Approval Ratings

[Easy E]

Just how is it possible to have 60%+ satisfaction for happiness/needs (faith, food, fun, etc) and have faction approval constantly fall below that amount? It feels like this game makes it impossible to achieve any kind of contentment with any faction and it seems like the later in eras you go the more fractured and disapproving the population gets. Like it's all tied to the insane demands they have and nothing else.

I even built the Colosseum to tie happiness directly to fun and food and that has almost no visible effect on faction approval, except for the first moment it was constructed and approval shot up to 90%. Once elections rolled around it plummeted to 20% and I had to enact martial law to avoid losing. I'm just not seeing how you can please your population unless it's designed to force you into favoring one faction above the rest. Even then, I'm not sure how you can reach 20% overall approval when the lowest faction happiness is in the 30s range, and the rest are in the 50s-60s.

What's the deal?

[mistiry]

I have played Tropico since 3. Never have I had so much difficulty getting approval ratings up. I am extremely disappointed - even on sandbox with opposition set to Friendly, I couldn't even break 40%, even though the almanac had the breakdown showing more than 60 for all the factions and happiness levels.

All citizens vote, Full separation of powers, Pacifist state - none of it seems to matter it's like the approval rating is completely random. I would regularly hit 80%+ on the other games.

I've only pre-ordered two games in my life, this was one of them. Very disappointed because I get a good island going, and lose to elections. Literally just happened to me in a Sandbox game with the EASIEST settings.

I *really* hope they fix it.

[jlking3rd]

Your overall approval is tied to Caribbean happiness. If you have been playing for a long time, the Caribbean happiness can out pace yours. You can get things a bit more in balance by sending your Commandos out on a raids to intimidate your neighbors.

The game is set up to have political challenges. You can use your control of the media and schools to move people over to the faction that do like you and away from the ones who do not.

[Easy E]

And when the Caribbean happiness is lower than mine because of raids?

If you don't favor a faction that shouldn't mean approval can sit at 0% while their needs are met and they have 30-50% happiness each. In my current game as an example faith satisfaction is 65%, yet the religious faction the lowest approving of all of them at around 20%. This can't be right, I would expect at least 40-50% approval given that I'm not doing anything extreme and at least attempting to satisfy needs and demands, but there the approval sits at 0% and I have to skip elections which drive the "personal experience" down, furthering the issue.

[jlking3rd]

The faith happiness is coming from individual Tropicans visiting religious buildings. The Religious faction is influenced by settings in the Constitution, edicts and even what buildings you build. Go to the Politics tab in the almanac, click on a faction and you will get a detailed break down of what it is that they dislike.

[Easy E]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711897658

[Battleclown]

I don't find it difficult to get happiness up, especially late in the game when I have enough money to issue the edicts etc.

This is my current game in modern times: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/956361268639751348/A4D116BF628486872CABD3C27F7E5BE5C779E73E/

I'm running an atheist state so I demolished all the churches etc.

If you provide enough food variety, build restaurants, maybe even put you groceries on max budget it's easy to get food happiness up.

I always run churches, hospitals, production facilities, taverns etc on max budget. Housing, docks/ports etc goes on default budget.

When I get access to the broker I often don't bother with demands I use 'convincing talks' or 'have a distraction' to avoid building "hospital near russian embassy" - because that's just stupid :)

As you can see caribbean happiness is actually higher than Tropico happiness and my overall support is only 57% despite running image campaigns all the time.
This is with all the settings set to hardest.

[jlking3rd]

Publicado originalmente por Easy E:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711897658

What does the Religious faction have against chocolate factories? It looks like the nuclear test hurt you with everybody. The Broker is a thing in the game. I think I would just buy some faction support from him. :-)

[Botznoy]

I'd also recommend using the Audience Edict if it's available. They're typically quite easy demands to fill (I've mostly seen build real estate buildings) which can bump your approval quite a bit. The +5 relations you get can typically bump your approval higher than the +5

[Molybdane]

Errr, faction approval isn't the same as personal approval. So individual people (from any faction) may have their religious needs met, but the religious faction has different demands than an individual citizen. Faction satisfaction should always be treated as being separate from individual satisfaction.

[Bored Peon]

Publicado originalmente por mistiry twitch.tv:

I have played Tropico since 3. Never have I had so much difficulty getting approval ratings up. I am extremely disappointed - even on sandbox with opposition set to Friendly, I couldn't even break 40%, even though the almanac had the breakdown showing more than 60 for all the factions and happiness levels.

Your support has nothing to do with your opposition. Your support is based upon your overall happiness versus the average Carribean happiness.

You should have set the Carribean happiness strength to weak, not opposition strength.

You can use your Commando raids to intimidate the neighbors to lower the ACH. Once you get the hang of providing the happiness and raiding constantly seeing support in the 90-100% is cake on normal. On hard you can easily remain in the 50-80% range.

[hashmid]

aproval is messed up, especially on reloads. 90% of the time my aproval goes down to 0% when loading a game.....*not being helpful but just throwing tempertantrums*

[Lilltiger]

The approval seems to be recalculated when you load a game, it does not go down, just triggers an recalculation, the game probly dont recalculate the base very often to lower the lag. So if you have your nation properly balanced it will be no issue at all.

[hashmid]

Publicado originalmente por Lilltiger:

The approval seems to be recalculated when you load a game, it does not go down, just triggers an recalculation, the game probly dont recalculate the base very often to lower the lag. So if you have your nation properly balanced it will be no issue at all.

if this is true.....i should stop saving 10 days before the votes are counted...still difficult to find out how to get 80 oppositions back on your side.....

[Lilltiger]

You should never save and reload that close to an election, as it can happend that your speech get nullified, like if the religius faction is at like 10, and you select that as an issue, then those people will not vage in the religion standing. But if yiou save and reload itäs recalculated so the effect of the speech might go away.

[Blodo]

Publicado originalmente por mistiry twitch.tv:

All citizens vote, Full separation of powers, Pacifist state - none of it seems to matter it's like the approval rating is completely random. I would regularly hit 80%+ on the other games.

The approval ratings are NOT random. They are deterministic and based on your overall happiness levels, faction approval levels, and whether you cancel/cheat in elections or not. Read my guide for details: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1702878108