Tropico

edited September 2001 in Gaming

Comments

  • edited December 1969
    Just picked up Tropico today... my first new game in over half a year... I'm such a techo-peasant...

    Anyway, I bought it mainly because it was Carbonized for OS X, but to my dismay, the Carbon app has known problems with GeForce cards right now. That means I've been playing the OS 8/9 version in the Classic environment, which works, but is kinda slow... no hardware acceleration. It also crashes sometimes if I hit the Esc key. Pretty frustrating. They say they'll have a patch ready soon.

    Anyway, as for the game itself, I think it'll prove to be a nice game, once I get into it more. It uses the Railroad Tycoon 2 engine, and I'm used to that. The graphics (again, in software mode) are at least as good as RR2's. I bet hardware will look even nicer... there's a lot of shading and stuff that probably chugs in software mode. I was actually impressed with the sound, especially the soundtrack. There's a bunch of latin music that sounds like it could be on the radio. I may get bored of it after a while, but it definitely adds to the atmosphere right now.

    Gameplay is pretty neat. The people on the island have The Sims-like needs they must fill or they get pretty pissed. Build adequate housing, a church, a school, and have plenty of jobs, and you usually don't fear the votes. You can click on every individual citizen and watch as they go to their shack, or to the fields to work, or whatever. "Teamsters" haul around stuff to the docks and old people shuffle around. Buildings can have additions bought for them, like the power saw you can buy for the lumber mill which improves the productivity of the workers.

    When you choose a dictator there are a bunch of strengths/weaknesses you obtain which influence different parts of the game... in a RR2-like fashion, but a wider bredth. For example, the method you rose to power will influence the population's expectations for democracy.

    I'll have to play it a little more before I have a better idea of the intracacies, but so far, it looks pretty fun. I'll have to hold myself back from sneaking in "quick games" when I should be doing assignments. Maybe I'll stick to the campus labs more this term...

    --Muffinkopf


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  • edited December 1969
    I'm a Tropico fan myself
    Gameplay is pretty neat. The people on the island have The
    Sims-like needs they must fill or they get pretty pissed. Build
    adequate housing, a church, a school, and have plenty of jobs,
    and you usually don't fear the votes.
    Wait until you crank up the political difficulty level -- you might survive two elections before you start having to stuff ballots. :)
    When you choose a dictator there are a bunch of
    strengths/weaknesses you obtain which influence different parts
    of the game... in a RR2-like fashion, but a wider bredth. For
    example, the method you rose to power will influence the
    population's expectations for democracy.
    Nothing like having a dictator with Tourrete's Syndrome. You get extra Pay-Per-View Revenue per year from your speeches. ;)

    The economy system in Tropico is done pretty well -- you can sell off excess crops for cash, then once you get more educated citizens, build factories to refine the crops into something else. The terrain you chose before starting will influence what crops will grow the best (i.e. corn on flat land, coffee on mountainsides)

    Also, there are buildings with advantages that help offset your weaknesses. For example, TV stations that you can choose to either make a profit, or broadcast propaganda to increase support/respect for your ruler or certain political factions.
    I'll have to play it a little more before I have a better idea
    of the intracacies, but so far, it looks pretty fun. I'll have
    to hold myself back from sneaking in "quick games"
    when I should be doing assignments. Maybe I'll stick to the
    campus labs more this term...
    You'll love it once you get into it more. :)

    Grimmy
  • edited December 1969
    Re: I'm a Tropico fan myself
    Wait until you crank up the political difficulty level -- you
    might survive two elections before you start having to stuff
    ballots. :)

    Nothing like having a dictator with Tourrete's Syndrome. You get
    extra Pay-Per-View Revenue per year from your speeches. ;)
    Heh. Yep.

    I've been having some fun with Tropico, though I haven't had much opportunity of late to play. So far, I've tried to keep it pretty straight -- except for the Swiss bank account, of course -- to see how well I can manage. But one of these days, I'm going to start up a totally repressive regime and see how long I can run before I am assassinated. 8-)
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