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[Servant Corps]

Just changing the name and appearance of coffee would accomplish nothing. If it's possible to make it so that growing cocaine massively hurts your USA relations, then it will be a truly moddable game.

Actually, it is possible to have growing cocaine hurt USA relations. Just mod it so that if a Capitalist see a Cocaine Factory, they get upset. Since the Capitalists are upset, USA is upset. (Altough if I mod it that the Capitalists get VERY upset though...that could lead to an early endgame, which isn't going to be good for gameplay)

There are ways around everything.

EDIT: However, Coffee will not work, because the game code has a Generic "Farm" Unit, which includes Coffee Farms. I can modify the Farm code, but doing so would mean that it will affect all Farms, meaning the USA will get upset at every single farm out there.

Instead, I need to implement the penatlies for growing Cocaine at the place where Cocaine is actually manufractured, at the "Cannery" location. But doing so leads to even more problems, as there are stuff other than Coffee that is 'canned', Pinnapples and Fish. I need to introduce new drugs to replace Pinnaples, and think of a drug that Fish can be refined into...

Or...I could turn all Mines into Drugs. Say, I could turn Gold into Coca, and then have the "JEWELRY FACTORY" be the place that actually turn Coca into Cocaine. The best part is that Cocaine would actually be pretty viable thing to mine create, making it a temptation for the player.

There are currently two legal drug buildings in Tropico. Rum Distilleries, and Cigar Factories. Rum is produced by Sugar, and Cigars are produced by Tobbaco. I could change these two legal drugs buildings into illegal drug buildings, but I don't really want to do that.

[Sowelu]

What about Russia?  Who cares about what the USA thinks once you slap a USSR base on your island?  Sounds like this...industry...is very friendly to uneducated workers, while being high profit, which is a huge imbalance itself (gold at least had big environmental problems).

Get a Russian base, turn most of your island into farmers, put your payscale at something like 20/30/40, and easy victory...

[Servant Corps]

Yeah, it does seem to me that dictators selling drugs would lead to strange strategies like this.

Well, Sowelu, it's obivous the way to fix this problem. Have Communists dislike the Illegal Drug Industry too. Booze is the drink of the working man, none of this 'cocaine' trash that the Capitalists use.

According to Wikipedia, crime in the USSR is quite low (with the exception of White-Collar Crime, which was abnormally high), and the USSR didn't really suffer from drug abuse a lot*, at least not until the 1980's and the War in Afghanistan, where many Soviet servicemen were exposed to opium (boring enclyopedia article here). It's after the fall of the USSR that crime began to increase, and with that, drug use. That is usually why most people focus on the US and the War on Drugs, and not really about the USSR.

But that doesn't mean the USSR didn't take a part in the War on Drugs. The UN has several treaties dealing with illict drugs, and according to the 1961 "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs" pdf file, both the USSR and the USA was elected Vice-Presidents of the convention to help draw up this Convention, which stressed zero-tolerance policies. And on July 5 1967, the USSR introduced one law to deal with illegal drugs.

So far there have been no accidents in the USSR resulting from the use of soporific or narcotic drugs by transport drivers immediately before or during work. Nevertheless, with a view to preventing such cases the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR promulgated the following Order on 5 July 1967:

"1 That the Pharmacological Committee, in establishing rules for the use of soporific and narcotic drugs, shall call attention to the danger of the use of such drugs by transport drivers on duty or about to enter on duty.

"2. That Directors of therapeutic preventive and medical establishments and physicians conducting examinations of applicants for driving licences shall treat persons who systematically abuse narcotic drugs as unfit for this purpose.

"3. That all physicians in therapeutic preventive and medical establishments shall bear in mind, in prescribing soporific and narcotic drugs for patients, the possibility of accidents if these drugs are taken by transport drivers while on duty. The attention of such persons shall be drawn to the fact that they must not take soporific or narcotic drugs before starting work and must use them only after the end of the working day.

"4. That control over the execution of this Order shall be entrusted to E. A. Babayan, Chairman of the Committee on Narcotic Drugs of the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR ". (Order No. 530.)

There is also the United Nations' Commission of Narcotic Drugs, which came into existence in 1946. This Commission has the main goal of trying to stop this drug trade.

The UN is slowly moving away from zero-tolerance to "harm reduction" instead, but I believed this happened during the 1990's, and it still got a long way to go...

So, basically, if the Communists hate drugs, the USSR army base isn't going to guard your illegal enterprise.

And, about imbalance...According to the modding community, the best 'industry' is actually tourism. Rich tourists throw a ton of money at you guys, so if you got an airport and the infrastructure, you'll be fine. There is also a bug where you get double profits from Hotels, and that also benieft tourist profits as well.

*To be fair, that link goes to E.A. BABAIAN, the Candidate of Medical Sciences Representative of the USSR in the United Nations Commission on Narcotic DrugsHead of Department, Ministry of Health of the USSR. Your milage may vary. Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements supports his argument though.
====
Some other stuff to note:
*Religious people would hate the Illegal Drug Industry. It's vice and all.
*Communists and Capitalist armed milita groups would be more than willing to start selling these illegal drugs if they are trying to overthrow you.

[Sowelu]

Okay, I like that gameplay balance a lot.  You'd have to be really cozy with BOTH sides in order to get away with it, and military base would be very dangerous because you'd have a lot less slack.  If everyone on your island was very happy (communists and capitalists both), and you were very good at diplomacy, it could work, but...

Not just the religious, but also intellectuals should take a hit from the drug trade.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I dunno about intellectuals.

There's a very long history of intellectuals involving themselves pretty extensively with drugs-specifically hallucinogenics ("it like, expands your mind, man"), and cocaine.

[DJ]

Bankers at least wouldn't be opposed to cocaine.

[Servant Corps]

In Tropico, bankers lean capitalistic, and capitalists hate you producing drugs. So, bankers would reasonably hate you producing drugs too, altough they aren't opposed to actually BUYING said drugs.

I always see the Intellectuals as being in a clash with Religion, like a Tropico Culture War. I think that, until I get persuaded otherwise, the Intellectuals would be rather netrual. I don't think many people would actually like the illegal drug industry, but they will tolerate it.

Also, if I am going to do mining, I at least got to rename one of the starting Dictator Traits...Miner.

Miner
+10 percent respect from the communist faction
+10 percent respect from the capitalist faction
+50 percent increase in miner productivity
-20 percent respect from the environmental faction

I'm not sure if Ican change the dictator traits to be more fitting, but I do think I can at least change the name. So what would be a more fitting name? Mob Boss? Criminal Mastermind? It would be mighty annoying to see the Communists and the Capitalists supporting the "Criminal Mastermind", at least at first...but that could be rationalized as the Criminal Mastermind bribing said Communists and Capitalists.

[SirHoneyBadger]

By the way, if you do go over to their Forum, watch out. There's a couple posters over there that are pretty unfriendly, and seem to have a strong sense of ownership.

[Servant Corps]

I believe I know who you are talking about, but I just ignore those posters. Or more to the point, I listen to anything useful these posters have to say, and ignore everything else. After all, they know Tropico.

[Servant Corps]

 Just ralJust realized something. There are only two mods for Tropico. Tropikos Mediterran allows you to play as a dictator of a Greek island in the Med., while "Cone" takes place on an island where showgirls can preach religion and heal people...if you give them money, of course. Tropikos Mediterran also comes with a tutorial mission where you play as an Archbishop and have to stop Greece and Turkey from annexing Cyprus.

So, if I'm lucky, Tropico: Drug Wars (working title) will be the third mod for Tropico. Since it does not seem likely I can introduce random evenvts, I will have to package "Drug Wars" with a 'mission' dealing with the nacrotic drug trade. (Colombia?)

[SirHoneyBadger]

Colombia is the "gold standard" of South American 3rd world drug empires. I don't think you could do much better.

The good news is, it's a much better place to visit, or even to live, nowadays.

[Servant Corps]

I should make a new thread for Tropico: Drug Wars (working title). I'll likely do so if it gets close to release.

However, after doing research on Colombia, I found there are several "leaders" of Colombia that would fit any 'mission'.
*I could start the game during "La Violenca" (the civil war between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party) with the populist dictatorship of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1958).
*I could also create the "National Front" (1958-1974), which wasn't a single person per se, but an alliance between Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, which united to overthrow Pinnilla. The National Front agreed to rotate the Presidency between both Parties in order to end La Violenca.
*And there is Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellín Drug Cartel which had lots of political influence starting in the 1970's, and was able to bribe many politicians with drug money. America sought to undermine Pablo Escobar by getting Colombia to sign an Extradition Treaty which would allow America to extradite Colombia drug dealers, and allowing for proseuction. Escobar waged war against the government to stop the Treaty from being signed, and eventually, Pablo was killed in 1993 and the Medellín Drug Cartel faded away.

Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Drug Cartel is very important to the Colombian drug trade (as well as FARC), and they would play a role in any sort of event, but I'm not so sure players should, you know, PLAY as Pablo Escobar. Instead, I would be more likely to see the Medellín Drug Cartel give 10% of all drug profits into El Presidente's Swiss Bank Account. But I am willing to consider alternatives.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I agree about not being able to play Pablo Escobar. It isn't really thematic for a Tropico game, but he makes for an interesting secondary player, or a challenge to El Presidente's ultimate power and political stability.

I hope Tropico 3 accommodates some (atleast a few?) of the most interesting political subtleties and maneuvaring that could occur in such a potentially volatile environment.

(I also do hope that someone, somewhere, will consider making an independent game in the spirit of Tropico. It's just such an awesome-and incredibly rich-field for game design.)

[woose1]

Huh. Where might I find this game known as 'Tropico 1' with its expansion packs at a reasonable price?

Direct download preferred, of course.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Try Mobygames?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/tropico

They list several realtors on EBay.

I really think (and hope) you'll enjoy it, Woose1.