Why can't I increase population (stuck on mission 2)?

[dan0812]

I built up slowly monitoring jobs/housing and got through mission 1 with no trouble. Mission 2 started with the same layout I'd ended mission 1 with.

I am constantly losing money as people aren't moving in and the populaton has even dropped a bit, I have 54 vacant jobs and 34 vacant homes. Population is about 486

I've tried to get happiness up but every time I do, caribbean happiness goes up so it's always a few points higher than mine (44 vs 47). I built everything available to try and increase happiness across the various types like faith, food, etc. but it barely moves,

All I seem to be able to do is try and spam taverns when I have a little bit of money to try and increase happiness but most of the time I don't have any money and I can't get any money because no one is coming to work. So I have a state of intertia and lost the election because I had no approval.

I can't work out what the logic is supposed to be here?

[dan0812]

Tried the mission starting from the beginning rather than my mission 1 end point and same result. The population is just stagnant.

I've followed the advice I've seen online about production/teamsters etc. but I am constantly out of money and people aren't moving in despite the penal colony edict and immigration office in place. I've put bunkhouses near jobs, built grocery, chapel, etc Housing happiness never seems to budge from 38 for example - so how do I fix that?

Population just stays the same and sometimes drops slightly and I can't do anything about it because I have no money. All I've been able to achieve is to get food happines up to 73. I briefly have money after a trade deal and spend it to on industry/plantations to ensure there's jobs available but I just go straight back to negative balance and a static population.

So, again, election comes up and I lose because I am just stuck with barely any population movement and a constant negative balance.

In other games, e.g. Anno 1800 it's clear what earns money but this game gives me zero feedback about what I'm supposed to do. So how do I get people to move in and how do I make money if housing and jobs isn't the solution?

[longjr97]

Which "mission 2" are you talking about? The base game? One of the DLCs? The tutorial? The World Wars in a sandbox?

The best thoughts I can muster from reading your posts:

Stealing and building Hagia Sophia will stop your people from dying of bad healthcare. You can also "rescue: many" for a 20-30 person bump each time.

What setting is the Immigration Office on? If it's accidentally on Tropico First you're not going to get many people. Usually, if there are jobs, people will show up.

Bunkhouses are low-quality lodgings so if you don't switch up to flophouses (for the poor) and houses/apartments (for the well-off) your housing happiness isn't going to go up.

Similarly, taverns have the lowest fun ratings, so you need to switch when you can. Circuses (for the poor) and restaurants (for the well-off) are better. People will eventually stop going to the taverns if people have better options and you can delete them to free up those workers.

Food happiness increases fastest when groceries have a lot of food types. I build a corn, banana, pineapple, sugar grouping of plantations on multi-culture, the cattle and sheep/goat, then fisherman's wharf with dredging upgrade. That's seven types of food in six buildings: corn, banana, pineapple, meat, milk, fish, shellfish. [The sugar plantation is to offset the multi-culture penalty and to feed the rum distillery. It can be anything other crop though, based on what's green on the map.]

Researching the Audience edict will allow the three lowest-scoring factions an opportunity to present you with demands, which you can satisfy for (hopefully) easy +5 approval points. That will help with elections.

You give an election speech when it's time, yes? That takes at least one low-happiness score and turns it into a plus.

[dan0812]

Playing the base game. Food happiness is easy to improve, other things just don't move.

For example, nothing I do seems to affect housing happiness - I've only been able to move it up by one single point. I've built flophouses near workplaces, also built some houses, placed a bus stop nearby but nothing changes. There's taverns, clinics, groceries around so what's missing as there's nothing else I can build that I can afford?

I built a circus and fun happiness only went up by a single point - so how can I increase fun to a decent level (currently 38) as I can't afford to spam dozens of them.

Everything seems to be fine for a while keeping check of housing and jobs but then all of a sudden my economy and approval rating take a nosedive and the population stops growing.

[joeball123]

It perhaps bears mentioning that the Commando Garrison, found in the Military & Raids section of the building menu, can conduct "Intimidate Neighbors" raids to suppress Caribbean happiness.

Originally posted by dan0812:

For example, nothing I do seems to affect housing happiness - I've only been able to move it up by one single point. I've built flophouses near workplaces, also built some houses, placed a bus stop nearby but nothing changes. There's taverns, clinics, groceries around so what's missing as there's nothing else I can build that I can afford?

I built a circus and fun happiness only went up by a single point - so how can I increase fun to a decent level (currently 38) as I can't afford to spam dozens of them.

Probably you need to be more patient. Happiness scores displayed in the almanac or when preparing an election speech are island-wide averages, and individual happiness scores are for the most part set by the service quality of the last building of the appropriate type that that individual visited, so unless your population is very small or unless your happiness scores are being brought down by a small number of very upset people rather than by everything being generally mediocre it's pretty unlikely that a single building will produce significant results immediately upon completion.

Also, at a population of ~500 there should be no need for "dozens" of circuses - they'd hardly see any use even if you could afford to build that many. A single fully-staffed circus can have 36 visitors at a time on the default work mode, so even if we were to assume that half of your population needs to be entertained simultaneously you shouldn't really need more than about six circuses - and that's a very generous estimate; more reasonably, two or three is probably plenty, or even just the one you already built if other entertainment venues of similar or higher quality are available.

Regardless, some things you can do to improve Fun Happiness:
- Increase the budget at your entertainment buildings.
- Increase the local beauty around entertainment buildings, such as taverns, which are affected by this.
- Change work modes at entertainment buildings to improve service quality.
- Change work modes at industrial buildings that have a "Supply Local Market" setting that affects entertainment buildings that you're using. For example, Rum Distilleries can give a bonus to Taverns.
- Some buildings may have upgrades or work modes that allow them to enhance the quality of "nearby" buildings. For instance, the "Music All Day" upgrade, available for the Radio Station once you reach the Cold War era, improves the service quality of entertainment buildings within the Radio Station's area of effect.

Similarly for other happiness scores.

Originally posted by longjr97:

Similarly, taverns have the lowest fun ratings, so you need to switch when you can.

This is only partially correct - Taverns have a lower base service quality than Circuses do, but they also have access to more efficiency bonuses and as a result actually have a higher maximum service quality. With a couple of Rum Distilleries on Supply Local Market, Taverns on the All-You-Can-Drink work mode and maximum budget in locations with 100 beauty can achieve a service quality of about 65 in the Colonial and World Wars Eras, and will still have a service quality of 49 or 50 in locations with very low beauty; Circuses operating at maximum budget will only reach a service quality of 56.

Circuses do, however, have more visitor slots per worker and a higher job quality (especially as compared to Taverns on the alternative All-You-Can-Drink work mode rather than the default Liquid Melancholy). A further difference is that Circuses can offer the minimum "Well Off" wage ($10/month) to their workers when on maximum budget whereas Taverns cannot, though the extent to which that's an advantage is more open to debate as it's the household's average wage - not the individual worker's, unless they happen to be unmarried/widowed (and, in the latter case, don't have minor children, if you're not running Child Allowances) - that matters for wealth brackets and getting members of the populace into higher wealth brackets isn't beneficial in and of itself.

[dan0812]

Problem is I can’t improve anything because my economy suddenly goes to -10k leaving me with no ability to spend. It never recovers because people stop moving in and then for no reason my approval plummets despite the fact I improved services.

Pretty close to giving up on this game as it all just seems random and crappy. I played a Tropico 5 a while back and that was fine.

[longjr97]

I don't know. I'm not sure we can be of any further use without seeing some screenshots of your overall island and/or the Almanac tabs that should be showing you what's going on: budget, happiness, trade deals, factions, etc. Something big isn't adding up:

The World War era doesn't suddenly get more expensive and drive you to -$10k just because you're not in the Colonial Era anymore. If the budget blows up, something has happened. You're adding services like churches, clinics, fire, police, and barracks without expanding the industry/economy to pay for it all first. Or you're not starting up advantageous (green numbers) trade deals with the Axis and Allies. Or you're building too fast, paying overhead for empty housing, factories, and entertainment venues. Or you are underpaying teamsters compared to other workers so they're changing jobs. Or you're not going into the World Wars with a budget buffer so you have time to invest in your industry. The budget and trade tabs will break down income and expenses for you.

You have ten game years to prepare for the first election, with factions screaming at you for stuff they want all along the way for +5 approval bumps, and edicts available on top of that to make them even happier (e.g. Agricultural Subsidies, which you don't even have to research, pleases Communists). A couple of churches, clinics, and a well-organized election speech and you should be fine for the first election. The factions and happiness tabs will break this information down for you.

If there are jobs, people will show up unless the island is an absolute hole. And the pirate rescue raids can turn around a population deficit in a game year or two, absolute hole or not. Then if they keep disappearing, the population tab will tell you if they're emigrating, starving, dying in combat, or dying of bad healthcare.

Somewhere there's a significant game mechanic not being managed properly. But I can't tell what it is. Letting the vacant job pile get too big maybe. That can mess stuff up all over the place as people gravitate to better-paying jobs and leave other jobs empty.

[dan0812]

Thanks for your response, I will take a look into it and try again when I give the game another try.