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John-SJ
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Silicon Valley, USA
Aug 1999
time: 21:13
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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
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John-SJ
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Silicon Valley, USA
Aug 1999
time: 21:13
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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
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:13
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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.
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Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.
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John-SJ
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Silicon Valley, USA
Aug 1999
time: 21:13
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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
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John: patch 1.02 is out plus map editor.
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John-SJ
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Silicon Valley, USA
Aug 1999
time: 21:13
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As with all crashing problems make sure you have up-to-date drivers for your video and audio cards especially, and make sure that you have the correct version of DirectX and that your drivers are compatible with it. Next, read the Readme file in the Tropico directory, there is detailed information on how to deal with some crashes as well as specific treatment for a variety of video cards. Finally, visit www.cafetropico.com where you will find a lot of helpful advice on dealing with specific problems.
Hope this helps.
John-SJ
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tniem
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Hope College
Apr 2000
time: 00:13
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Is it worth waiting for the 172 MB demo to download on my cable modem? It is going to take an estimated 3 hours due to server problems.
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John-SJ
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Silicon Valley, USA
Aug 1999
time: 21:13
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Personally, I'd say go for it! But then, I'm biased! I love this game!
John-SJ
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tniem
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Hope College
Apr 2000
time: 00:13
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quote:
Originally posted by John-SJ
Personally, I'd say go for it! But then, I'm biased! I love this game!
John-SJ |
Alright, I am going to give it a try. Thanks for the recomendation.
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26-04-2001 00:30
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