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Author Topic: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.  (Read 36262 times)

Myroc

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #315 on: February 08, 2011, 04:39:16 am »

I rarely have problems with dockworkers or industry in general, and even if dockworkers happen to miss one delivery it's no big deal after a couple of months. I earn ginormous amounts of cash from my weapons exports. Industrial Advertisement is awesome.

Speaking of which, are weapons factories actually good? I looked at them and said, "Hmm... so, a factory based around a depletable resource that also annoys the factions. I'll pass." But if they make ginormous amounts of money, I might have to reconsider.  ;D
That relationship hit? -5 (or -10 to the other superpower if you're selling to a specific). It's not really an issue, atleast not in my opinion, and if it makes you insecure, there is a building upgrade that cuts the penalty in half. Totally worth the export price of weapons which is almost the same as gold. (And a vast improvement over raw iron at that.)

I still haven't run out of iron on my current island, and I'm close to 1980 and retiring. Most islands have two iron deposits, and it helps if you don't start mining both at once, but wait until the first one has dug out a fair share of pipe material.

If you get a weapons factory up relatively early, use this money to set up more income sources, and then you're pretty much set.
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Brons

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #316 on: February 08, 2011, 04:50:38 am »

I love setting up a agricultural dictatorship. Almost no services and no industry but a large army. People get unhappy and upset but I'd just get new workers through the immigration office. Repression is important.
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Thexor

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #317 on: February 08, 2011, 02:16:52 pm »

I love setting up a agricultural dictatorship. Almost no services and no industry but a large army. People get unhappy and upset but I'd just get new workers through the immigration office. Repression is important.

See, now, this is how I always imagined playing Tropico - using your army and excessive propaganda to make the people like mildly tolerate you, instead of giving the unappreciative little buggers exactly what they want and buying their support. 'Benevolent dictator', my arse. Sadly, I've never been able to survive without being a goodie-two-shoes dictator.  :'(
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dogstile

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #318 on: February 08, 2011, 08:26:35 pm »

Its not hard to be a dickish dictator. Just keep a large military and pay them well. Keep them in good buildings and make everyone else farmers and factory workers, and pay them little.
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Sowelu

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #319 on: February 08, 2011, 08:40:56 pm »

Yeah, it actually caters pretty well to a couple different audiences there.  People who just want to happily build up a thriving city get "easy mode".  People who want to mercilessly rule their people with an iron fist get "hard more".  And those are pretty much exactly what I'm after when I play using each of those styles.
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #320 on: February 09, 2011, 12:39:05 am »

Yeah, it actually caters pretty well to a couple different audiences there.  People who just want to happily build up a thriving city get "easy mode".  People who want to mercilessly rule their people with an iron fist get "hard more".  And those are pretty much exactly what I'm after when I play using each of those styles.

Yeah, me being the flowerchild pussy I am, I was surprised to find it so easy to keep the island beautiful and its populace happy. I would have thought it'd be the opposite.
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Aqizzar

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #321 on: February 09, 2011, 08:27:11 am »

Given the imagery of the game, it really is a little silly just how easy it is to "win" Tropico, in the sense that "winning" is an economically productive island populated by people who are willing to keep reelecting you of their own accord.  With Political Stability at "Average" and a 0% modifier to export prices, I'm doing just fine.  I birthed all of two rebels (I think a third died of his own accord) when a hurricane bankrupted the island at its start, and I finally remembered I could offer them amnesty.  Meanwhile, crime is almost nonexistent, nobody gives a shit about liberty, the (3) officers stopped complaining about their wages, and I won my last reelection with 75% of the vote (an island-wide payraise probably helped).  150 of 200 people are over 70% Respectin'.  I did have a dock-worker strike, but they started right as a freighter left and tantrumed themselves out right as another arrived, so it's all hunky dory.

For the longest time, I kept winding up in debt, wobbling back and forth from red to black depending on how recently the foreign aid had come in and how much time my teamsters spent scratching their asses.  I finally found out that the world economy was in recession, and a 20% decrease in export prices bounced back.  I'm still constantly in the red (worse than before even), but thanks to some restructuring, my average industry profits are twice what they were for so long.  Most of that money has been sunk into more housing (a Diplomatic Office and development deal with Russia pays for itself after a few Apartments), and a Cathedral and Newspaper (holy crap is it a space-hog).

Next up on the agenda is a massive restructuring of my base-level economy.  The bauxite mine is finally running dry, my starter papaya farm is pain in the ass to build around anymore, and there's a pineapple farm on top of the other bauxite mine.  Including replacing all those in new locations, I'll add a third farm and a fishing dock, since I might be running out of food, and if that it's more crap to can.  I may do all this after building a second lumber mill, since the one has 1000 units of input after an overcorrection in lumberjacking, and probably a furniture factory because duh.

Once all that's out of the way, it's time to build a college to staff this expensive shit I bought (the Immigration Office is a godsend, but unreliable), which will pave the way for a refinery, then a powerplant for a hospital and more entertainment.  When your speechwriter, the capitalists club, and Betty Boom all harrangue you in one year about the lack of entertainment, you have one bore-hole of an island.  But with the Childhood Museum (finally made the 10 Loyalists happy) and a Cabaret next to the palace, I've run out of powerless entertainment.  I have no intention of attracting tourists, but if I basically win the game to that point, I might as well build an airport for the Trade Deals, and wine and dine some hoighty-toighty moneybags.  Too bad I already gutted the ruins for my pocketbook.
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Rakonas

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #322 on: February 09, 2011, 11:43:50 pm »

In my most recent game, I intended to make a brutal militarist regime and oppress the populace, also preventing any non-tropican borns from entering the country.
In 1954 I hired a few foreign specialists to staff my college, high school, and clinic. Once I had the necessary college and high school educated tropicans, I assassinated the specialists. Since then, I've developed a thriving nationalist island where everyone loves me (only 3 people aren't a part of the loyalist faction) and everyone is so happy that I only have 2 soldiers and a general, having never had a rebel ever. This one time, this guy was protesting outside of a restaurant. Everyone booed him and I strolled on over and had a pleasant conversation with him. Really, despite murdering everyone who dares retire, I'm sure I'd be hailed as the single greatest figure in the history of my island. I had one election, and the only guy not voting for me was the guy running against me, whom nobody liked. The loyalists, 80% of the population were very upset that I allowed elections and became the faction who least respected me at 65 respect. Of course, the second election was the same one guy running against me by himself, and I didn't allow elections. I've happily reached the point where I'm having tons of newborns and am up to 50 population with an average age of 27, with education from grade school to college freely available, a hospital for everyone's healthcare needs and a house or apartment to shelter every tropican. It's 1967 and I'm pretty much just saving up to build a nuclear program.
One important thing that I noted, I really don't think farms need to be fully staffed. Due to underpopulation, I've had some farms down to only 1 or two workers, and yet they seem to produce as much as they did when they were fully staffed. Also, immigrants are the root of all evil.
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lordcooper

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #323 on: February 14, 2011, 08:03:49 am »

How do you all keep your populations so low?

I end up with 100s of Tropicans really quickly :(
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Myroc

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #324 on: February 14, 2011, 08:17:16 am »

Build an Immigration Office. Set work mode to "Tropico First". This prevents immigration.
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Thexor

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #325 on: February 14, 2011, 01:28:04 pm »

Build an Immigration Office. Set work mode to "Tropico First". This prevents immigration.

Of course, the buggers still breed like rabbits. I had a population of ~250, closed my borders, and around 8-odd years later had a population of nearly 300. Had a grand total of 63 people in the lowest age bracket.  ???

I'm almost scared to imagine what would've happened if I'd banned contraception, or set a clinic up to increase birth rates.  :o
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Myroc

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #326 on: February 14, 2011, 01:51:39 pm »

...holy shit, your people are really at it. I have never had a population grow on its own that fast.

The answer is till immigration office. But instead, set it to increased emigration.
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We all have problems. Some people just have more awesome problems than others.
Getting angry is fun. Getting angry over petty things even better.

Thexor

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #327 on: February 14, 2011, 03:39:18 pm »

...holy shit, your people are really at it. I have never had a population grow on its own that fast.

The answer is till immigration office. But instead, set it to increased emigration.

Of course, that doesn't do much if everybody is happy.  :P


...hmm, actually, that's an idea. If they weren't happy, they'd leave. And who knows, maybe if they were grumpy they'd all stop breeding, too...

...wonder if I can find that game's save. I'd built up a pretty large military, just for the heck of it. Maybe I can lower my happiness and solve my population problems at the same time!  :D
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Akura

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #328 on: February 14, 2011, 05:24:34 pm »

This is Tropico 1, not 3, but I just felt like sharing.
Spoiler: The Cold War is over (click to show/hide)
About 13 years too late.

Then again, I regularly get Close or better with both Capitalists and Communists(their ideals are not mutually exclusive, it would seem), while mildly irritating everyone else. In Tropico 1.
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Alexhans

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Re: Tropico 3, optimism is welcome.
« Reply #329 on: February 17, 2011, 03:02:50 am »

Suggestion for you guys, get the expansion and play through the campaign.  The storylines are wacky, funny and diverse.  The economy mission is a bitch.

Aqizzar, that's why there are different degrees of difficulty for you to challenge yourself. 
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