Any tips for a newbie?

[༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ]

I remember 7 years ago when this game came out and I was 9 I was fascinated with this game, so I pirated it after a Week of figuring out how to do it, and then didn't understand a thing about how it works. Can anyone give me so tips because all I remember is ordering my soldier to kill some man XD

Also I have the collectors edition if that means anything.
Thanks.

[Mandrake]

The first thing you should do is complete the tutorial, since this will teach you the controls, the user interface, and how the game's buildings and systems work. After that, start playing through the campaign. Each mission will slowly introduce more advanced concepts, such as how to build a thriving tourist industry or how to take advantage of the import/export trade system.

When it comes to starting a new game, the first thing you should always do is set up a source of reliable income. Go into resource mode and look around your island to see what you can take advantage of. If you have metal deposits, build a mine and connect it to the port. If there's fields of green, build some farms (corn to feed your people, coffee/tobacco/sugar for profit) and maybe a ranch as well. If there's trees, build a logging camp and a nearby garage.

Once the money starts rolling in, start attending to your people's needs. Build Tenements so that your people don't have to live in shacks, a Church so that they have somewhere to pray, a Clinic so they can see a Doctor (you might have to hire one from abroad), a Restaurant so they have somewhere to relax, and a High School so that they can become educated and work in better jobs later on.

Listen to what your factions demand and once you have the money, give them what they want. Keeping your people happy will ensure that you will win every election by a huge majority (without needing to fake the result!). Later, develop your industry by building factories so that you can produce more expensive products.

[Mossman]

I think all people play in their own style. So I guess the point of the game is to do it your style.

Anyway, when I play, there are some things I do right away, before starting:

1. pause the game
2. click Dock imports to max 500
3. fire palace guards
4. erase all roads, and rebuild them into grids with 2-3 parallel roads to the Dock.
5. enable social security (because socialism!)
6. Build an Immigration Office and click make it priority (I need a large work force!)
(7. after a while the International Aid Camp comes available and that will be my health care)

Then I can start to play, and to choose my strategy. There are many starts, best to see the "natural resources" and "crops" and "beauty". If gold is nearby, then that is your start.

Easy start money buildings are Plantation(s), Mine, Cement Factory.

As soon as possible I try to add a High School and Tourism. Then I try to max money. Later in the game I will be running 3 full High School, but I need only one College, even if the ministers would "get 2 (more) free Colleges". I will however build 1-3 of those military colleges, those with their cadets will serve as my Army. (My army will be only the Palace Guards and the military colleges and 3-5 Military Bases.)

For the best money I would need 3 fully upgraded Jewelry Factories and 5 pirate docks. But that comes when you can afford them.

Usually before that and after the university you need to get your 3 Banks up for -60% discount on buildings. Then Government and US Aid and Powerplant. After I get power I can make better factories and upgrade mines and build a hospital and get Luxury Hotels.

-----

In Tropico each citizen will need 5 things to spend his time in:

1. Food (1 Farm per 50 Tropicans should be plenty, Markets)
2. housing (shacks with Fire Station Cat in a Tree are enough until the end)
3. Entertainment (Childhood Home x2, Spinning skytower, Cabaret x20(not only does it make good profit, it has high tourist spending)
4. healthcare (Aid Camp until I get Hospitals, unless Modern Times upgraded Clinics)
5. Religion (churches, one Cathedral later only to get the negative opinion away)

Also you need them to work. And for that they need education.

The Tropican work force and the Tourists both need to spend as little time "traveling to destinations" as possible. Especially to avoid walking. So build "entertainment hubs":

For Tropicans:

1. Garage
2. Market
3. Cabaret
4. Church
5. Hospital

For Tourists:

1. Luxury Hotel
2. Cabaret
2. Bank (Banking services)


As soon as you can, get the Cruise Ship for your tourists, and after the 1st powerplant, after you have your Jewelry Factory running, go for nuclear so you wont have to waste precious space for useless gasplants.

[kj winston]

3 things you need more than anything (besides crops) Garage / Construction / Teamsters. Always Pair Church with Clinic. Put one down put the other down.

[Mandrake]

Another good tip: don't concentrate your entire population in one area of the island away from your industry. Commuting to work everyday might be acceptable early on but once you reach hundreds of citizens, you'll end up with congested roads and overloaded garages, which slows down your island. When expanding, make sure to build some smaller pockets of residential areas (including a church and clinic) near your workplaces.

[kj winston]

I agree, but spread the electrical out.

[japanaman2]

Just some basics to get your off the ground.

To start pause the game turn off all imports normally lux goods, uranium, and corn are on by default there are not going to do anything but drain your funds so shut them off. turn on free housing and 1 humanitarian aid camp. Build 4-6 cattle farms and upgrade them with smokers when you can. Do not go into debt over this it is gonna take about 15-30 mins of set up to get product moving you have to take your time.

Get rid of any pre placed crop farms on the maps to free up the workers for the cattle farms. Place garage clinic and market near the ranches along with 4 bunkhouses (use these for the majority of your out of starting zone housing better then scaks. so a few near the docks a few on the tourist beach ect...)

Get the blueprints for the wind turbine next.

After you have 12000 from the cattle exports you can expand into hotels get a tourist dock and 1-3 hotels to start off with build 1 beach site and 1 enclave. (ignore the rest of the tourist attractions for now.)

Once you have more funds available get a museum of modern art Estban will complain at you at you for having it but screw him we need it to survive the tough days ahead put it's work mode to promote tropican art and import 2 workers to run it make sure you keep them paid well like put it to 50 well. place the art museum near the hotels and set the entrance fee to 0 it may take a few years for it to show promise but eventually you will b e getting an extra 8k+ a month for it.

Ok now that that is up and running you may have some extra income so lets start making real money place a windmill and a jewelry factory near the dock import gold for 24500 and only gold once the factory is running it will support it's self by this point miss pineapple will be on your butt for education standards make 3-5 grade schools and 1 high school (the collage can be build later much latter.)

After that your markets are gonna collapse import lumber and get a furniture factory staff it and bam that will fix the charts + you will bot be ticking off the environments too much since you are not logging on your own island but are getting the lumber at cost don;t worry you will still profit from the finished product you are just skipping over 2 sub building and 6 upgrades to get straight to the big stuff at a rate of 0.4 gain instead of 0.8 and holding up workers and teamsters to ferry more stuff then needed.

Build 3 garbage dumps for your main areas 1 for the tourist beach 1 for the palace/starting zone and 1 for the dock.

A police station at the docks is gonna be needed next so get one if offered a camel always try to get it also make sure your starting build with the 4-6 ranches is done very slowly do not go into debt over it as it will effect your tribute from USSR and USA.

Ok now it is time to make the island a better place with death care so build 2 churches and designate 1 as a secrete police HQ the secret police will let you kill off all retires on your island who are not doing anything for 3000 per hit very useful if you are trying to get everyone into mansions later on but you should be a good 30-40 years in at this point so it is needed to not loosing profits by having to worry about elder care + hits from the secret police will not loose you and respect or gain you any ill will.

For the most part the military can be ignored unless you have royally screwed something up by going into debt for too long. Also avoid giving out speeches at the palace as it only makes your workers not do their jobs. After you complete around campaign 8 give el presidente a sex change, and put her in a sombrero then go to your fiestas.

[Vladson]

I select booze baron, and build rum factory first. On first mission it can be done by place buildings but not build them to go minus on money (3 times the guy will give me 10k more) and then cancel build to get money all back, import sugar, and money goes right away and a lot. On missions where You have 20k start money, i use nuke-test to have money for import.

After that i place church+pub+market very close (but disable corn import and enable fish, its cheaper) and 2 tenmts

All this is enough to not make them rebel. After that is time for rest (education, police, army, radio, farms, etc)

[pemmons1]

I'm fairly new to the game and playing nothing but the easiest sandbox but hopefully learning a lot that should serve for other scenarios. Here's how Ebenezer Scrooge plays El Presidente:

Very first thing I build is a marketplace, which (according to the hints in the game itself) keeps people from walking to farms to get food, hence makes them more productive. It's small, inexpensive, and needs only one worker. It's nice to see its stockpile pile up (the only place where you want a big stockpile).

Next: several ranches, as close to either the city center or the dock as land quality allows. Llamas grow quickly and the wool sells for a decent price. Also four cattle ranches, two with the smoked beef improvement and two without. These should either be near a road, or build a road to them. They are very good value: cheap to build and requiring only two workers.

Then a clinic (because you don't want your people, especially skilled people, dying off on you). Also a pub to provide basic entertainment.

From there, it's education all the way: grade school, high school, and college. Check the list of people by education level in the almanac. If you have high-school-level women, entice them to become teachers by raising the salary a bit and/or temporarily reducing the wages where they are currently working. It might take a few months, but given patience I've never had to hire a foreign worker. One advantage of already having a marketplace and clinic built is that a high school grad and a college grad should already be working there and you can borrow them to teach if all else fails. Raise the pay of your teachers so that they stay in their jobs and develop the experience which improves them. Also have the president visit your schools to improve the service level for awhile. Keep a close eye on what's happening in your schools first. You won't need more than two or three high school teachers and professors at first, so you can disable the remaining positions.

While more people are being educated, keep your builders busy with a farm or two of every product. The salt mine is also a worthwhile moneymaker, and inexhaustible. Your two initial corn farms (in this sandbox at least) are also good for growing tobacco, so build two new corn farms and convert the original ones to tobacco if they are fairly close to the dock. Other good buildings are immigration office, logging camp and lumber yard, ministry, church, armory, and one tenement. Build a church but don't necessarily staff it fully right away while there is a demand for college grads and high school grads are scarce.

One goal at this point is three banks doing urban development. Each one fully staffed will reduce the cost of everything you build by 20%, for a whopping 60% in all. So postpone any expensive building until you're close to that advantage. You need 15 male college-grad bankers. (Fortunately, Tropicans don't need four years to graduate from college!) The science academy set to "research grants" also reduces the cost of blueprints. Just as important is the development grant from the USSR (a foreign policy edict) which reduces the price of tenements and apartments by another 50%. It's realistic to think (although I don't know for a fact) that a properly housed citizen has a longer life expectancy, and that assumption is the only reason I'd build even one tenement before these discounts are in place. Once they are, however, building housing is a constant desideratum until the end of the game. By this time you should have a significant nest egg just from sales of the infinite products you are already producing. An apartment complex will cost you just $500. All you need is the construction workers: 6-8 offices of them ASAP. You can plan whole districts full of housing with supporting grade schools, hospitals, market places, garages, and cathedrals, lay them down without going broke, sit back and watch your army of construction workers build them. In the case of tenements and apartment complexes, remember to add the climate control in each one, which considerably enhances the tenants' satisfaction.

But at this time begin to build industries, too, of course, to bring in more money. Notice I've said nothing yet about mines. That is because they are finite resources and I'm very stingy. It's a shame to sell iron and gold. Save them for making jewelry and weapons. You can build just one gold and one iron mine and allow only one or two workers in each at first. After awhile they will stop producing, even though they still have a lot of the resource, and you need additional workers to keep them producing.

A good early industry is the chemical plant, because it needs no input materials and you can build only one.

In general, I find that it is ideal to build an industry near where its raw material is produced. Otherwise, build it as close to the dock as possible.

The nuclear power plant is definitely the one to get. With that 60% banker's discount it should be affordable. You will need to import the uranium, which requires several months after the plant is finished. Start with just one worker and add more only when you need more power. Only near the end of the game will you need still more than the nuclear plant can produce, and windmills are probably the way to go. The standard power plant is labor-intensive and polluting, and after the nuclear plant has spoiled you rotten, you will be disappointed by the additional power you'll get for all that bother. Powering the entire island will require sub-stations. I always build them at high priority because you don't know where to build the second until the first has been built, etc.

[battlezoby]

Originally posted by Count Dooku:

In Tropico each citizen will need 5 things to spend his time in:

1. Food (1 Farm per 50 Tropicans should be plenty, Markets)
2. housing (shacks with Fire Station Cat in a Tree are enough until the end)
3. Entertainment (Childhood Home x2, Spinning skytower, Cabaret x20(not only does it make good profit, it has high tourist spending)
4. healthcare (Aid Camp until I get Hospitals, unless Modern Times upgraded Clinics)
5. Religion (churches, one Cathedral later only to get the negative opinion away)

Actually, one of the things I really like about Tropico is that you can play your own style, OR, play with many different styles. So, no, they don't really need all those things (although you can consider the above "each citizen will NEED 5 things" to be a suggestion, rather than a fact.

(spoiler tag)In practice, there are 10 aspects of "Overall Happiness" so as long as you have some of those high enough, you can neglect others. As a rule of thumb, I often try to pay attention to about 8 out of 10 and ignore two completely until I have enough money to do whatever I want. For example, "Crime Safety" is a hell of a lot easier to provide than "Religious Satisfaction" and "Entertainment" so I tend to not worry about the later two very much.

I've yet to try playing without any housing or food, but I have definitely gotten a long way without adding any housing and I'm pretty sure you really can get away with it. The only one I'm not sure about is food, people do starve if not feed properly, but I'm not sure if it's slow and random enough that I might still be able to complete a mission./