If you happen to be a resource management aficionado, one who thoroughly enjoys delving into the whys, wherefores, and whens of a solid world–building sim, then Tropico appears to have all of the components necessary to make your day. Tropico’s world offers a Sim–like environment, complete with mood icons that lazily revolve around your citizens’ heads. These icons are enormously informative indicators of a particular citizen’s wherewithal within your world — information that should not be ignored, for, you see, you are a dictator! Merciless, humanitarian, capitalist or communist, such matters not. Your task is to ensure that your island paradise doesn’t merely survive, but thrives. This is accomplished only through your constant and immediate manipulation of all of the elements that control your island.
The preview disc presented a well–formulated tutorial that soon helps you to understand the basic elements of the game. You learn how to control your building urges, how to judge what farms or industries best suit certain areas of your land, and how to encourage growth. This is certainly no easy chore, for there are a variety of elements that confront and waylay your plans. For example, pay little to no attention to weather conditions and you could well find yourself building a pineapple farm in an arid area of your island — this will not produce saleable crops! And without the income derived from farms, industry, tourism and the like, you cannot increase the salaries of your various work forces and, in turn, better their lives. This can lead to disastrous revolution and insurgency by forces who did not care for you in the first place.
Only one scenario was available for testing, and that was the tutorial, but the random maps game play option was ready to roll. You determine the size of your island, elevations, how much in the way of vegetation or minerals are available, the amount of water surrounding your isle, and so on. As you make your determinations, an indicator informs you of the difficulty level your current island will present. The larger the island, the more in the way of resources, the easier the game.
Once you have determined the physical design of your island, the time then comes for you to select your El Presidente. There are several pre–generated characters, but all are modifiable. Perhaps you would like your island leader to have strong ties to the United States or Russia, or maybe he’s a "greener", all out for natural conservancy (so much for industry!). You may also play with your selected leader’s stats. He could be someone who enjoys far too much of his island’s alcoholic beverage, or perhaps he has strong religious convictions. All of the statistical modifiers play an important role in Tropico as they determine how your populace will initially "work" with you, from soldiers to peasants and so on.
Without an ever–increasing supply of funds, you are pretty much sunk. The mere fact that you have a strong military to suppress opposition leaders shall not offer much benefit if you cannot pay your workers’ decent salaries. If they cannot be afforded a decent living, your farms will not produce, your industries will not produce, and your dock workers might even protest unloading freighters or yachts that cozy up to your dock(s). Once this starts snowballing, you could well find yourself far out in the ocean in a rowboat, the victim of a nasty coupe, as well as out of a job!
Certainly graft has a role to play. After all, what decent dictator would not take a cut of the monies required to build buildings? And if you enjoy building, believe us, there are more buildings within Tropico for your consideration than dot.coms that remain viable! Each building offers something special, whether that be housing for your workforce, to imbuing tourists with a desire to visit and spend money on your island. If you choose a revenue generator that caters to others’ needs, you will need to pay salaries to those who staff such edifices. If of a residential nature, you must establish a rent that is at least one–third of the salaries being paid your citizenry. Always use the lowest common denominator... if you have built a tenement, and your workers are being paid nine dollars, then you should not charge more than three dollars a month for their occupancy within your building.
In addition, there are other buildings that can either cause greater citizenry content, or alarm. For example, a church and a high school usually result in your citizens feeling happier... an armory or guard posts accomplish the opposite. However, without the latter, you could find yourself facing an attempt to overthrow your government without any forces with which to counter such an attack. In order to be able to build guard posts, you must first build an armory and then acquire or hire a general. If you do not possess a high school with graduates, odds are you will have to pay an overseas employment firm to locate such an individual for you — for a cost. The more folk you need to hire from overseas to manage your concerns, the higher the price rises. Therefore, although a high school and a college structure can be costly, initially, over the long term their graduates can certainly relieve the financial stress you feel when employing agency–located professionals.
Other areas that may be built to increase your island’s revenues include fishing wharfs, all sorts of farms (corn, pineapple, papaya and so on), mines (minerals can be rather rare, however), luxury hotels, scenic overlooks, and industries. For example, should you decide on building numerous pineapple plantations, good sense would dictate that you export finished product rather than raw pineapples, as the income generated is far greater for the former. But don’t neglect your dock workers! They need comparable salaries, otherwise you’ll soon find visiting freighters and yachts being ignored and not unloaded.
As you build appropriate housing (country homes, homes, apartment buildings, and others), and dictate the need for additional construction projects, soon folk will start arriving at your island to fill vacant positions. Remember, your citizens’ happiness is the most important job you have at hand, and various game controls allow you to always know how your citizens feel about you, whether or not they wish more religious interaction, are in need of health care, and whether or not you’ll be in trouble should elections be set a year ahead. A good dictator knows when to bribe, or even arrest, those opposing your rule, but time such incorrectly, and you shall find yourself out of government employment rather quickly!
Tropico has many variables, and all continue to be tested for the final product release. Overall, this is a really enjoyable world building sim, although our thought was that perhaps the income generation algorithm could be somewhat more relaxed. Success in this preview version was extremely hard to attain, no matter the difficulty level set.
Oh, one last comment — the music is awesome! The Caribbean influence is heard throughout the various tracks, all lively, all grand game enhancers. For a preview, Tropico definitely deserves a thumbs up for some truly grand programming! Let us hope the finished version retains all of the good parts and improves upon game play to ensure newbies and more experienced gamers with the chance to really succeed in creating their own island paradise!
"Tropico will certainly give you a feel as to how money–grubbing dictators can drive their island paradise to a shambles. Resource management, a tactician’s eye for what does or does not work, and superb music should make this title a true success when finally released."
