Questions

[Shai-Hulud]

Hi I just started playing Tropico 4 and I have some problems:
1) The game doesnt reward any achievement. I played the 4 tutorials and almost finished the first campaign mission and yet I have no achievements
2)The citizens wont move out of their shacks. Even when i enacted free housing, they would move to higher quality buildings. Can i force them somehow?
3)Are there any mods that show the area from which a citizen benefits(e.g. how "accesible" is religion, etc)or a mod that shows my resources(food, export stuff,etc)
4) At the beginning of each level, I automatically imported uranium and luxury goods. Since they seemed useless, I canceled them. Are they of any use?

[Uzi Master]

1) assuming you actually did something achievment worthy, steam doesn't register Tropico 4 achievments until you launch the game again after you first get them

2) make sure the housing you build is close to garages, if they aren't close enough they'll have no choice but to build shacks. You can try just demolishing shacks, but that's usually only a solution to one or two straglers who refue to get a better home.

3) nope, but some of those statistics, or at least similar variants of them, show up in the almanac. Do note that service buildings don't really have a radius in which people will visit them, people will go to the building with the highest service quality that has free slots, even if another one is really close by. Otehr buildigns do have radius effects, some of which you can't see, but it's usually not a huge deal.

4) They won't import until you actually build the buildings that consume them, cancelling them is pointless. Uranium is needed for the nuclear power plant to function, which generates a substancial amount of energy. Luxory goods are sold in shopping malls, when a citizen visits a mall they satisfy a hidden need known as "lux" which will provide a boost to that citizens happiness. Shopping malls are not great money makers mind you, though breaking even with them isn't too hard.

[Shai-Hulud]

thanks, the achievements did appear now.
So you are telling me if i put all churches in the corner of the map, they are as accasible as if i spread them everywhere?

[aqvarivs]

If you provide sufficient garages so your people can travel to work and leisure where some building is is not as important as the service quality. Meaning that your people would rather go to a church half way across the island if it has a higher service quality than a church near by. Use your overlays to find which buildings have a poor service quality and send El Presidente to visit and give them a boost. Sometimes you need to send El Presidente to a large number of service buildings and work places to get them up to a proper functioning level. I always send El Presidente to farms, mines and factories as I first build them. It gives them an immediate production boost. Also don't be afraid to have one tenement lying empty. You will find that those stubborn shacks will move into a tenement before moving into an apartment building. I also build two bunk houses right beside my highschool for the students so they don't build shacks.

[Neithan]

Regarding the shacks, I found it useful to put "service points" outside of my main housing area, consisting of a garage, a church, a clinic and a pub or restaurant. Maybe even a marketplace, to provide a basis for a little settlement. Going by this, I have also found it overall useful (especially for traffic flow) to spread out my "housing areas" instead of concentrating all of it at one point (usually were you start).
Shacks are a good indicator where you should perhaps establish those service points/settlements ;)

Normally I go for the USSR help edict right away (needs Ministry + Foreign Minister) and stick to apartments for all housing (Free Housing edict included), only later I usually put some condos and mansions just to boost housing quality. As long as I keep an eye at my immigration and open housing slots, I have barely to deal with shacks, I actually got the "300 people and no shacks" without specifically going for it. And just finished a game with 1200 pop and only around 10 homeless, at 72% overall happines. ;)

[Neithan]

Originally posted by aqvarivs:

Use your overlays to find which buildings have a poor service quality and send El Presidente to visit and give them a boost. Sometimes you need to send El Presidente to a large number of service buildings and work places to get them up to a proper functioning level. I always send El Presidente to farms, mines and factories as I first build them. It gives them an immediate production boost.

At the beginning, I have my avatar constantly visiting buildings (mainly productive, less service buildings), but later this can become really some p.i.t.a., even if I don't go for tourism on that island I build a blimp ride as soon as my economy is flowing, set it to the workmode that provides the El Presidente bonus in a large radius, and don't bother much with manually making visits with my avatar anymore.

[admiral8q]

Watch out for trafic congestion. You could put churches on the edge of the map, that would be fine, but if traffic gets to heavy en route to them, they will abandon their cars and walk on foot to the destination. Not very efficient when that happens. So I would recomend spacing them, and other buildings out evenly.

[Shai-Hulud]

guys thanks for all your answers. Just finished the main campaign and started doing modern times, and im still discovering new mechanics. 2 more questions:
Rent depends on the number of people who live in a house, or the numbrer of families. In other words, does a couple pay the same rent as a bachelor?
Also, i read that in modern times, i can upgrade older buildings to their newer counterparts. Is there a button to do that or must i demolish the old ones and build the new?

[Uzi Master]

Rent is paid per family slot, a couple won't pay more than a bachelor so long as both are able to actually afford rent. Tropicans are willing to spend up to one third of their income on rent, so if one person makes 9$ they'll pay a maximum of 3$ in rent. when people are married their incomes are added together for rent purposes, so if both spouses make 9$ the combined total of 18$ means they can afford up to 6$ in rent.

Basically, couples can potentially afford more expensive housing than bachelors, but if a couple and a bachelor live in the same building, they pay the same rent.

Only a few buildings have the option to be outright upgraded, upgrades are offered as sidequests, the blue-yellow circles. Usually only available around the time certain buildings become obsolete, mostly just residential buildings.

[admiral8q]

For rent, either a bachelor or family will pay up to 1/3 their total income. This is why I imediately put un-educated wages to $6 rather then the default $5. Then I can put rent at $2 for the apartment buildings. Tenements, bunkhouses, etc I keep at 0$ rent to get the bums out of their shacks.

When you have electricity, it is well worth it to upgrade Tenements and Apartments. Get rid of any of the small housing under houses.