Is there any way to just completely purge your island of one party?

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Even if you have to do it individually. I am yes prepared to just begin individually executing them one at a time if I have to. Not only am I now in a financial crisis, but LITERALLY right after it expired (the demand was to rewrite my Constitution for paid healthcare, ♥♥♥♥ that I'm not rewriting my Constitution for anybody) but *immediately* after that I was given another Capitalist ultimatum in a row. I have like 0 approval with them and at this point I'd rather just kill every last one of them that's left who's a diehard. I'm not going to tolerate being put in a financial crisis for a whole year nonstop because of these "people" giving me nonstop ultimatums trying to dictate my island's policy to me.

But if I actually did reduce my island to zero of one faction, would I still end up having a faction ultimatum, even if there's not a single one of them left alive on my island?

[Jimmi Stixx]

It would be nice if the inquisition would take care of whatever faction automatically. Convert, deport or kill. I expect there to be a political cost though.

[Imunique]

Send them to the space 🤣

[longjr97]

I suspect they'll always be at least one on the island, even if the computer needs to shift an undecided person towards the Capitalists. But I'm curious to see if it could be done. The colonial period might be easiest to experiment with, since there's only one faction spectrum and most people are migrating towards revolution anyway. Not that you get ultimatums in that era.

In the terms of game play, though, I think there's a difference between the overall number of capitalists and the approval rate of the capitalists. Even if you got rid of them all, meaning that their low rating wouldn't cost you any votes, the overall faction rating would be low/zero and the game's algorithm would still trigger ultimatums.

One thing I would like to see the game do is calculate/scale the impact of not meeting an ultimatum based on how many faction members there are. Having your entire island crash and burn because 10% of the population is upset isn't realistic. Unless there's an actual rebellion, I suppose.

As far as playing through/around this issue, I tend to use some of my Swiss money to buy influence and stock up on Convincing Talks. Researching Audience gives me more opportunities to make them happy too. Although sometimes I'm forced to turn off edicts that I like (e.g. Food for the People) just to get that capitalist rating back up. Or build another bank, office, or offshore bank. There aren't a lot of edicts that boost Capitalist ratings. And I thank the capitalists in my election speech.

Anyone who says that there's only one way to play the game is essentially correct. The Capitalist faction is a good example of that. You want to enact a lot of Communist-supported edicts and do crazy things like build housing, but the Capitalists are going to come out swinging if you do too much. They don't contribute anything positive to the country, they just sit around complaining about you giving the poor free stuff. They're not for anything, they're against helping the poor, even if the edict is needed to keep the economy moving, like Free Wheels. It's not like taxes go up when you enact these edicts.

[Internet Native😳🖥]

Sadly the Devs are uber Centrists on this and dont let you make a faction disappear entirely, which is weird because that an edict specifically in Tropico 3... https://tropico.fandom.com/wiki/Edicts_(Tropico_3)/Megalomania#Outlaw_Faction
So weird they never brought that back

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by Internet Native😳🖥:

Sadly the Devs are uber Centrists on this and dont let you make a faction disappear entirely, which is weird because that an edict specifically in Tropico 3... https://tropico.fandom.com/wiki/Edicts_(Tropico_3)/Megalomania#Outlaw_Faction
So weird they never brought that back

Especially given that faction can be so much more damaging and so uppity in this one. Although those kinda weird binary metrics make for some odd bedfellows which can happen irl it made me realize, this game specifically, that we don't actually have an intellectual faction anymore. Because those halfwit redditors are certainly not intellectuals, as portrayed in game. They only look semi-intellectual because they are educated and because their opponents are the biggest dumb ass raging anti-intellectuals around, like it is beyond Poe's LawI still have difficulty processing that flat eartherism, which was a joke to poke fun at some groups of people, is now embraced in all seriousness by fools online

Originally posted by longjr97:

I suspect they'll always be at least one on the island, even if the computer needs to shift an undecided person towards the Capitalists. But I'm curious to see if it could be done. The colonial period might be easiest to experiment with, since there's only one faction spectrum and most people are migrating towards revolution anyway. Not that you get ultimatums in that era.

In the terms of game play, though, I think there's a difference between the overall number of capitalists and the approval rate of the capitalists. Even if you got rid of them all, meaning that their low rating wouldn't cost you any votes, the overall faction rating would be low/zero and the game's algorithm would still trigger ultimatums.

One thing I would like to see the game do is calculate/scale the impact of not meeting an ultimatum based on how many faction members there are. Having your entire island crash and burn because 10% of the population is upset isn't realistic. Unless there's an actual rebellion, I suppose.

As far as playing through/around this issue, I tend to use some of my Swiss money to buy influence and stock up on Convincing Talks. Researching Audience gives me more opportunities to make them happy too. Although sometimes I'm forced to turn off edicts that I like (e.g. Food for the People) just to get that capitalist rating back up. Or build another bank, office, or offshore bank. There aren't a lot of edicts that boost Capitalist ratings. And I thank the capitalists in my election speech.

Anyone who says that there's only one way to play the game is essentially correct. The Capitalist faction is a good example of that. You want to enact a lot of Communist-supported edicts and do crazy things like build housing, but the Capitalists are going to come out swinging if you do too much. They don't contribute anything positive to the country, they just sit around complaining about you giving the poor free stuff. They're not for anything, they're against helping the poor, even if the edict is needed to keep the economy moving, like Free Wheels. It's not like taxes go up when you enact these edicts.

I actually responded but accidentally hit back and deleted it, tl;dr yeah but that's the problem I only have like 150ish of these obnoxious useless whiners on my island of 1600+ and at this point so far as I'm concerned they're all enemies of State. It's funniest because one of my three spies is actually married to the Capitalist faction leader, who I gave up on them back when it was at like 25% approval. By that time I just switched everything to full-on Communist propaganda across my island and begin converting them into commies, to the point where now 1100 people on my island are commies. On the downside, this makes it so that all my reelection chances are entirely pegged on how happy one faction is with me. Plus side: it also means that my reelection is entirely dependent only on one faction. And because I started doing this when they were 88% or something like that, I could actually afford to reject their stupid proposals like demanding I change my privacy based Constitution as God intended to some Total Surveillance blasphemybasically this all comes down to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trying to force me to rewrite my Constitution, I'd not even care if they didn't keep making asinine demands like Paid Healthcare when literally my entire endgoal is to provide free healthcare and free housing to everyone in reward for their productivity, it's now literally one of my two endgoals to make free housing real while wiring my whole island(only like 1/4 dwellings have electric atm) alongside going to S-P-A-C-E as my private victory conditions. So it is basically about that like I wouldn't even care if they didn't keep making Constitutional changes ultimatums and now I am feeling rather homicidal towards all the rest of them remaining on my island. Maybe we should just deport them to the Americans or Europeans or something.

It's funny because in the previous games I didn't have this kind of problems, I'd usually find them a really whiny and annoying faction but at least they wanted some income and productivity too like I did and so them wanting stuff like tourism was fine by me, and because I usually developed so quickly and well ultimately nobody cares if I gave poor people free stuff and had low class disparity and didn't waste national resources on mcmansions. So because of that I'd usually still have them in high approval of me regardless like in Tropico 3, and often it was the environmentalists who were most useless along with the religious who kept demanding I shut down vital industries but even then I could usually get to like 75 approval with environs no matter how alienating I otherwise was to them. And religious people I just kept building churches so they weren't a big problem either.

So here I am at a loss what to do with them, and yeah like I said the problem is nothing to do with them spoiling elections because like 70% of my island is Communists now making the other factions largely irrelevant but because of this I really don't want to waste all my national resouces on trying to please a whiny useless special interest group that's only 10% of the population and doesn't really contribute anything valuable so far as I can see, if they had their way I'd not even have a functioning economy anymore and instead they'd happily sit in unpowered mansions in a sea of shacks and rubble just so long as they could smugly feel like they're better than someone else. Because they're also at literally 0% approval rating they're also a lost cause. I just want to figure out if or what the cutoff line is to making ultimatums because I'm flatly not interested in fulfilling them for these people and want them ejected from my island. Which is gonna turn out to be really stupid if I can wipe out or evict all but like three people and somehow still end up having ultimatums. Looking back on it, I'm not even sure how that happened, because it felt like I only fulfilled a few edicts like Free Wheels, healthcare stuff, tried Free Housing for a few years until it totalled the economy, and I can't remember what else but it wasn't feeling like it took much to make them that mad at me, and except free housing it was all literally stuff to make my island run better. Actually no, scratch that ESPECIALLY free housing was to make my island a more functional economy, because there's nothing like irritatingly seeing dozens of shacks and going to check your housing metric and there's like 37 homeless people and 54 vacant housing spots, go to check that and find out it's mostly ok tier apartments unoccupied by poor people, or an area where there's a dozen open spots in tenement building but five rich people are squatting in shacks out of spite because I guess "if I can't live in a mansion I choose to be a hobo and bother your tourists and generate crime." it's just funny to me because basically a lot of the really bad changes they introduced in 5 compounded to create this really bizarre class problem where the Capitalists come off as a useless unproductive whiny parasite class who ruins your economy and threatens to sabotage you like enemy agents for trying to make a happy healthy society with a functioning economy, and a lot of those problems magnify each other like how I can't set my own wages so not only spots remain unfilled because I can't set the wage above $9/hour and because I can't actually pay these people more it makes them not afford living space which wouldn't be such as bad but many housing are era-locked and so basically you will wind up with this huge homeless problem that breeds crime pollution and disease because you have all these buildings because they are somehow designated housing built directly on class, and because you built that tenement far away they spend eons walking across the island, and because literally the most productive and useful members of society are designated "poor" because you can't change how much they get paid in the vital industry buildings and because you somehow have car access bizarrely tied to a class status now it makes it so my tiny city economy is basically rendered non-functional *without* going Socialist and signing free wheels. It's so bizarre, it's like all I'd want to do is just pay people more and say "this housing and car ownership is not tied to class, if you can pay for it you can use it or live there, and because you are an essential worker I'll make sure you are well compensated."
I think I can fix literally every single problem in this cascading failure sequence of events by being able simply to manually set the wages to whatever I damn well want. If I want to pay you as a dock worker or sugar farmer 999/hour, I as el presidente damn well better be able to pay you that--or else.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by Jimmi Stixx:

It would be nice if the inquisition would take care of whatever faction automatically. Convert, deport or kill. I expect there to be a political cost though.

Oh yeah that's right and I forgot, because it pisses everyone off around them I don't just think it's economically unfeasible to kill 10% of the island, it's just gonna create the same spiralling nightmare problem which I used to avoid in the earlier tropicos of having to do alienating things to maintain control that just piss people off so they become rebels so you need to do even more shady ♥♥♥♥ and so on. I never understood why anybody would rule as an actual evil dictator and not just have free elections and a vibrant economy before. Now I finally understand. It took the Capitalists sabotaging my economy for years on end to at last finally see, there's just some people you can't reason with.

[Jimmi Stixx]

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

Originally posted by Jimmi Stixx:

It would be nice if the inquisition would take care of whatever faction automatically. Convert, deport or kill. I expect there to be a political cost though.

Oh yeah that's right and I forgot, because it pisses everyone off around them I don't just think it's economically unfeasible to kill 10% of the island, it's just gonna create the same spiralling nightmare problem which I used to avoid in the earlier tropicos of having to do alienating things to maintain control that just piss people off so they become rebels so you need to do even more shady ♥♥♥♥ and so on. I never understood why anybody would rule as an actual evil dictator and not just have free elections and a vibrant economy before. Now I finally understand. It took the Capitalists sabotaging my economy for years on end to at last finally see, there's just some people you can't reason with.

It's fun to do it both ways. I've built plenty utopias. Sometimes I want to play it different and see what I can get away with. Who needs elections? Money talks! Military coups will split your army and your iron fisted rule might be in trouble. Such is the life of a dictator though. ¡Viva el presidente!

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by Jimmi Stixx:

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

Oh yeah that's right and I forgot, because it pisses everyone off around them I don't just think it's economically unfeasible to kill 10% of the island, it's just gonna create the same spiralling nightmare problem which I used to avoid in the earlier tropicos of having to do alienating things to maintain control that just piss people off so they become rebels so you need to do even more shady ♥♥♥♥ and so on. I never understood why anybody would rule as an actual evil dictator and not just have free elections and a vibrant economy before. Now I finally understand. It took the Capitalists sabotaging my economy for years on end to at last finally see, there's just some people you can't reason with.

It's fun to do it both ways. I've built plenty utopias. Sometimes I want to play it different and see what I can get away with. Who needs elections? Money talks! Military coups will split your army and your iron fisted rule might be in trouble. Such is the life of a dictator though. ¡Viva el presidente!

Yeah you know what true that's a fair enough point. I mean, I'll sometimes deliberately play an evil run in RPGs even though I normally almost always play chaotic good, it's just sometimes it feels so contrived, so I guess here's the opportunity to apply that same logic and NOT try to make a utopia for once and actually roleplay a genocidal maniac. They're sure irritating me enough, it's just it'll cost me $50k per every 10 people I kill and so that is a LOT of money to permanently purge all of the Capitalists, but it still does not change the fact I'd be having one annoying faction disrupting my whole economy and deliberately and systematically sending us into poverty and chaos. It's just funnier because I need to fire my spy before assassinating her husbandthis turn of events really makes me not trust her and see her as a doubleagent anyway)))) and it's still probably not going to help prevent ultimatums. If anything it'd create a downward spiral of nonstop rebels because I'm pretty sure killing 1 in 10 people will alienate and piss off the other 90% who knew them so they'll take up arms. You know what I built an insane asylum, maybe I should just methodically send them all through the nuthouse to rehabilitate them into productive useful members of the society))

[Jimmi Stixx]

I get that you can never get rid of an entire faction as you cannot kill an idea but you can make it live in the woods. The game mechanics could handle it better though.

I think the game gets it right in that it is harder to be evil. Just like IRL. Everyone in an oppressive regime pays one way or another to prop up a cult of personality. Just for the benefit of a few people's short term gain.

All dictators can do is spend their lives buying time until it all falls apart. There will always be people who see power and will try and kill the king. Or an angry mob that you pissed off might end your rule in one of many creative ways. I guess the play is to die of old age before then.

Rule of law and democracy HELPS keep things nice.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

You also forgot that maybe one or more superpowers finally gets pissed off with you enough to coup/invade/assassinate/otherwise have you permanently removed from premises, and with all the people around you being vile greedy yes-men looking for the quick route to power and many of your people resenting you, it's not like this can always be stopped easily.

However, the thing is while you can't kill an idea, you certainly can kill the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who keeps telling you "we call ourselves the invisible hand, the smart money's tired of your wonkey politics." Oh yeah? The smart dictator is tired of your life. I should charge him for the air he's breathing. My Tropican air is a product and I demand he pay for it. Continued breathing my gaseous estate is a violation of the NAP. Point being, that guy isn't an idea, the enacting of ultimatums is not ideological, that's concrete actors that can be removed.

It is true though, it's a lot easier in a way in the long run to simply be democratic and a good person, although IRL the realpolitik is you and your family will be murdered by a coup backed by the superpowers, or like in this game, just trying to be nice for your people all the time will let some bad actor like the Capitalist spokesman trying to destroy you. Some people just don't want to see you shine. "Haters" I believe is modern Western bydlo word for crab bucket mentality. So there is a certain level to where you need real force, regardless being good or not. But that being stated, true being an a-hole literally all the time will backfire. But at this point, they are organizationally intolerable. I can't simply kill them because it will cost me half a million dollars, and promptly piss off my island and create many rebels to where all my resources get wasted on ruling with iron hand. I think rounding up their leadership for rehabilitation may be the best option to feel better, and further push them to irrelevance, but doesn't solve the ultimatumsbecause like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell I am wasting money and IRL time struggling to placate a tiny butthurt political minority I should build some more newspapers. I love knowing they can have 0% approval of me and their whining is completely irrelevant I'll get democratically reelected anyway and there's nothing they can do about it because they don't have any rebel or superpower support having me overthrown either.

[longjr97]

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

I just want to figure out if or what the cutoff line is to making ultimatums because I'm flatly not interested in fulfilling them for these people and want them ejected from my island.

I don't know if there's a red line, but once you get below 25 you're asking for it, and especially so below 20. You can try building a mansion or two to get a short term boost, but mostly it comes down to the edicts. They lower the baseline approval and anything you build (or destroy) will be a temporary fix at best.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by longjr97:

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

I just want to figure out if or what the cutoff line is to making ultimatums because I'm flatly not interested in fulfilling them for these people and want them ejected from my island.

I don't know if there's a red line, but once you get below 25 you're asking for it, and especially so below 20. You can try building a mansion or two to get a short term boost, but mostly it comes down to the edicts. They lower the baseline approval and anything you build (or destroy) will be a temporary fix at best.

Yeah I think it is under 25 it begins happening.
...I probably shouldn't have nuked my own island in retrospect, even the environmentalists is picking fights with me and I am not used to fighting for my political life like this in close elections in Tropico. But now everybody's cratered but the Communists and evidently it's enough almost to tilt the balance. On the plus side, Adam Mercier now safely resides in a nuthouse. It's hilarious I didn't even get to do this for all the years I wanted to due to nonstop economic and other disruptions so finally I got to and remembered to do it, my Capitalist faction leader is literally a 68 yo retiree now lol. I may just end up packing my insane asylum with Capitalists, I feel that's a pragmatic and reasonable solution to the Capitalist question at this point, especially see how it only costs $250 each for some reason I thought it'd cost me like 3-5k a head.

[RainingMetal]

If only I could do this to those pesky Environmentalists. Always getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when I put down mines to secure those natural resources.

At least the Lobbying DLC lets me build anything I want if I put them on the corruption list.

[Ragnarr Loðbrók]

Originally posted by RainingMetal:

If only I could do this to those pesky Environmentalists. Always getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when I put down mines to secure those natural resources.

At least the Lobbying DLC lets me build anything I want if I put them on the corruption list.

If only i could this to those pesky Capitalists. Always wanting to slaughter the beauty of my beautiful tropical island. :P It's supposed to be a paradise, full of precious nature.

[Jimmi Stixx]

My Swiss bank account is supposed to be paradise!