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[SirHoneyBadger]

Housing has always been a challenge for me, too. It's expensive, but what I've found to work well is to set up enough of those cheap bunk-houses to accommodate 100% of my population, and then start building regular (no electricity) houses, so that people have something to earn. I then strategically place decent (again, no electricity) apartment buildings close to my main centers of commerce/industry. When enough people have moved where I want them to move, I start cutting back on the bunks.

I also intentionally do my best to ignore mining, unless it's gold. Leftover iron and bauxite mines are great to fall back on, if I really get into an economic crunch, and oil is well and good, at the end of the game, but pineapple, coffee, sugar, and other processible produce are where the sustainable money's at.

Mines also create a lot of pollution, and I like to avoid much of that, because tourism can be sustainable and profitable, too. If the tourist trade doesn't work out, I can always fall back on fine furniture (things to fall back on are good). 

I try hard to feed my people well, too, with an eye on variety. That really seems to go a long distance towards increasing overall contentedness, if not happiness.

Crime is easy to put down--unrealistically so, really, it's never been a big problem. I almost wish it were, that I could better live out my Caribbean Voodoo Batman fantasies. Quite a lot of caves in the Caribbean... Education and literacy I find is very important, and I find big benefits in "home growing" atleast my highschoolers. The better to teach them the national language I've created for them.
Medicine is more of a challenge. Most, if not all, of my college-educated citizens, imported or otherwise, end up here, and I make sure all my most educated folk are payed very well, and have access to atleast newspapers. Citizens of 'San Presidente' are ofcourse taught that other languages are fine too, if you happen to like reading words that will give you cancer.

I tend to avoid too much electricity, atleast for most of the game. It's a hassle, and I don't always even need it, unless I decide I want hospitals. The palace is solar-powered, in addition to several large underground generators. The people are aware of this, and it helps tie into the whole Cult of the Sun President/Cult of the Bat Loa I've got going. Religion is a good thing. I also don't bother with an enormous military. All firearms are confiscated at the docks, and end up in my private arsenal, so why should I pay good money teaching my citizens that guns exist, or the particulars involved in employing the soul-poison my bodyguards' crossbows are tipped with? (everybody calls it soul-poison, but it's really just botulism) Apparently, the rebel camps don't come with smorgasbord, either, since the few rebels I produce always seem to get hungry and go back home. Fat and happy are my peasantry.

My personal bodyguard, however, are always the best paid folk in the Carribean. If I could, I'd make diamond pinky-rings and gold-plated remote-control brain grenades a standard part of their Armani uniforms. Keeping me alive and in power is what's putting their kids through the luxurious secret underground college-prison I built for them, and may someday even let them out of.

[Dbuhos]

Just got the game, downloading full speed.

[Puzzlemaker]

I love this game.  I tend to switch between a benevolent president who brings his country into a golden age and an evil dictator who fills his Swiss bank account with loads of cash.

[Itnetlolor]

Regarding electricity, I think the windmills outclass standard power plants. They're cheaper, have a decent range, decent output (especially if a high spot is easily accessible, or you can afford a small pack of them) and can be extended by substations or neighboring windmills, plus, environmentalists will want your babies for each one you make. They're too cheap and easy to build as well. And with good planning of the infrastructure (thanks to buildings that require little energy), you won't need more than 3 of them tops per-island.

Anyone else think the windmills are a bit unbalanced compared to power plants? I mean, at a sufficiently high enough spot, an equal amount (by price) of windmills can dominate a powerplant in output. Clean energy, small enough to stay out of the way and cram them into a single block. It's the whole package for energy needs.

Outside of certain missions, I have seen little need for power plants, and have been more dependent on windmills for my power needs.

[Myroc]

I actually find Windmills to be cost inefficient compared to the potential output of a power plant. I can never get above 15 MW per windmill in any of my islands, and they cost half a Power Plant in price if you enabled US development aid. Sure, they require college-educated emplyees, but a power plant fully staffed generates way more than two windmills you could get for roughly the same cost. And that's assuming all the staff are complete rooks. By the time they're fully experienced, you can have way over 200 MW. From a single power plant. In fact, once I've built a power plant on my island, I've never ever had to worry about electricity again, save for the expansion of the electrical grid.

And pollution can be reduced drastically if you use Natural Gas workmode. Sure, this raises upkeep, but it's still in the long term cheaper than a windmill forest.

[Thexor]

Personally, I've found them to be hugely unbalanced... in favour of power plants. 

Power output varies - I think I once got ~35 MW from a windmill. Thing is, the damn things are expensive as heck - it costs something like 1,800 a year for each in maintenance. A power plant is an expensive, one-time output, but once you've got it can produce a ridiculous amount of power for far less cost.

Now, wind plants have two huge advantages: lower initial cost, and no reliance on trained workers. This means you can get a quick radio station, or maybe an early iron crusher for your mine, without having to handle the initial costs of setting up the plant and getting numerous college-trained engineers.

But powering an entire island with wind alone? A fully-staffed power plant produces, what, 190 MW? Laying down, say, 10 windmills to produce the same power would cost a downright insane amount of power. And once you do get a power plant set up and fully-staffed, any windmills you build previously are nothing but an expensive bribe for the environmentalists. 


(Also, one comment. Power plants require 'engineers', who are college-trained... females. Seriously? My fictional island of ~200 people has 10 female engineers. My first-year engineering class had ~200 people and 9 females. Yes, that's right: my island despot has a higher percentage of female engineers than my engineering class.  )

[dogstile]

I never end up using more than 3 windmills, and even then i'm at a massive surplus.

Don't see the point in power plants, myself.

[forsaken1111]

Working off of memory here, but dont the windmills also have a fairly high maintenance cost?

[dogstile]

I've not noticed myself. To busy bringing in 20 thousand a year from exports to care

[Myroc]

I've not noticed myself. To busy bringing in 20 thousand a year from exports to care

Only 20 000? With my weapons industry, furniture, plus other industries I can't actually remember plus a small amount of tourism on the side I earn atleast 50 000 a year.

[DJ]

I never end up using more than 3 windmills, and even then i'm at a massive surplus.

Don't see the point in power plants, myself.

What do you do with so little electricity? Just a couple of factory upgrades, or what? I build condos galore, and I max out my TV and radio stations ASAP. I usually have like 800MW total consumption (need like 150MW just for hospitals) by 2000, and trust me, you don't want to build 50+ windmills.

[lordcooper]

Electricity is too sci-fi for my Tropicans to handle.  I'd downgrade my clinics to witch doctor huts given half a chance.

Hmm, anyone come across a Tropico/simcity style medieval game?

[DJ]

Tropico 2 is pirates, but I hear it's not very good.

Anyway, I don't get it how people can get anywhere near enough coverage with clinics, I'm struggling to get enough with hospitals. What I can never get enough of is cathedrals, those damn Tropicans go to church waaay too often. I swear, you need like 1 cathedral for every 2 tenements before you start seeing an occasional empty spot. And if there aren't empty spots, people start going to service on the opposite end of the town, and before you know it nobody is praying in his own neighbourhood cathedral and your roads get congested and nothing ever gets done.

Then again, my problem might be too high population density. I only build tenements, apartments and condos, because they give the most bang for my buck AND they're more space efficient than the other dwellings. Is it just me, or does everyone play like this?

[lordcooper]

Several small sets of concentric squares are the way forward IMO.

Services (cathedrals, hospital, schools etc) in the centre, then accommodation, then workplaces on the outside.

[DJ]

That doesn't work in my experience, since people tend to get jobs and homes in different blocks. I just do blocks with services in centre, and then connect the poor blocks to farms and mines and the wealthy block to the industrial zone.