Can you tell me which Tropico game is the best Tropico 4, Tropico 5 or Tropic 6?

[LION HEART]

Can you tell me which Tropico game is the best Tropico 4, Tropico 5 or Tropic 6?

[Kunovega]

They are all different enough to stand on their own for different reasons.

4 is the best of the original 4 (which were all built on the same engine and expanded what was there) and it still has the best customization of presidente personality, island decorations and satirical/parody elements.

5 is a different direction, it's the most intricate campaign/story (though silly by some standards), it's the only one with a dynasty (family) instead of a single presidente and if you have all the expansions you have more variety in both campaign and stand alone missions for variety across varying eras.

6 is from a new developer, in another new engine it's an attempt to remake the series that mixes elements of 3 and 5. It functionally improves on a lot of technical aspects and enhances on elements that the series didn't previously attempt: multi-island nations, bridges, raiding, etc. It has/had the potential to be the best in the series, but it also missed the mark on a lot of expected elements. Gone are presidente personality customizations, gone are island decoration details, gone is any respect for the tropico llama, gone is the foundation of political satire in favor of a city builder that pretends to play at ruling a nation.

Honestly if you haven't played any of them, start at the beginning, get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in order. Start from the beginning and don't move on to the next until you've exhausted your interest in the previous one.

1 is the foundation, it was a political satire of a micro-cuban nation during the coldwar

2 (new developer, same engine) is a remix of the same game but set in colonial times where you play as a pirate king, it added raiding and personal housing in a way the series has never duplicated again

3. (new developer, same engine) is a reimaging of 1 that enhanced the engine to 3d and modernized it (for its time) and brought even more personality customization and functional enhancements

4. (same developer, same engine) took 3 and improved it but brought more parody than satire, more missions, more customizations and more comedy

5. (same developer, new engine) built from the ground up by the team that had made 3 and 4 it's their re-imagining of what the series would be if they didn't build on top of what the original developers had made

6. (new-new developer, new-new engine) Probably easier if you just read my review instead of me copying it again here:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/492720?snr=1_5_9__402

And just to catch you up in full, the developers for 6 are now gone and replaced with another new team (RealmForge) who took over with Carribean Skies, they've done much bug fixing and performance tweaks in the few months since they took over and have make 6 a great experience, but as good as it is, it still doesn't fully replace some of the elements that previous games in the series had. It's good, but sometimes different rather than better.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/33520?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/23490?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/57690?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/245620?snr=1_5_9__402

[LION HEART]

Thank you very much for taking your time and explaining me. I have bought Tropico 4 I can see I will enjoy but later down the line I will play 5 and 6.

[Carnick]

Publicado originalmente por Kunovega:

They are all different enough to stand on their own for different reasons.

4 is the best of the original 4 (which were all built on the same engine and expanded what was there) and it still has the best customization of presidente personality, island decorations and satirical/parody elements.

5 is a different direction, it's the most intricate campaign/story (though silly by some standards), it's the only one with a dynasty (family) instead of a single presidente and if you have all the expansions you have more variety in both campaign and stand alone missions for variety across varying eras.

6 is from a new developer, in another new engine it's an attempt to remake the series that mixes elements of 3 and 5. It functionally improves on a lot of technical aspects and enhances on elements that the series didn't previously attempt: multi-island nations, bridges, raiding, etc. It has/had the potential to be the best in the series, but it also missed the mark on a lot of expected elements. Gone are presidente personality customizations, gone are island decoration details, gone is any respect for the tropico llama, gone is the foundation of political satire in favor of a city builder that pretends to play at ruling a nation.

Honestly if you haven't played any of them, start at the beginning, get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in order. Start from the beginning and don't move on to the next until you've exhausted your interest in the previous one.

1 is the foundation, it was a political satire of a micro-cuban nation during the coldwar

2 (new developer, same engine) is a remix of the same game but set in colonial times where you play as a pirate king, it added raiding and personal housing in a way the series has never duplicated again

3. (new developer, same engine) is a reimaging of 1 that enhanced the engine to 3d and modernized it (for its time) and brought even more personality customization and functional enhancements

4. (same developer, same engine) took 3 and improved it but brought more parody than satire, more missions, more customizations and more comedy

5. (same developer, new engine) built from the ground up by the team that had made 3 and 4 it's their re-imagining of what the series would be if they didn't build on top of what the original developers had made

6. (new-new developer, new-new engine) Probably easier if you just read my review instead of me copying it again here:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/492720?snr=1_5_9__402

And just to catch you up in full, the developers for 6 are now gone and replaced with another new team (RealmForge) who took over with Carribean Skies, they've done much bug fixing and performance tweaks in the few months since they took over and have make 6 a great experience, but as good as it is, it still doesn't fully replace some of the elements that previous games in the series had. It's good, but sometimes different rather than better.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/33520?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/23490?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/57690?snr=1_5_9__402

https://steamcommunity.com/id/kunovega/recommended/245620?snr=1_5_9__402

I know you're trying to be helpful but you're giving people incorrect info. You need to learn what an engine is in terms of game design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine

Tropico 1 and 2 did not have the same engine as 3 and 4. They were in 2D for one. I think Tropico 6 uses 5's engine but it might be rebuilt.

[Kunovega]

Publicado originalmente por Carnick:

I know you're trying to be helpful but you're giving people incorrect info. You need to learn what an engine is in terms of game design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine

Tropico 1 and 2 did not have the same engine as 3 and 4. They were in 2D for one. I think Tropico 6 uses 5's engine but it might be rebuilt.

I not only know what a game engine is, but I've actually been playing Tropico games for the past 20 years.

I'll break it down for you in a little more detail. For simplicity I'm not going to list ports (such as Feral Interactive who ported several of the games from PC to Mac)

Tropico 1 Developer PopTop Software Publisher Gathering of Developers. Custom engine built to do what they had planned.

Troipico: Paradise Island (expansion pack) Developer PopTop Software Publisher Gathering of Developers.

Tropico 2: Pirate Cove Developer Frog City Software Publisher Gathering of Developers. Same core engine, content revised to be colonial era pirate themed instead of cold war era.

--Franchise sold to Kalypso Media

Tropico 3 Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media. Kalypso specifically hired Haemimont to enhance the engine and modernize it with improved graphics, however the core of how the game functions underneath is identical. It's literally the same functional code base calling new improved graphics on top of what is the same original game. They built new missions and Tropico 3 was a modernized remake of 1 in an enhanced version of the original engine with newly built missions and scenarios and all new voice/story, etc.

Expansion Packs: Absolute Power and Steam Special Edition. Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media.

Tropico 4 Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media. Taking everything they had learned from enhancing 3 and not needing to spend as much time enhancing the engine, 4 is a creative overhaul that layered additional content on top of 3 and is still the version with the most island customization baubles and the presidente backgrounds and all of the original features of the previous 3 games that it was built on top of all expanded with additional layers of parody that are self referential to the series and not just the satirical backdrop.

Various Expansion Packs Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media.

Now see, here's where things get interesting.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/237667/Starting_From_Scratch_Haemimont_Games_Tropico_5_postmortem.php
https://www.haemimontgames.com/starting-from-scratch-haemimont-games-tropico-5-postmortem/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_2:_Pirate_Cove
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico_6

We approached Tropico 5 as a completely new game. All existing game code was thrown away and the programmers couldn't be happier! Every game feature was redesigned, which gave the design team an excellent opportunity to pass through all mechanics and streamline, deepen, experiment, reevaluate and redesign where needed. We optimized some of our core systems, like the individual citizen simulation and the resource transportation. We've made more sensible new designs, learning from our past mistakes. We replaced whole systems, like the trade mechanics, with more comprehensive ones and trimmed the fat in others, removing weird and heavy game logic that the player could never see. Our new features, like the research system, meshed up well with the core of our new game since we were able to change that core to accommodate them.

All in all, this made for a better product in the end, although starting from scratch also allowed us to mess up some things. I'll elaborate more on that in the "what went wrong" section.

Tropico 5 Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media. Custom engine built from scratch that carried over nothing from the previous 4 games other than the concept. Everything is new including how rent/pay worked, worker skills, and so on. You can see by playing what carried over from 1 through 4 where as 5 is a clean break and is explained in the article. But it retains the Tropico vibe due to their previous experience with 3 and 4.

Numerous expansions Developer Haemimont Games Publisher Kalypso Media.

And you think 6 is built in that engine? It's not, it's built in UE4 (in case you're curious, the Unreal 4 Engine came out after Tropico 5 was made, not before it)

https://www.pcgamesn.com/tropico-6/tropico-6-unreal-engine-4-PC
https://www.eteknix.com/tropico-6-confirmed-using-unreal-engine/

Haemimont and whatever agreements they had with Kalypso were done and they moved on to make other things (like Surviving Mars) and then:

Tropico 6 Developer Limbic Entertainment Publisher Kalypso Media. Engine: UE4. They made a game that is technically from scratch that only looks like Tropico, but since they didn't reuse any old content it's missing some elements. It's like someone gave them a checklist of what they think Tropico is about but no one bothered to really play the previous games to very much depth. There's elements of 3 and 5 but all just surface level reproductions, how it works underneath does not feel the same.

And at least at launch there were so many profound bugs it was obvious they were still very much just learning how to use this engine with minimal experience. The pathing issues and poor optimizations and honestly I'm not here to bash the game, but I could (and did) write pages of technical flaws, I've been giving feedback and bug reports since early private rounds of beta testing (even before the public rounds) with 1000+ hours pre launch and another 1000 after.

Limbic did a good job, but not a great job and it was nearly 2 years post-launch before the game was even anywhere near the playable state that it's in now. I recommended it despite the flaws, but there were many. Limbic is now gone after making just a few DLC.

RealmForge took over with the Caribbean Skies DLC and have put out massive rounds of bug fixes with very little fanfare, but the game is leaps and bounds better than what it was even 6 months ago.

I used to not be able to complete a mission without writing a bug report, now I sometimes go weeks without making one, for the first time in nearly 3 years (of alpha + post launch)

I'm not sure what you were trying to correct me on. But Tropico 5 and 6 are not in the same engine, and Haemimont explained the rest in their Tropico 5 post mortem.

[Carnick]

Are you serious? Tropico 3 had the same engine as 1 and 2? That's kind of amazing if true, and I apologize. Tropico 3 is 3D while the first two are 2D. I played Tropico 1 when it was first released too. If that's true, then wow. I'm sorry.

[Carnick]

I've also been following Tropico for its life, and (aside from 2), I think it really changed at Tropico 4 Modern Times. That's when we first got the concept of "eras" and it started shifting focus off the cold war setting.

Tropico is a cold war satire. That's where it thrives. I lose interest in 5 and 6 when I reach the modern era. It just doesn't match the theme at all. You could possibly make some modern political satire, and it seems like they tried a bit with their "Spitter" DLC, but it's too little too late. With real world politics in the state it is, there's certainly material to bring it there, but in my opinion Tropico should stay in the cold war.

[felmari]

engines can be reworked with added features. graphic features is one that is common.

[Carnick]

Yes but they're built on the same engine. I don't know of another game that has changed from 2D to 3D and used the same core engine, unless the original 2D game was built with a 3D capable engine like Unity. It's like Command & Conquer 2 and 3 being the same engine.