Socialized versus free market: Ideas for Tropico 7

[Dude_84_Dude]

So it goes without saying that the main appeal of Tropico has always been to be a Carribean/Latin American dictator, but the revolutionary aspect of that has always been somewhat lacking, I find.

"Banana Republic" is a misnomer that gets thrown around a lot, but what actually makes a banana republic is when most of a country's infrastructure is owned by an outside entity, thus creating a breach of sovereignty. For a more thorough explanation, I suggest looking up a video on Youtube called Chiquita - The Controversial History by Company Man.

The next Tropico should have a system in which businesses in your country could be owned by foreign investors. Tropico 4 had something like this, but it was poorly implemented and not worth doing. A better implementation and simulation of this would be, I don't know, say you had a scenario where you're El Presidente, but eighty percent of your island's businesses are owned by a fruit company. Your goal in this scenario is to raise a rebel army in secret, then fight off some mercenaries, or even the US Army, then proceed to nationalize all the industries. At which point you could choose to keep them nationalized or privatize them by selling to wealthy natives of your country--some of whom may have contributed to your war chest. And either outcome would please or outrage your communist and capitalist supporters respectively.

"But Mister Dude! Tropico 5 and 6 already have that with the colonial era!"

Yeah, but it doesn't actually affect the gameplay in any meaningful way. You still own all the plantations and infrastructure, even if ostensibly, and collect all the profits which you can then use as you see fit. Fighting off the British Empire is merely an arbitrary task you complete to graduate to the next era. In what I'm proposing (which would take place during the Cold War era anyway) you wouldn't have any direct control over the industries in question and would only see a small fraction of the profits; not until you nationalized them by force, that is. And even after, you'd have to avoid assassination attempts, not just possible coups or rebellions.

This is just one idea. Alternatively, you could be a CIA installed dictator routing out communists. This was a passive character trait in 4, of course, but never factored into how you played any particular scenario. In Tropico, as long as you don't antagonize the people intentionally you're met with little to no rebellion whatsoever. You kind of have to go out of your way to make people hate you, which may be fun for some, but not for me. The truth is, I want a Tropico that actually gives me a reason to put the boot down on rebels. And it should hinge on a balance between privatized vs nationalized industry.

Gameplay wise, all the businesses you create in Tropico behave as if they were all owned by the state. I guess it's down to the individual player if they want to role play whether the income they're seeing is coming from taxable revenue from private entities or profits from state owned enterprises. The next Tropico should make a meaningful distinction between the two. There should be businesses that are privately owned (but for the sake of player control, you still decide when and where they're made) and function differently than if your government manages it.

With this as the template, you could then construct different scenarios, either in missions, or in sandbox mode. Do you want to go full communist and nationalize all or most industry? Or do you want to go full on laissez-faire capitalist and have everything privatized? Or do you want to create some combination of the two based on a sliding scale? Or do you allow privatization but still manipulate the market as you see fit, either to benefit the people or the benefit of the rich? I like how in Tropico 6, Harland Zander, the industrialist doesn't share the capitalist Mason Balimonte's belief in the free market and seems to favor corporatism. This is something that should be expanded upon.

Going further, do you have a free-market within your own borders, but dissuade free-trade with other countries with tariffs that anger larger powers, be it the USA, Russia, or especially China? Or do you have a socialist country that is independent and protects its people, or one that allows capitalist countries to exploit your sweat-shop labor?

The most frustrating thing in Tropico 6 is when the captialist faction will want you to make a building, only for said building to not actually turn a profit when you look at the tab displaying the money it's making and see it's operating at a deficit. For supposedly being capitalists, they don't seem to mind state subsidies. And this only happens when not enough visitors come to said building. This wasn't nearly as much of a problem in Tropico 4 when something like the cabaret was a good money generator early on. In 6, it happens a lot, and it's annoying. I realize this game isn't supposed to be a hard and fast, ultra-realistic economic simulator. But if all else, just make it generate money just for sitting there, like the banks and office buildings.

These are things I would very much like to see implemented in Tropico 7. Token gestures to faction leaders who want me to make random buildings aren't immersive enough for this El Presidente.

I know the devs read these messages, so thank you for your time and consideration.

[Dude_84_Dude]

Bump

[Internet Native😳🖥]

引用自 Mister Dude：

Do you want to go full communist and nationalize all or most industry? Or do you want to go full on laissez-faire capitalist and have everything privatized? Or do you want to create some combination of the two based on a sliding scale?

And so the existents of the Cooperatives gets pulped from history once again. No, forget "Communism", what I want is an option is to fully transition to a Post-Keynesian economy and country. No more petty fiscal economic policies, no more coercion to work dehumanizing jobs, and no more Filthy Rich Tropicans!!
Establish a flourishing Class consciousness😩✊🏻

[Dude_84_Dude]

I saw someone make a post for things they'd like to see in Tropico 7, so I'm resurrecting this thread with a shameless bump.