Election promises cannot be kept

[Graurabe]

I've been playing this game for almost two years now and I haven't even been able to keep an election promise. At the moment I have promised to raise the food satisfaction to 61, but I have not succeeded. There are canned food, corn, bananas and meat in abundance, there are now two stores in each settlement, and I only made it to 55, I don't know what else to build, there are only 700 days left, so it's practically a failure. Before that I tried to increase the fun satisfaction, also unsuccessfully, every bar I build is immediately overloaded, you don't build enough so it's not like that, the map is overgrown with bars, restaurants, circus, theater cabaret, nothing brings anything. I know I always build up population quite fast and have now 1942 2500 inhabitants, but how many bars need 2500 people? what is the basis for calculation?
How many grocery stores do they need? Please help me ^^

Translated with Google from German to English :)

[Kunovega]

I don't think I've ever failed an election promise.

What it sounds like is you are not doing enough variety either for fun or for food needs.

My bars are almost always empty or near empty because I have enough larger entertainment venues that people are busy using. You are using a large volume of low quality entertainment instead of a smaller number of high quality entertainment.

And food has 11 different variety that you can be supplying, plus the edict "food for the people" so they are allowed to eat more volume.

Also note that you should be starting to improve the promised need BEFORE you get elected. The target number that you need to progress from is locked in when you make the speech. So if your starting happiness is 41 when you make the speech and you need to be at 61 to complete it, I'd typically be at 50+ before the election even happens and easily hit 61 a year or so after election.

You need to plan ahead as your citizens need time to use the venues and get their happiness updated, simply having the places for them to visit is not enough, they need the time to actually use them and get happy about it.

You can't wait to the last year and then build things, no one will have time to use it or be happy about it.

There's no magic formula of you need x for y population, but you do need to be building more variety and you can see which buildings are overloaded of a particular type (there's the waiting in line icon) and build more and BETTER in that area (and you are shown the radius of the buildings to when putting them down, it highlights in green...)

[mfmorganist]

No. What I've found out, is pretty the opposite.

The value AFTER the election is the starting value. I found out quite simple: I usually save the game just one month or week before election day, because I like the best possible result (simply reload, when it is not satisfying enough and try again ;) ) After the first try, I needed to raise to 61, in the next try it was increased to 62. Only explanation: the value must have improved by one, just before election day.

I never failed an election promise as well. My advice will therefore be, don't work on your promise before you've got elected.

Here's an insider:
In fact, you can be quite a pig: promise better housing and simply decrease the funding for residential buildings. When you've got elected, increase the funding again and you will take big steps to fulfill over time with not much effort :D

I usually promise better housing, when I am planning electrification, because the electrification upgrade will make the difference.

Enjoy gaming!

[Kunovega]

I've watched and tracked this several times, the number you have to beat is locked in at the time the speech is given (not when you make the selections on the menu, but later when you give the actual speech) which is still before the actual election.

They want to see improvement from the time you make the promise (the speech). Usually by the time the election actually occurs I'm 10 or more points beyond that starting point. So if when I give the speech my housing happiness is 41, I'll be elected and already be at over 50 and I only needed 61 to fill the promise, and so on.

And yes, it is very easy to manipulate with any of the promises if you plan ahead. Another trick I use is crime safety. I intentionally let it get pretty bad, though I build police stations I'll block off staffing so only 1 or 2 officers are on duty.

Go for a number of years having good growth of the island but poor crime safety, then promise to improve it, wait for the speech and:

1. Buy cameras for all garages
2. Buy improved lighting for all metros
3. Fully staff all the existing police stations (and buy second shift upgrade) and change them to "always on duty" so their homes also radiate crime safety
4. Buy any other upgrades (like the cathedral) that you have available for crime safety
5. Build a prison
6. Build a second dock, switch them both to use sniffer dogs

The last time I did that I actually completed the crime safety promise on the same day I was elected because I'd already exceeded the promised requirement (because it only needed to beat the crime safety number from when the speech was given)

The tracker doesn't show up until you are elected, but the happiness statistic that the tracker uses as the number you need to beat is based on when the speech is given.

[captainpatch]

Food Happiness is more about variety than about quantity of just a few food types. (BTW, Canned Goods do NOT count Food Happiness. Canned Goods are for export only _I think_.)

OP: The easiest way to fulfill promises is to not make them. If your overall satisfaction is >70%, don't make any promises.

Also, don't blame any superpower for Tropico's woes. Doing so interferes with your ability to get Foreign Aid from the blamed superpower.

Generally speaking, an election speech will 1) recognize some problem (low Happiness for some Need) and 2) praise a faction. And that's pretty much the whole speech.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

Food Happiness is more about variety than about quantity of just a few food types. (BTW, Canned Goods do NOT count Food Happiness. Canned Goods are for export only _I think_.)

No, they aren't just for export

You can go right into the trade menu and sort by food and see the list: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2254072429
Banana
Canned Goods
Cheese
Coconut
Corn
Fish
Juice
Meat
Milk
Pineapple
Shellfish

Individually you can read on the grocery/shopping malls everything that is sold as food from that specific location: (I don't have juice in this store yet, but there are canned goods)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2254072467

If not all foods are available at each than the area around it will suffer from lack of variety. Also note that below the foods list in each grocery/shopping mall has the goods available as well. All manufactured products (furniture, chocolate, apparel, etc) is not "just for export" it all gets sold locally and boosts "all happiness" statistics (it's explained right on the buildings description)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

Generally speaking, an election speech will 1) recognize some problem (low Happiness for some Need) and 2) praise a faction. And that's pretty much the whole speech.

It does up to 4 things depending on what you choose and all of it's explained on the speech tab...

If you acknowledge one thing as being low then that one thing will not contribute towards a persons decision to vote for you since you acknowledge awareness of the issue.

If you praise one faction, that faction gets a boost towards voting for you.

If you blame one superpower you get a boost from everyone but in exchange for lowering your relationship with that superpower (or you can blame no one and get no bonus/penalty)

If you make a promise about improving something, then you get a boost with anyone that is unhappy with that something, but you run the risk of a drop in happiness if you fail to keep the promise and you'll be blocked from using the promise option in the next election as well. (if you don't think you can keep the promise or just don't feel like dealing with it, choose to not make any promises)

I've never had any trouble keeping promises, but I also don't bother to make any unless it's going to be a really close election (due to intentionally having made choices that angered a lot of people) in which case I go into it knowing that I'm going to plan ahead to keep a promise just for the free boost it gives.

Think long term and your people are very easy to manipulate.

[Zephyr]

I have a very simple strategy, which is to not make promises at all if I know I have absolutely no way of losing the elections. No promises, means nothing forcing me to fulfill them. Promises are there to shift the balance if there may be a risks for losing the election and you need the extra edge. Blaming a superpower is a bit similar. If you know victory is certain, don't blame, don't promise.

Promises are a trap in my opinion. Fulfilling them is often quite hard and annoying and forces you to divert your energy to actually working on them instead of working toward goals which actually matter. Seeing in some cases, the satisfaction of tropicans in some domains raises gradually and veeeery slowly, you can actually have the infrastructure, but lack the time to fulfill the promises because tropicans refuse to accept they are happier about healthcare than before.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

I have a very simple strategy, which is to not make promises at all if I know I have absolutely no way of losing the elections. No promises, means nothing forcing me to fulfill them. Promises are there to shift the balance if there may be a risks for losing the election and you need the extra edge. Blaming a superpower is a bit similar. If you know victory is certain, don't blame, don't promise.

Promises are a trap in my opinion. Fulfilling them is often quite hard and annoying and forces you to divert your energy to actually working on them instead of working toward goals which actually matter. Seeing in some cases, the satisfaction of tropicans in some domains raises gradually and veeeery slowly, you can actually have the infrastructure, but lack the time to fulfill the promises because tropicans refuse to accept they are happier about healthcare than before.

For them to be happier about healthcare means they had the time to actually go and experience it and it was at a higher satisfaction rating than it was before.

Happiness (in anything) is never about what's available, it's about what they have actually had the time to go and do since their individual happiness on an issue is based on their last visit to a building of that type.