Players get a nice seat up in the clouds and the opportunity to manage the ant nest that is civilisation, of one form or another, below them.īut the Tropico series has higher expectations for us gamers. I make a beeline for the New Game button, vowing to stick to my proven playbook from the get-go.It’s not exactly a hard thing to understand why so-called ‘god’ games are popular. Things may not be perfect this time out, but I do my best, and my reign ends on my terms. Full lockdown becomes martial law, and my army stands tall - a phalanx against the ensuing rebellion. and just to prove a point, I arrange a convenient accident for the religious faction's troublesome figurehead. The cathedral is the first building to go. I fork over the dough to insta-build a military headquarters, and I pay my soldiers the generous salary that they deserve. In the end, I grow restless I've had enough string-pulling. I can't rightly fault developer Haemimont Games for not fixing what isn't broken - or for addressing noted flaws - but under the circumstances, the arbitrary numerical uptick feels just a tad disingenuous. Luckily, with Tropico 3 (and now 4) being the game that it is, it's mostly livable. Sure, you get some fresh island footprints, new buildings, tighter control over economic imports/exports, more political superpowers to juggle, the threat of natural disasters, and some additional (and now-scaling) avatar traits, but I can't shake the feeling that this is a substantial expansion masquerading as a sequel. In most other respects, this is Tropico 3.5, right down to the blatantly repurposed menus, user interface, and avatar/building graphics. Cater to the people's every desire (as I elected to) or cherry-pick your assigned objectives either way, the overt feedback mechanics shore up Tropico 3's most glaring shortcoming. Build five parks - why not? Cathedral - no problem! Pair that with a cabinet of vocal advisors who look like they leapt from the Sunday political cartoons, and you've got a clear-if-often-haphazard path to fulfilling your population's wishes. Reminiscent of the average modern-day role-playing game, quest markers routinely pop up above your posh Presidential palace, offering economic bonuses in exchange for task fulfillment. Besides, Tropico 4 embraces something that its immediate predecessor comparatively lacks: direction. For one, I've been down the magnificent bastard road a time or 10 already. In the blink of an eye, I go from mastermind to servitor. I tap-dance for the fickle people who ostensibly pay my bills, begrudgingly taking my finger off the "Build Army Base" order and working to fulfill the campaign promises that I once so boldly ignored (and usually for the better). I relent I acquiesce to the inscrutable whims of a needy, braying populace. The coffers fill, and my system runs with military efficiency.īut with Tropico 4, things change. My small-but-effective army is well-paid for its unwavering loyalty, dissenters are ignored (or worse), and I trust myself - not my voters - to determine what's best for my patchwork fiefdom. On my watch, the populace toils away ceaselessly, harvesting the sugar that fuels my distilleries, picking the papayas that burden my export freighters, and butchering the cows that comprise my afternoon snacks. Tropico, you see, is a city-management simulator that puts you in the shoes of a Cold War-era dictator charged with the continued prosperity of a small banana republic, floating somewhere in the vague neighborhood of Cuba. In my years of Tropico-playing - and that's a lot of years, incidentally - I've been very consistent and methodical with my approach.
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