100-Approval Rebels (and other bizarre creatures of Tropico)

[glacier]

I kind of think there needs to be some kind of check or mechanic that controls which combinations of stats are valid for immigrants, and which controls the likelihood of citizens becoming (and remaining) rebels.

Twenty years old, born in Spain? That all works out; no problems so far.
Post-graduate degree? So he entered university when he was fourteen? Twelve?
He is also a rebel, even though both he and his Tropican showgirl wife and mother of three children (of a different relationship(s)) both show 100% approval. I am in good standing with both of the factions he belongs to (Communists++, Environmentalists++) and his average happiness is 80 (lowest stat is 59 in housing). They're listed as "Rich" and they live in a regular house.

It would be nice if guys like this (100% approval, high happiness, large and happy, regime-supporting families, members of regime-supporting factions) would either not become rebels, or simply -stop being- rebels once they're happy enough, even if you don't grant them amnesty (assuming they haven't participated in any attacks, or something or other). Perhaps there's some mechanic in uncovering citizens' secret roles that can give false positives?

I could understand it if a crime lord was actually a strong supporter of the regime, but I don't get why someone whose government support metric is maxed out would become (or remain) a rebel, then start shooting at powerplants and farms.

What it feels like is, "Welp! It's the Cold War. Even if both the United States and Soviet Union love you, it doesn't matter. You need rebels. They will be drawn through lots and scattered across the island. Good luck, El Presidente! :D"
I can see happy people rebelling, but not those who approve of the government.

All I can think of here is that the data the game provides you with through individual query is deliberately imperfect (which is kind of cool, but it would be nice if that was made clear somewhere-- I missed it if it was).

(As a side note, it kind of seems like you ought to be able to "Deport" or "Expel" foreign-born Tropicans for less than it takes to "Banish" a Tropican native, though at greater international consequence.)

[Kukko]

引用自 InFusIon：

引用自 Kishero：

That's it in a shellnut. :v

One wonders there any way for Tropico to -not- be a so-called "dictatorial regime," especially when it isn't one.
One wonders what a dictator even is.
One wonders what exactly Penultimo has been telling people about you.

When I almost lost that election, I built houses, not knocked them down.
When things improved, there was an amnesty for rebels, not a crackdown.
When I find crime lords, I expel them from the island (because the police can't seem to do much about it).
I have not once bribed or discredited anyone, or even had the army shoot them in the street!

The closest I ever came was enacting that wealth tax, which actually INCREASED approval, because although most Tropicans were very wealthy, they were also -very communist-. THAT IS THE KIND OF BIZARRO STATE I RAN.
And what do I get? Rebels who love me.
The hell do they teach those kids in high school, anyway? >:I

Anyway, I'm with Kishero on this.
Tropicans may be mercurial and weird, but the rules set of the game shouldn't be, too.

tropico isnt a game of being a dictator. thats just part of the commercialism. in tropico you can be any kind of leader. it sounds like you chose to be a good one.

Tropico was originally you being totalitarian communist dictator. That commersialism part quite evil when previous tropicos being dictator simulations while this being ♥♥♥♥♥♥ of the tropicans simulator.

[Kishero]

引用自 InFusIon：

引用自 Kishero：

That's it in a shellnut. :v

One wonders there any way for Tropico to -not- be a so-called "dictatorial regime," especially when it isn't one.
One wonders what a dictator even is.
One wonders what exactly Penultimo has been telling people about you.

When I almost lost that election, I built houses, not knocked them down.
When things improved, there was an amnesty for rebels, not a crackdown.
When I find crime lords, I expel them from the island (because the police can't seem to do much about it).
I have not once bribed or discredited anyone, or even had the army shoot them in the street!

The closest I ever came was enacting that wealth tax, which actually INCREASED approval, because although most Tropicans were very wealthy, they were also -very communist-. THAT IS THE KIND OF BIZARRO STATE I RAN.
And what do I get? Rebels who love me.
The hell do they teach those kids in high school, anyway? >:I

Anyway, I'm with Kishero on this.
Tropicans may be mercurial and weird, but the rules set of the game shouldn't be, too.

tropico isnt a game of being a dictator. thats just part of the commercialism. in tropico you can be any kind of leader. it sounds like you chose to be a good one.

Only as I have stated in the post you quited, we really dont have any choice. It has been decided that we are behaiving dictaoraly, so we have rebbels for no avoidable reason, so we must act dictaoraly.

We need better mechanics or clearer comunication as to how to deal with unrest. Ideally by avoiding it all together with skill.

[InFusIon]

引用自 Kishero：

引用自 InFusIon：

tropico isnt a game of being a dictator. thats just part of the commercialism. in tropico you can be any kind of leader. it sounds like you chose to be a good one.

Only as I have stated in the post you quited, we really dont have any choice. It has been decided that we are behaiving dictaoraly, so we have rebbels for no avoidable reason, so we must act dictaoraly.

We need better mechanics or clearer comunication as to how to deal with unrest. Ideally by avoiding it all together with skill.

i agree. it should be explained in the instructions that happiness is what causes rebellion and not approval.

[Syfusion]

Couldn't be just happiness, I have a game where i have a 0 approval with the communists which in turn gets me endless rebels to deal with. When I play a game where no faction has a low approval of me I hardly get rebels. Both games have roughly the same happiness.

[Kukko]

引用自 InFusIon：

引用自 Kishero：

Only as I have stated in the post you quited, we really dont have any choice. It has been decided that we are behaiving dictaoraly, so we have rebbels for no avoidable reason, so we must act dictaoraly.

We need better mechanics or clearer comunication as to how to deal with unrest. Ideally by avoiding it all together with skill.

i agree. it should be explained in the instructions that happiness is what causes rebellion and not approval.

Happiness and communists cause rebels. Check the extended manual.

[glacier]

引用自 InFusIon：

tropico isnt a game of being a dictator. thats just part of the commercialism. in tropico you can be any kind of leader. it sounds like you chose to be a good one.

Pretty much. I think the biggest problem I have with the always-a-rebellion situation the game seems to have trouble with is that not having rebels is one of the primary rewards for working hard and keeping people happy and not-armed. When the game drops rebels on you, rain or shine (so to speak), I find myself wondering, "if they're going to shoot at me regardless of how happy they are, what good is there in trying to keep them happy?" and the metaplot is ruined.

Also, your quote tags got screwed up. ;)

[aqvarivs]

引用自 Goldfish Gerontologist Oceanhahn：

引用自 InFusIon：

tropico isnt a game of being a dictator. thats just part of the commercialism. in tropico you can be any kind of leader. it sounds like you chose to be a good one.

Pretty much. I think the biggest problem I have with the always-a-rebellion situation the game seems to have trouble with is that not having rebels is one of the primary rewards for working hard and keeping people happy and not-armed. When the game drops rebels on you, rain or shine (so to speak), I find myself wondering, "if they're going to shoot at me regardless of how happy they are, what good is there in trying to keep them happy?" and the metaplot is ruined.

Also, your quote tags got screwed up. ;)

It's all an artifice to distract you from the hollowness of "winning". Everything happens in quick time to push you towards the end game. Build this, build that, two of these, more of those, and no control over the influx of immigrants to give you a breather and consolidate your building strategy and political position. Not so bad had they left it to the missions but they had to go and ruin the sandbox with the same hyper rush to the end game and pitiful lack of controls to deal socially and politically as one wants to with out being forced into a game of "rebel yell".

[glacier]

引用自 aqvarivs：

It's all an artifice to distract you from the hollowness of "winning".

In fairness, city builders are usually about the journey, rather than the destination.

It's just when you bump into your Doogie Houser, 23-year-old post-docs who love you and live a happy life, but for reasons beyond explanation, but just have to blow up a cotton plantation, that you wonder about the route your journey is taking.

[aqvarivs]

引用自 Goldfish Gerontologist Oceanhahn：

引用自 aqvarivs：

It's all an artifice to distract you from the hollowness of "winning".

In fairness, city builders are usually about the journey, rather than the destination.

It's just when you bump into your Doogie Houser, 23-year-old post-docs who love you and live a happy life, but for reasons beyond explanation, but just have to blow up a cotton plantation, that you wonder about the route your journey is taking.

It's that lack of player control throughout the journey I'm speaking of. This serial artifice of nonsense complications and pseudo complexity that distracts from the actual city building in T5 creating a different game than what tropico3 & 4 was, on top of the politics and civic balancing act. As I said, game mission wise, do as you like as developers. Add all the little complications and needless unpredictability... but why ruin the sandbox with such artifices when sandbox mode is a completely different arena? one where players actually want to take their time and create and build their cities.
I just find with T5, even in sandbox mode, the players is pushed through the experience and more often than not I'm relieved when my set goals trigger the end game. Never felt like that playing T3 or 4. It's this huge change in game 'time' and lack of player control that makes it hard for me to like in T5 what was my all time favorite franchise. I think I'm grieving that loss. :-)

[ElPrezCBF]

My experience has been the rebel system is flawed even though I can make most of the population happy. So I gave up trying to prevent rebels and just keep a strong army. Which is exactly what happens in reality. If you hate the ruling party, join the opposition to beat them legally. Or become a rebel and have all out civil war. Period.

[Syfusion]

My problem with rebels is that they are one dimensional. They do nothing besides blowing up one or two buildings before they get mauled by my military, rinse repeat snooze fest. Even my year 2000 Capitalist game with 90 happiness has rebels attacking often because communist approval is 0. One would think that after that long of losing that the faction would also have zero supporters but nope gotta have rebels for rebels sake. Its so bad I end up playing full freedom games so I don't have to constantly listen to Penultimo being angry.

[Kishero]

引用自 Syfis：

My problem with rebels is that they are one dimensional. They do nothing besides blowing up one or two buildings before they get mauled by my military, rinse repeat snooze fest. Even my year 2000 Capitalist game with 90 happiness has rebels attacking often because communist approval is 0. One would think that after that long of losing that the faction would also have zero supporters but nope gotta have rebels for rebels sake. Its so bad I end up playing full freedom games so I don't have to constantly listen to Penultimo being angry.

That is another issue, the demographics have no reall meaning.

I can run a secular athiest paradise all I like, but in the end I'll still need to build churches.

It is a very confining game but I expect all our concerns to be dismissed and nothing to be done at this stage.

[ElPrezCBF]

I'm curious to know if anyone can confirm rebels will spawn not due to overall hapiness but the happiness of any specific faction. Say for example overall happiness is 90% but communist happiness close to 0. Does it mean the rebels who appear are communists and perhaps also from other unhappy factions?

[Kukko]

引用自 Civ Builder：

I'm curious to know if anyone can confirm rebels will spawn not due to overall hapiness but the happiness of any specific faction. Say for example overall happiness is 90% but communist happiness close to 0. Does it mean the rebels who appear are communists and perhaps also from other unhappy factions?

Happiness and sad communist faction cause rebels to appear. You can check the extended manual.

[glacier]

Now that I think about it, I wonder whether it's just communists' approval, or if it's any particularly dissatisfied faction. I've had the love and adoration of the communists for ages in one of my games (or had; it's been a while since I've played), and was still being molested by jackasses with automatic rifles. The religious crowd was kind of peevish with me, but I think it was hanging around 40 or 60 approval; not exactly 'furious'.

I suspect rebels are generated randomly, based on -extremes- of faction dissatisfaction, or it straight up doesn't work properly. :/

引用自 aqvarivs：

It's that lack of player control throughout the journey I'm speaking of. This serial artifice of nonsense complications and pseudo complexity that distracts from the actual city building in T5 creating a different game than what tropico3 & 4 was, on top of the politics and civic balancing act. As I said, game mission wise, do as you like as developers. Add all the little complications and needless unpredictability... but why ruin the sandbox with such artifices when sandbox mode is a completely different arena? one where players actually want to take their time and create and build their cities.
I just find with T5, even in sandbox mode, the players is pushed through the experience and more often than not I'm relieved when my set goals trigger the end game. Never felt like that playing T3 or 4. It's this huge change in game 'time' and lack of player control that makes it hard for me to like in T5 what was my all time favorite franchise. I think I'm grieving that loss. :-)

I feel like there was some option where you could reduce or disable some of the quests, but I could very easily be wrong, since the era system requires events to proceed. I may be thinking of events.
I'd check but the game crashes constantly and it frustrates me to no end. =_=;

All the same, I agree that difficulty for its own sake is unpleasant at best, and extremely distracting (if you're interested in the meta-plot) at worst. I somewhat miss the degree of micromanagement you had in T4, where you could set individual policies for buildings (Obstetrics/Gerontology/Prevenentative Medicine for clinics and hospitals, for one), but I don't think the new setup is bad, either. There are a lot of cool innovations in T5; trade, for one. Managers are pretty cool, too, but I've found that they don't last very long (I've had 40 year olds on the job for five years, then they mysteriously vanish. Healthy, happy people, just see mto *go away*. They may have dissolved into that bogus 2000 population limit. WHICH IS ANOTHER THING >:C )

Anyway, it's a good product. They just need to work out some of the balancing issues and maybe account for some problems with rebels and technical problems with the software, I think. I appreciate that they want to get away from the Utopia Syndrome that other Tropico (among other) games had, but introducing phony problems, as you say, is kind of crap. :/