Doomed in Cold War

[wubwub]

So far I'm able to breeze through the previous eras but once I hit cold war I'm screwed. Anyone got any tips? I always end up in huge debts not knowing what to build to make the money.

[Emperor Mao]

I have found the Cold War era is one of the easiest if you do a few small things.

Firstly, you will want FULL open border immigration. You need as many workers as possible. Illiterates are great! they will work in most the important buildings for you.

Secondly, build sustainable industry. I usually rely heavily on a combination of 2 farms + industry buildings. E.G Build sugar plantations and a Rum distillery. Build Tobacco plantations + Cigar factory. Build Cotton plantations and Lama Ranches with a textile building. Usually it just depends how much space your island has, and if it has fertile lands for any of those farms.In the worst case scenario (an almost total desert island), you can rely on mining + industry for the short term, then import resources to fuel your advanced industry. E.G build wharfs and import Sugar to make your Rum, import Gold to make your jewelry ect ect. All along the way you will need to constantly build a few military buildings (For a population of around 1000, 10-15 military buildings is easily enough to defend).

That will ensure you have tons of money as you progress to the modern times. Once your industry does start bringing in big money, you can look into building wide spread tourism and entertainment buildings. Once in the modern age, you will have to build a bunch of hospitals and embassies to keep everyone happy.

[wubwub]

Well I've already have 3 textile 3 cotton fields 1 sugar field 3 llama for wool 1 rum distill, 1 steel industry, got an excess of 110k. And that's all on world war... your advice sounds more for world war and not cold war XD

[Cat]

1 sugar field might not be enough to supply a distillery, assuming you didn't already- import sugar. Or build another farm.
Likewise the steel needs iron and coal to operate.
Sounds like a solid eco and if you say you're in excess of 110k then you're doing good.

Oh and in the cold war and onwards you can support your primary eco with tourism. I did that in my campaign because it was an objective, a couple of hotels and entertainment out of spare cash, what do ya know just that itself made 30k a year or around 12% of that islands economy.

[Emperor Mao]

Originally posted by Constipated Conjunction:

Well I've already have 3 textile 3 cotton fields 1 sugar field 3 llama for wool 1 rum distill, 1 steel industry, got an excess of 110k. And that's all on world war... your advice sounds more for world war and not cold war XD

I would say that is too many textiles. But if you are pulling in 110k, you should breeze through Cold War era. What exactly is causing your "economy" to tank and put you from 110k to debt?

[Rogal Dorn]

Tourism

[Pure Hostility]

Tourism + Pharmacy, aka magic money.
They cost a bit upfront, but produce "clean money", without much of an investment.

I also myself love furniture factories, as providing planks is so easy and doesn't require so much space as agriculture in these times.
Textillies are nice, however they require TONS of workers, and without proper country managed budget + union leaders to lure workers into them, capping them full sometimes becomes a problem, even if you just put their budget at max, they still don't lure people by themselves, due to low job quality.

[Utochka]

You pay money to people in one way - salary. There are 4 ways to take it back - paying for food, medicine, entertainment and housing. If you make for example, only 8 farms and 3 ranches (pigs+ combined) with max wages, you'll have 78 successful people. Additional you need 1 food store (2 man) 1 port (4 man) 1 clinic (3man without app) 1 church ( 4man) - total 78+13 =91 successful people. Entertainment -1 restaurant + 1opera +1 cabaret (total + 15 successful people). Totally approximately 122 successful people. You need 15 houses in one block to max quality near church. If you build this perfect sandbox with max effectiveness (farms with all improvements, "pineapples near pineapples" cattle ranch near plantation), you'll not need ANY industrial totally. Usually the edicts "Food for the People", "Paid medicine" "Paid food", "subsidies to farmers" must be active.

[wubwub]

Well ♥♥♥♥, I didn't read the info here before retackling my game again. This time, I didn't drop all my money on upgrades immediately and went about adding in furniture, vehicle, and oil. with about some housing and "other" improvements to satisfy my people for every 1 money making building I've build. OIL was the major money maker for me through trading, with 1 simple furniture to keep things afloat before I can research oil and vehicles. Vehicles was 2nd in behind Oil, but getting there takes awhile and Iron is getting low.

For some reason my pharmacy wasn't making much.

Anyways for others having similar problems. Make sure to build 1 extra power plant before cold war starts, with some cash around 50k should be good, DON'T upgrade everything at once, and do it sparingly. I did the mistake of not realizing the ranch upgrades uses corn, too many upgrades and lack of energy to build cold era buildings, which basically screwed me over. Going to try tourism and see how it works out. I'm already at modern age and still didn't touch tourism but still doing remarkably well. Thanks to my sprawling population adding in 4 offices pretty much won the game for me

[Cat]

Tourism is awesome. Main part of your economy or just a little side, you never see the profits from it but they are there, they are hefty and unlike what you ship, they are a steady flow. You also have a lot of control over it, you can issue edicts, elect a skilled character and build airports to give it a boost. You can hardly do the same for your industry, theres one edict to improve farm efficiency and another to cut factory costs, but that's that. Tourism you can invest a plenty in. (keep in mind there is no point in paying to promote your island aborad or building airports if your hotels are already packed!)

[wubwub]

Tourism is kinda a hassle for me on my game, unless I dump the entire tourism industry in a further off location away from my city hub due to space limitation.

[Cat]

I do that. Tourists like beaches. Nearly irrelevant in T5 as compared to what it was in T4 but some buildings still want beauty around them for efficiency, you shouldn't be putting your tourist sector next to your factories anyway.

[JTWibble]

I've always found rum to be a sure thing; you can get sugar plantations up to almost 300% effectiveness, allowing 2 plantations to service 5 distilleries, just make sure you have 3 or more high schools to rapidly staff them.

[ogreballerina]

Pharmicies are bugged as they now use 3 x more oil then they should.
Known bug.
I give tourist thier own area furthest from my central area ( usually a beach on the other side of island.) I build a small support community just for tourist building workers.. I give all forms of employment thier own little neighborhoods.
Working out great, lets me build a real sprawling city not the usual strip mall or russian tenemnet block Tropico city that you always see.
I also never use garages until late game and limited at that, for dither.
My people don't mind...everything is right there for that class.
I also spend a good 20 minutes just laying out the city before even starting...usually deleting all buildings.
Wish I could move the Palace.
I do find the fog of war annoying when laying out roads/
The less distance Tropicans have to go to do anything is more time they are working making me money.
First thing I do when starting a map is forming a plan by looking at the resource richness.
Sugar too far at start up ? Go textile. tobacco...what have you.

[wubwub]

"The less distance Tropicans have to go to do anything is more time they are working making me money."

Hmm But won't they need healthcare,entertainment, etc. if you build them where they work?
And also with metro, does it matter anymore? I always assume it'll let them commute back home and vice versa to work.

[MaxDoomSWE]

Your teamsters stop working, because the game is still in beta stage. Thats why its hard.