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Tropico 5 |OT| Top Banana Republic Man
- Thread starter Jintor
- Start date
So... just like real life rebels then
More like, where the hell did all these rebels come from, and why are there rebels when my approval is so high? And they come running out of the jungle into my tanks and aircraft and I wonder why they even bother.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Something i hate about tropico is idiots building shacks next to empty apartments with 0 rent ...
Khalifa Jayy
Banned
When is the PS4 release date? I've been wanting to play a Tropico game for ages now.
I have all the Tropico OSTs in rotation. Don't think this one will make the cut.
Yeah the audio is the one thing that is really getting to me in this. The voice actors are all different, and Penultimo doesn't have that charmy smarm, now he just seems like a sarcastic jerk :\ Jokes aren't as good either. The music is a big letdown too.
I'm digging the game, I appreciate some of the things they do to make it a bit more challenging, but sometimes its because they handicapped a lot of the stuff. Like the hardest thing now for me seems to be elections. While they were a no brainer in Tropico 4, in 5 it seems like your approval rating is great until an election rolls around and then all of a sudden people aren't happy. I wondered if it had to do with my competition, but nothing I did to them seemed to affect my approval rating. I had to resort to either jacking the budgets up on buildings (for housing and jobs) and a few times i had to resort to fudging the numbers a bit and cheat. Puts a bad taste in my mouth.
The military stuff I could do without, its never how I played tropico before, having to build guard towers and keeping a decent military is annoying, those are sla- er workers that could be doing more productive things. I'm finding in the earlier eras is pointless to go liberal too, I had to replay a few world war missions to figure out that nobody gives a shit about freedom and an iron fist is easier to work with.
Which then bites you in the ass in the cold war era, now you have environmentalists coming out of the woodwork.
This isn't really griping, its what I wanted
Trop4 especially with modern times and a few of the DLC's became easy to really rake in cash and just buy your way out of things. The one thing I REALLY notice is with docks, starting in the cold war era I'd have my docks stuffed with 100k stuff in exports but it seems the ships can only export so many things, like only 30k worth of stuff or so, which made me have to build more docks. Its a trade off because it then became harder for me to plan out what my economy would look like every six months or so when the freighter would come in, now I had 3 docks and my exports were all split. I'm guessing this is because by the later eras you should be sending more high priced processed goods rather than raw materials, but even in the cold war I was glutted with a bunch of raw goods that couldn't be processed until the next era. Not only that the new factories I could build were harder to get off the ground because I'm really bummed on Avatar customization, there seems to be so few options compared to 4. Though I guess it doesn't matter because you don't really actively control your avatar(s) in 5. Aside from assigning them to missions or manager roles, they don't do much accept provide a global bonus.
Speaking of the Avatars, its a shame they had to just get rid of negative traits. I guess nobody used them much because the trade offs were so bad, But I like the idea of them. Maybe if they had a system where you'd have "slots" for "Good Traits" at a certain count and then could open up more "Good Trait" slots by taking on some "Bad Traits" system would have been nice.
So yeah its the same but its different enough to keep me engaged, so its what I wanted from a Tropico. A few things so far though if I could make improvements:
- Fix the Almanac. Its harder for me to gauge what the hell is going on with my country compared to Tropico 4. I have to go through too many mouseclicks to figure out what the factions are up to and what is making them happy or angry.
- Allow us to set your different exports to specific docks. The way it works now is that the teamsters just throw exports to whatever dock and it would be better to be able to set each dock you make for a specific export so you can plan on what goods sustain your economy and the other ones you'll be using for expansion.
- Bring back the vocal music. The instrumentals all seem to bleed into each other and it doesn't really pump me like 3 and 4 did.
- Exploration seems kind of pointless, you really don't need to use it for expansion because by the time you need to expand you've probably already researched Drydocks. Either give it a reason to exist or just do away with the Fog of War, it really just seems tacked on.
- Let us filter the Trade Routes. It would be a LOT easier to be able to filter what people want to buy from you by what you actually have available. Its nice to see what people want, but its pointless if you don't produce it. They should also separate the import and the export portion. Its distracting when I'm trying to see on the fly what it is somebody wants. I rarely import right now, I'm sure I'll be doing it a lot in the modern era when my own resources have dried up.
- Resource layout. I miss the opaque layout rather than the grid. The grid while makes your city easier to see doesn't make it as quickly apparent what your problem areas are in terms of crime or pollution or where the best resources are. Also I wish they would let you highlight where your mines and what type of resources they have.
Some really good things I like:
- Churches and Clinics: By showing how many total people are serviced really helps a lot in this game. In 4 it was a guessing game, you could build like 10 churches and your citizens still bitched about religion quality. Now I can see what peoples needs are and if I need to build more churches and clinics and groceries.
- Research: I dunno I just like unlocking things haha.
- Much more bonuses and "combos" Although they seem like a no brainer but I like how each building has their own bonus usually. Like with residences. Country homes provide food with their gardens, apartments have a better quality when built near a road.
- Input vs Output. I like being able to see what raw material an industry building wants, especially with canneries so I can see if I can hold off on just more ranches or plantations because they've got "enough".
- General productivity: Teamsters actually seem to do their job more reliably, and building more than one construction yard actually seems to do something this time.
Anyway I'm enjoying it, I'm currently in the cold war era of the campaign and I'm sure it'll be more fun. I wish there was more building variety but that's what expansion packs are going to be fore.
Oh and one last thing: I got the "Steam Special Edition" I paid a few extra bucks for, but I don't know where this Isla de Vapor is. Also the description of the special edition said a guide to tropico, and I don't know where that guide is. Anyone got any help on that? My DLC in Steam says I have it installed but the game gives me fuck all where it is. Is it just a sandbox map?
You and me both, but in 5 it seems more to do with the wealth of the citizen. Depending on the house they may be barred from living in say a regular house if they're poor. But in 4 I had goddamned professors making 30 bucks a month living in a shack. This isn't real life, in tropico getting 30 bucks an hour is FILTHY RICH
Hasn't been released as far as I know?
You and me both, but in 5 it seems more to do with the wealth of the citizen. Depending on the house they may be barred from living in say a regular house if they're poor. But in 4 I had goddamned professors making 30 bucks a month living in a shack. This isn't real life, in tropico getting 30 bucks an hour is FILTHY RICH
I don't think it's possible to have houses with 0 rent. The only two monetary factors you can control are how much money YOU spend on housing and an edict that lets you subsidize housing and reduce it one number. In other words, as far as I can tell, no matter what you do, you'll never be able to allow a really poor person to live in a skyscraper. Free Housing edict just doesn't exist.
I've been noticing this as well.
It seems like pretty much pure bullshit to me. I have overall approval ratings in the 70s, and I'm looking at the information panel of these rebels, and they have all happy thoughts, they're gainfully employed, and in one case, their individual approval of me is 99 (!).
So the game is pretty much concocting rebels uprising to keep things exciting.
Okay good, just was wondering
Yeah that was one thing I really miss is free housing. I tended to do that a lot in 4, approval shoots up so fast, fuck the capitalists. On the other hand I could have free housing in 4 and assholes still shacked up in uh... shacks haha. They seem to at least try to move into better housing ASAP in 5 and I appreciate that.
Multiplayer is a clusterfuck as expected. Probably barely tested. The amount of bugs is annoying. A lot of time the game confuses which building belongs to whom, the limit between your two territories is weird, blabh blah blah.
In two matches we either : crashed, both of us won (!) for no reason, I lost for no reason, got disconnected of course, some actions couldn't be performed anymore (I got a weird segment of road that I couldn't delete no matter what), and the camera sometimes put us in the wrong camp after a disaster.
That said, it's nice to play with someone.
In two matches we either : crashed, both of us won (!) for no reason, I lost for no reason, got disconnected of course, some actions couldn't be performed anymore (I got a weird segment of road that I couldn't delete no matter what), and the camera sometimes put us in the wrong camp after a disaster.
That said, it's nice to play with someone.
EatinOlives
Member
Do the citizens ever actually speak Spanish? I just played a bit and I'm in the colonial era and I HATE that they're speaking in English >:|
Dragonborn
Member
I like a lot of what they did but at the same time I really hate some of the changes. I feel like there's less control of the smaller things. I also don't like that there are no wind turbines. I dislike the new "budget" system. I do like the revamped designs but damn, in many ways it feels like a step back. Still put 12 hours into it yesterday though.
Yeah it's really weird.
The standard situation of waiting for an expansion pack to sort everything out basically
I dislike that there aren't multiple options for ways to operate things like in 3/4. Or grade schools. There's only straight add-ons instead of different ways to run things...
The standard situation of waiting for an expansion pack to sort everything out basically
I dislike that there aren't multiple options for ways to operate things like in 3/4. Or grade schools. There's only straight add-ons instead of different ways to run things...
Yeah the new budget feels too opaque. Less micromanagement is nice but managers make the micromanagement even worse, since you need to set each building individually.
Dragonborn
Member
I bet we'll eventually get a grade school and wind turbines and everything else missing in DLCs and Expansions. I wouldn't mind it so much but they should at least have included everything already available in Tropico 4 plus new stuff. It's pretty clear they just stripped stuff out to sell later
Why? Plenty of stuff in this game that wasn't in previous games. For instance, yeah, you don't have wind or solar farms, but they've been replaced by geothermal energy plants.
We're missing a lot of tourist attractions. All the amusement park rides, for example, and some of the more high end ones. It makes tourism less fun to build for.
EatinOlives
Member
Played a bit more, a couple of random thoughts
-I discovered there's a tiny X mark on every window to close the windows. I thought we needed to right-click to close them all but you can just click that and not have to worry about bringing up the stupid Build menu.
-Yeah, music is a major nosedive. I've heard 2 or 3 songs that are super cheaply produced with these horrible synth instruments. WTF?
-Am I crazy or I can't see who's currently working on a building under construction? How do I know that it's currently being worked on without having to manually look around the site for workers?
-Does anyone else think that the color contrast is just too much? I know they upped the contrast in Tropico 4 but this game's contrast is bizarre. Looks like Xbox1 on launch lol
-I discovered there's a tiny X mark on every window to close the windows. I thought we needed to right-click to close them all but you can just click that and not have to worry about bringing up the stupid Build menu.
-Yeah, music is a major nosedive. I've heard 2 or 3 songs that are super cheaply produced with these horrible synth instruments. WTF?
-Am I crazy or I can't see who's currently working on a building under construction? How do I know that it's currently being worked on without having to manually look around the site for workers?
-Does anyone else think that the color contrast is just too much? I know they upped the contrast in Tropico 4 but this game's contrast is bizarre. Looks like Xbox1 on launch lol
Dragonborn
Member
There's new stuff, yea but that's expected of a new game. There's no reason not to include everything already in Tropico 4 along with new stuff. I mean, I'm not new to this, I understand Kalypso's DLC strategy but that doesn't make it any better. If I wasn't so addicted to the series I wouldn't buy it but alas, I am weak.
jongkookie
Member
Anybody encounter an issue where the game doesn't the 2nd mission? The Bao-Bao map or whatever?
I literally just sat here 10 minutes waiting and nothing.
I literally just sat here 10 minutes waiting and nothing.
Just probably had a 2 hour session of multi with a mate. Both of us had only played the tutorials and the first era in the campaign, impressions are;
The game really does not give you much feedback, approval rating seems to swing back and forth without much reason and it's hard to tell what the citizens want. I dropped more entertainment and beauty buildings when elections were coming up in an attempt to get my approval rating up but it was a crapshoot really.
Even transitioning to the next era's wasn't all that flash, from what I could tell, Buying independence got you out of the first one, choosing the allies/axis and fending off whoever got you into the first world war, at some stage the game decides to make you choose and fend off again to get into the depression. And at some other point the game gives you a choice again to get into the cold war? After that was where we stopped, my mate didn't even get into the cold war. The objectives/requirements simply weren't presented to us.
Online is terrible, there's a very noticeable delay when placing roads and it only gets worse as your population increases. It brings the game to a halt at times. Placing buildings are fine, it's a lot less noticeable but it's still there. The lobby itself is also terrible, hard to tell if you've got someone with you ready to go or not. It's just massively confusing.
I'd only played 3 before, skipped 4, but I at least knew what the game wanted me to do, as annoying as it could get. I'll play through the campaign more to actually get a handle on what is going on, but I feel I shouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as we did. Or maybe I'm just used to playing banished.
The game really does not give you much feedback, approval rating seems to swing back and forth without much reason and it's hard to tell what the citizens want. I dropped more entertainment and beauty buildings when elections were coming up in an attempt to get my approval rating up but it was a crapshoot really.
Even transitioning to the next era's wasn't all that flash, from what I could tell, Buying independence got you out of the first one, choosing the allies/axis and fending off whoever got you into the first world war, at some stage the game decides to make you choose and fend off again to get into the depression. And at some other point the game gives you a choice again to get into the cold war? After that was where we stopped, my mate didn't even get into the cold war. The objectives/requirements simply weren't presented to us.
Online is terrible, there's a very noticeable delay when placing roads and it only gets worse as your population increases. It brings the game to a halt at times. Placing buildings are fine, it's a lot less noticeable but it's still there. The lobby itself is also terrible, hard to tell if you've got someone with you ready to go or not. It's just massively confusing.
I'd only played 3 before, skipped 4, but I at least knew what the game wanted me to do, as annoying as it could get. I'll play through the campaign more to actually get a handle on what is going on, but I feel I shouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as we did. Or maybe I'm just used to playing banished.
Just even on the basic stuff though, I only dropped clinics, churches, restaurants e.t.c because it felt odd that my population seemed to be doing fine without them. I'm not asking for the level of information that Banished gives you, just more info and feedback from the economy and population. As far as that run is concerned, it felt like I was playing with cheats on.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
I found a lot of those tourist attractions barely ever got tourists no matter what I did in the other games.
Dragonborn
Member
Is anyone else having an issue where when you press MP, it says "no connection"? I've been getting it since yesterday, so I haven't even been able to try any MP.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Friend reported the same issue.Anybody encounter an issue where the game doesn't the 2nd mission? The Bao-Bao map or whatever?
I literally just sat here 10 minutes waiting and nothing.
Sandbox for me for now.
I managed to get into the modern era but my approval is precariously close to 50%.
I'm not sure what happened but my economy seemed to tank after all my HS peeps disappeared or something. This game is definitely harder than 4, though I also had quite a bit of cash and ended up quick building a lot of stuff.
Kinda find myself missing and preferring 4...
Seems as though tourism is better in 5 though.
Just finished the campaign. Did run into a bug where one of the missions (Pirate King) got stuck at the start menu and wouldn't let me select difficulty options or start the mission. Had to restart previous mission from autosave.
I'm not sure I liked the structure of the campaign, where it re-uses the same small set of maps repeatedly, and builds upon previous iterations of those maps. For example, I might make a mess of things in order to complete one mission, and I have to live with that state of affairs in a future mission.
I think I liked Tropico 3's campaign structure the most, where you were able to choose one of two islands to complete each time and each island was unique and had a different mission style.
The game runs reasonably well at least. I can maintain at least 60fps while having Netflix running on my other monitor, even with a fairly built-up island nearing endgame at max speed.
I'm not sure I liked the structure of the campaign, where it re-uses the same small set of maps repeatedly, and builds upon previous iterations of those maps. For example, I might make a mess of things in order to complete one mission, and I have to live with that state of affairs in a future mission.
I think I liked Tropico 3's campaign structure the most, where you were able to choose one of two islands to complete each time and each island was unique and had a different mission style.
The game runs reasonably well at least. I can maintain at least 60fps while having Netflix running on my other monitor, even with a fairly built-up island nearing endgame at max speed.
Yeah I like the system. In Tropico 4 I never used 90% of the map or had a big city until later mission (and even then...). Restarting the same way everytime was not ideal either.
Here I have to do some long term planning and often restructure my town, as well as manage a big city and it's quite nice.
Here I have to do some long term planning and often restructure my town, as well as manage a big city and it's quite nice.
ComputerMKII
Banned
This game is super fun with cheats.
jongkookie
Member
Good to know that I'm not the only one with the issue lol.
Anyway, after about 9 hours of play I prefer the gameplay on 5 but presentation wise(graphics not included) 3/4 are tons better.
The jokes are repeated over and over, some are truly funny but some just fall flat. I've turned off the music entirely and just use Spotify or iTunes to play my own music instead.
But like I said, I love what they did gameplay wise. It's a lot harder to spam farms and build your economy like in 4, but at the same time, they've made it easier to establish your economy with just raw materials. You could survive with just sugar, tobacco and coffee farms all the way until World War. To me it feels a lot more realistic that way.
The constitution is also a great thing, but it's a double edged sword. I like the options you're given, but a lot of it will bite you in the ass if you don't plan correctly. My current playthrough had my military needing a high school education before you enlist. It took me 3 in game years to fully staff 3 barracks'... I switched it back to illiterate the moment I could amend the constitution lol.
Also the battles in this game are probably my favorite part. It's so easy to spam barracks' and bases you could practically be a "superpower" if you know what you're doing. I remember provoking the UN at one point and they attacked me only for them to get demolished by my huge army of 8 infantry units and 3 tanks haha.
Anyway, I really do love the aim for realism 5 has but I also do think it's missing a lot of the charm the series is known for. That said, I slightly prefer 5 over the older games mainly because I can actually play as a dictator with ramifications outside of the island. It's a lot more exciting now than before.
I like the way early game islands just bristle with farms nestled into the fog of war and any incidental exploration and then explode once you hit the compass, but without a lot of surprises coming out of the fog of war - or indeed, any real point to it - it can't help but feel quite artificial as a barrier.
I must also be the only one who missed the way farms would hilariously organically grow in P3 and P4 so that you'd have fields just popping up everywhere. Plantations should've remained the mid-tier massive space-taking but easier-directional place.
I must also be the only one who missed the way farms would hilariously organically grow in P3 and P4 so that you'd have fields just popping up everywhere. Plantations should've remained the mid-tier massive space-taking but easier-directional place.
Ville Pukema
Member
Can anyone point me in direction how to make huge cities work? Also, economy is weird for me, I had so many harbors once that the ships got stuch in each other. Should I make everything or is specialication key in getting island to work? I want indepth tutorial for this game.
Bonus: What the fuck does "vicinity" mean? sometimes its block or two sometimes half the island! My biggiest complain would be that things arent defined and lot of stuff is trial and error and plain hope that you know what effects what. :/
Bonus: What the fuck does "vicinity" mean? sometimes its block or two sometimes half the island! My biggiest complain would be that things arent defined and lot of stuff is trial and error and plain hope that you know what effects what. :/
The Jackdog
Member
So im having a little trouble knowing what to "do" in tropico 5.
Im not a strategy expert, but I really like like civ 5 and prison architect etc.
anyway, I didn't really like the campaign because it didnt feel like there was a lot of progression, so i started a sandbox game and started really liking it.
But im not sure what exactly to "do". When I'd start a game of Civ I'd know "okay going for domination, or cultural, etc etc"
But im not sure which options I have to start building towards.
Im not a strategy expert, but I really like like civ 5 and prison architect etc.
anyway, I didn't really like the campaign because it didnt feel like there was a lot of progression, so i started a sandbox game and started really liking it.
But im not sure what exactly to "do". When I'd start a game of Civ I'd know "okay going for domination, or cultural, etc etc"
But im not sure which options I have to start building towards.
In light of recent events, I wonder if the series shouldn't be spun off into some different settings, like southeast asia. That region has a history of colonial interference and being prone to coups and corruption, and is just as scenic as the Caribbean.
Seems like the series has fallen into an evolutionary rut from Tropico 3 to 5.
Seems like the series has fallen into an evolutionary rut from Tropico 3 to 5.
I'm not overly concerned with the presentation or setting really... it's more the systems that are the current problem. Though I wouldn't mind a SE Asian skin.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
It's like Rome if you've played that before; a lot of resource management and area coverage of your little peoples' needs.
Once you get more familiar, you can start planning your economy.
Check the various crops when you're planting them and see where that leads you. Pineapples and Coffee are great because you can also get a wharf and also a farm for meat and a Cannery will absolutely leave you swimming in money. Do you only have good space for sugar? Get a rum factory or two later. Tobacco? Cigar.
One thing that helps in this iteration that previous didn't is the number of visitors to a building to fulfill a need. You'll quickly know when you'll need clinics and churches cause you'll see the max number of visits constantly reached.
It's not a hard game, which is why I love it. It's very chill. Just grope along and it'll click soon enough
Fair warning to all youse guys...if you change your ranches to factories, you need to provide CORN to keep them going!