For anyone who is disappointed, try sandbox first instead of missions!

[El Guapo]

No need to sugarcoat anything here: the game has a lot of problems.

I started with the first two missions of the "campaign" and I hated it. Even thought about abandoning it after two hours and launch T4 or even T5 instead.

Gave it one last chance, the classical sandbox mode.
First impression again was bad. No difficulty modifier, no score? What's the point in difficulty settings if you're not rewarded with a higher score? You know, risk and reward...

Anyways, let's just cast that aside and start the game.
Pause, analyze the situation. Here's where the game truly shines: the overlays!
That was a turning point for me. That hill looks lovely, good fertility, probably going to be my farming area. But wait, most mines are there as well. Okay, mining area, factories nearby. Plantations have to go elsewhere, analyze again. Wonderful tool!

Three hours later, stomach grumbling, gotta eat but can't, there's work to do on Tropico!

The sandbox doesn't turn T6 into the greatest entry in the series, but it makes it worthwhile. Still plenty of negatives of course:
- It's kinda annoying that faction relations are mostly done via constant mission chores instead of the old social engineering way.
- The pirate cove is silly: why build schools if you can simply "rescue educated people"
- World wonders are completly OP and simply a cheat mode. I don't even want to build any of them.
- Road building is bad, but manageable if you build grids along intersections.

[e.b]

Agreed about pirate cove. After doing "rescue educated" mission a couple times my first thought was "so what is the point of going through the trouble with all this education thing". I liked how in old tropico you had to either build decent education system or go through the whole trouble of importing educated people. I think this needs to be balanced out somehow, by may be assigning some counterweight to these "rescue" missions. After all you are essentially kidnapping these people and keeping them by force on your island.

[Dave1029]

Originally posted by eugene.b:

Agreed about pirate cove. After doing "rescue educated" mission a couple times my first thought was "so what is the point of going through the trouble with all this education thing". I liked how in old tropico you had to either build decent education system or go through the whole trouble of importing educated people. I think this needs to be balanced out somehow, by may be assigning some counterweight to these "rescue" missions. After all you are essentially kidnapping these people and keeping them by force on your island.

This is one of those... don't use it responses. All these things were meant to give flexibility to the player.

[El Guapo]

Originally posted by eugene.b:

Agreed about pirate cove. After doing "rescue educated" mission a couple times my first thought was "so what is the point of going through the trouble with all this education thing". I liked how in old tropico you had to either build decent education system or go through the whole trouble of importing educated people. I think this needs to be balanced out somehow, by may be assigning some counterweight to these "rescue" missions. After all you are essentially kidnapping these people and keeping them by force on your island.

It leaves this bitter PS4/Xbox taste in my mouth. T1 was brutal and ever since, the series became easier with each installment. Spawning free education and world wonder cheats are horrible design decisions, as well as the game forcing those building on you via missions.

In the end, we will have to make house rules for ignoring those features. Maybe the current generation of gamers is used to getting pampered and can't deal with failure.
Some of the greatest T1 memories were those of actually losing the game.

[editbayrat]

I think this is a good idea (sandbox first), especially if you're new to the game. I'm really enjoying cruising through a randomly generated island in sandbox (I did a couple of hundred hours in beta).

I understand your comments. Road building can be frustrating--I sometimes end up deleting a couple of pieces of road and re-doing it just to get a right-angle intersection. I've gotten better with practice. I'm still struggling with the tunnels.

I kind of like the favor-based faction politics, however I do sometimes get the same demand two or three times in a row or a request for a building I've just built (this kills me, it kills me, I tell ya). World Wonders I'm still exploring. If nothing else, they're a good boost to tourism. I tend to want to build the Moai heads because anything that makes my ships go faster is a good thing.

Overlays? Good. Bridges? Good. Teleferic/busses? It took me a while to figure them out, but good. I think they did a good job with the trading screen. Lots of info, easy to sort, easy to control. Banks? Very cool. I haven't found a use for a lot of the research items other than the obvious, but we'll see how it works out in replay.

I think it takes some time to connect with the fact that the Tropicans are all thinking and acting independently. No groupthink. It leads to unanticipated behavior.

Despite the whining and histrionics, this is a good game.

[editbayrat]

...and, yes, they've pretty much gutted education between the raids and the World Wonder thing.

[Zhardoz]

there is a map editor, hopefully just like in cities skyline players will make better maps.

[Zhardoz]

I know i will

[Zhardoz]

yes the original map in cities skyline s****!

[Fatbill]

Not in any hurry to buy this.
Maybe in 6 months when they have the bugs and balance worked out.
Plus, I have been underwhelmed in the past regarding the difference/improvement from one version to the next in this franchise.
Since Tropico 3, it is more or less the same game each time, with very little innovation.

[e.b]

Originally posted by El Guapo:

It leaves this bitter PS4/Xbox taste in my mouth. T1 was brutal and ever since, the series became easier with each installment. Spawning free education and world wonder cheats are horrible design decisions, as well as the game forcing those building on you via missions.

In the end, we will have to make house rules for ignoring those features. Maybe the current generation of gamers is used to getting pampered and can't deal with failure.
Some of the greatest T1 memories were those of actually losing the game.

Yes, I absolutely agree. I still haven't played T6 long enough to see how it works here but my main complaint with other city building games like Cities Skylines is lack of challenge. I know it's a free form building simulator but I want a "game" element in it, a challenge, consequences for bad decisions and all that. Without it, it's just copy-pasting of "build farms+houses+hospitals or whatever" sequence which gets really boring really fast.

[Zhardoz]

Originally posted by eugene.b:

Originally posted by El Guapo:

It leaves this bitter PS4/Xbox taste in my mouth. T1 was brutal and ever since, the series became easier with each installment. Spawning free education and world wonder cheats are horrible design decisions, as well as the game forcing those building on you via missions.

In the end, we will have to make house rules for ignoring those features. Maybe the current generation of gamers is used to getting pampered and can't deal with failure.
Some of the greatest T1 memories were those of actually losing the game.

Yes, I absolutely agree. I still haven't played T6 long enough to see how it works here but my main complaint with other city building games like Cities Skylines is lack of challenge. I know it's a free form building simulator but I want a "game" element in it, a challenge, consequences for bad decisions and all that. Without it, it's just copy-pasting of "build farms+houses+hospitals or whatever" sequence which gets really boring really fast.

hold on there, cities skyline challange is the the traffic, not the economic part realy.

[Zhardoz]

and for any good old tropico veteran players, tropico 6 is not much of a challange once you know what to do.

[e.b]

Originally posted by The Relentless:

hold on there, cities skyline challange is the the traffic, not the economic part realy.

Yes, agreed. I must admit - the problem I have with Cities Skylines is quite likely my expectations. I was expecting an awesome city building game and was ready for amazing economy + traffic + citizen desires and whims simulator where I need to cleverly balance out all of these...but I got just traffic simulator. A good one for that, I can definitely give credit here but I quickly got bored of that and never really managed to get into that game.

[FalconerHG]

No, sorry, you are wrong.

You simply have not played long enough.

The Pirate Cove will not let you rescue enough educated people in modern times, you will absolutely need to educate.

The overlays are there for the missions too eh? If you are playing the missions JUST for the mission objectives, you're missing the point. The mission objectives are there to add flavour - you need to play your own game and work the objectives into it.

Factions also respond to other things. If you don't plunk down enough churches (outside of quests), religious people will get pissy. Also, take out their leader and faction standing will change. In other words, it's not just quests.

Road building is no worse than any other Tropico. :)

Besides that, there not LOTS of problems. There are a few minor ones.