass building. Booh!

Many of the new buildings are ridiculously large, too. I would like to use some of the content of Modern Times, but the way it is implemented, it sucks. I usually disable it. YMMV and all.
 

Toffeli

Atomkrieg, ja bitte
Patron
Joined
Feb 24, 2011
Messages
1,553
Location
Nordic Mongolia
Wasteland 2
For fuck's sake it has only...5 or 6 mission campaign, that doesn't reach modern times. You just build nuclear program and...game ends.

What? I just played one mission after that nuclear program mission And then
you go back in time to colonial era
Don't know where you got that impression.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
RPS review: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/30/tropico-5-review/

I’ve got to admit that a familiar fatigue set in past a certain point, where the concurrent tasks of bringing in cash, expanding your civ, keeping citizens suitably happy (or their oppression watertight), allies allied and enemies at bay begins to look a little onerous, especially if you’re starting a new game from scratch. The campaign to some degree retains past efforts at least, so there’s relatively little rewinding all the way back to your first scrappy banana plantation there.

Usual proviso though – it is the inevitable fate of any games critic to have to binge-play most games, so there’s every chance Tropico 5 would have retained its vibrancy for longer were I only dipping in and out. I also haven’t looked at the series-first multiplayer yet, which likely shakes things up more. Whether that’s the case or not, I happily indulged myself for many long hours – this is a solid good time.

There are some bum notes both tonally and strategically, Tropico old hands will find the bones of the things over-familiar, and despite having tons of things to fiddle with ultimately it’s hard not call it a lightweight game. I really think it has to be, though.
 

Surf Solar

cannot into womynz
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Messages
8,828
Haha really? I may not remove this game just to hear this :D (Tropico 2 and 4 are my favourites)
 

Heresiarch

Prophet
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
1,451
I'm pretty late to the party but thought to share some info.

First thing is, the campaign is not 5 - 6 mission short. It's 15 mission in total (I'm currently in the last), spread over 4 maps. I dunno what Space Satan did which made him finished the game after getting nuclear power.

Now as I've said before, I've skipped 2 to 4 of the series. But compared to 1, or many other city building games, Tropico 5 is quite dumbed down. No, the problem is not just with dumbing down, but a lack of information. The manual is awefully short and useless (where's the awesome, informative, well written Tropico 1 and 3 manual?). The game doesn't show influence area of things such as education buildings, religion buildings, etc. I don't know how much are my grocery covers. Education buildings don't tell how fast they are teaching people - sure, I see there are 15/15 students, but how soon will I get the next batch of high school educated citizens? Do I need to build more high schools or not? What's the industrial building's input:output ratio? Is it 1:1? How does parking places work? And metro system? Why is there no overlay or similar things that allow me to see where all the 1-tile buildings - cabins/metro/etc. - are? It's a nightmare when I've laid down some cabins in the woods but then I can't find them anymore, or if I want to build a metro system but I need to find that tiny entrance among all the buildings. And I don't even know (and the game doesn't tell either) how effective my metro system are. I can't see conveniently see which buildings have upgrades either - the almanac does show that info but it's buried deep and is difficult to manage and the control is buggy. And I can't even upgrade buildings easily - I need to find that building, click Update, click the actual update. And then I need to do that for the remaining 5 plantations, 6 ranches and 30 houses. Fuck.

There's little if any useful tooltip info anywhere. I don't know how much cargoes ships can carry. I don't even know WTF "local consumption" means in the almanac's food part - does it mean how many people are taking food from there? What does pollution do? What does beauty and housing effectiveness do? What DOES effectiveness do?

Building a tourist paradise is also so much dumbed down than 1. You just put down slob/family/eco/wealthy tourist hotels on the highest effectiveness spots, and then the money will start coming in. I don't even need to set up entertainment/shopping areas. The hotels don't even need roads to connect. There's no specialized tourism buildings except for hotels and airports. Fuck, ALL the tourists look (almost) the same.

The ironic thing? Despite the control being so dumbed down, the game is still playeable, because the system is also dumbed down (simpler diplomacy, trade, tourism, economy, food, religion etc.. Also the humor is less and much more facepalming), I don't need to optimize my gameplay strategy and tactics in order to win. But the game absolutely doesn't recreate the feeling in Tropico 1, which is building a true paradise with careful planning and especially importantly, building a tourism paradise.

I tried to play Tropico 4 but the grafix sucks compared to 5. How does 4's gameplay compare to 1?
 

Psyckosama

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2014
Messages
3
Well, seems they're playing the On Disc DLC game with this one. Several things that were promised as basic functionality or that have been there since the first game, like Mechanized infantry to make infantry not worthless and secret fucking police are also going to be expansions.

That said, this is Kalypso so of course they're going to whore everyone with DLC that by all rights should be part of the base game. I mean look at what they did with Crusaider Kings 2... $39.99 for the game, $152.58 for the DLC.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
And so the milking of customers begins:

It’s all about cheese in El Presidente’s latest venture. Create and promote an artisan cheese brand by introducing a new production chain with the Creamery: a new building that enables you to make the most of Tropico’s local goats and llamas. Face international competition in an epic quest to create the best cheese in the world and put on the chef’s hat! This add-on includes an all-new sandbox map and task, a standalone scenario, building, avatar accessory and music track!

New standalone scenario: “The Big Cheese” - Create and promote an artisan cheese brand
New building: The Creamery – Produces cheese from milk
New dynasty avatar accessory: The Chef’s Hat
New sandbox map: Arco Iris Beneditas
New music track

http://store.steampowered.com/app/306391/


dfds8s5p.jpg

http://steamcommunity.com/app/245620/discussions/0/38596747787812180/#p6

sdjfgkdojtyuz3.png


:lol:
 
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Unwanted

GameGear

Unwanted
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Messages
45
Bless RPGCodex. If you'd listened to reviewers, you'd think nothing changed between 4 and 5.
 

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