Tropico 4 vs. Simcity 4

[KrazyBropofol]

both are on sale but cant decide

[Kenby Clemente]

They are both excellent game, very hard to pick.

Simcity 4 is much more hands off and 10x larger in scope. You zone areas and the citizens take care of filling the space. You can still deal with manually manipulating roads, adding education and emergency services etc., but your city does a lot of stuff on it's own like you'd expect as a mayor. The scale is massive - not only is each "level" huge, but you can seamlessly connect levels to create a megacity.

The downside of SC4 is that is somewhat dated - it's not going to look very good. You will also need to download some mods to fix highway building because the stock highway is system is bad. It also gets repetative. It is always the same big square and once you've filled 4 or 5, it gets a bit old.

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Tropico 4 is very different in that every building and industry is handplaced by you. This is because the scale of each level is quite a bit smaller than SC4. You decide what industry to specialize in based on the world markets and the fertility and resources of your island. It's also more of an "RPG" in the sense that you exist as a character in the game and you must hold elections and cater to various political interests on your island and in the world. It's more of a tycoon game with a city builder flavor.

[Kenby Clemente]

Also, how many games let you get your country on the UN's List of Coolest Countries, by holding the record for world's largest moustache on a women?

[Dalton]

Have you played SimCity (2013)? Tropico 4 is more comparable to that than SimCity 4. That said, Tropico 4 is 10 times better than the new SimCity, in my opinion.

Tropico 4 is high on mico-managing and the main game is split into campaign missions with different themes and goals. If you want more of a macro-scale sandbox game, get SimCity 4. Though be warned, like the other guy said, it's not very pretty. Tropico 4, on the other hand, can be beautiful.

[Woodhouse]

yes

[Kris Dusk Luna]

Tropico is fun, entertaining, and never gets old. 'Nuff said.

Well, personal opinion, but I think there's more to do in Tropico than Sim.
Sim is pretty 'automatic' compared to Tropico.
Tropico is much more fun, really, really.
I've played Tropico & Sim 1-4 (are they competing?) since I was a kid, and I always spent much more time on Tropico overall.

[TimGrantFord]

I think that Tropicio is much easier to just leap into and the characters and scenerios are much more fun. It's a much more laid back "god mode" game. If you're looking to just sit down and play through a single scenerio and not lose hours upon hours, Tropico is for you.

[Clarapatra]

I think it really depends on what you're looking for - if you are more interested in straight up city building, then go for SC4, but if you want something with a little more personality and micromanaging (pleasing the population and maintaining foreign relations) then I definitely think Tropico 4 is the way to go.