Tropico Reloaded: worth a buy?

[LastDefender]

I'm trying to get more information but the game is old and can't ask for advices on the forum (people would not replay soon).

[Florida Man]

The first Tropico is quite a nice little game. It's probably going to be lacking what you might expect from a modern game, but the music and atmosphere are very good and I would recommend it more than the modern 3D ones.

Just skip Tropico 2.

[Rio]

The original tropico is the best one imo. It is actually difficult in sandbox mode. You can make your island have its economy based on just about anything you want. Though each generated island is better at somes thing than others.

I've played all the tropicos (Besides the newest one) only 1 doesn't bore me with how easy it is. I mean tropico 2 isn't easy but its so easy to save scum you almost can't help yourself. And tropico 2 isn't like other tropicos. Tropico 2 isn't like terrible, just different and more theme focused.

Tropico 1 has nice music too. And doesn't have things that are annoying like a DJ announcer talking about everything you do.

Tropico 1 is still a quite an old game. Don't know if it plays nice with new windows.

[LastDefender]

Originally posted by Florida Man:

The first Tropico is quite a nice little game. It's probably going to be lacking what you might expect from a modern game, but the music and atmosphere are very good and I would recommend it more than the modern 3D ones.

Just skip Tropico 2.

What about the replay value? I mostly play sandbox games (like old Paradox games, Patrician, Superpower 2, Football Manager etc.), so I care about this aspect.

Btw I hardly buy modern games: they try to do too much and the results are often disappointing.
I like games with a sufficient amount of mechanics but well implemented.

[Hellsteeth30]

Tropico 1 works just fine with Win 10. Used to play it for hours on end.

Never got into Tropico 2 and it runs like molasses anyway.

If you want a "shinier" version of it, play 3. 3 is basically Tropico 1 with a new coat of paint, kinda lacks the charm however.

[LastDefender]

Originally posted by Hellsteeth30:

Tropico 1 works just fine with Win 10. Used to play it for hours on end.

Never got into Tropico 2 and it runs like molasses anyway.

If you want a "shinier" version of it, play 3. 3 is basically Tropico 1 with a new coat of paint, kinda lacks the charm however.

Yeah many reviewers were disappointed with the lack of charm of newer versions.

Why is Tropico 2 bad?

[Rio]

I liked its sandbox a lot, I bought tropico 1 maybe 2-3 times over the years. I was gamer when tropico 1 was a new game lulz and I bought it. If I had to guess over all the years I probaby got hundreds or 1,000+ hours playing it. And I still never mastered the game.

The longer you play, the harder the sandbox seems to get. Like the people seem to want more and more and more. And your economy feels like you get less and less money.

And the character you pick to start as can really affect the game. Like if you don't allow immigration your island's population can grow at a crawl.

[Rio]

Tropico 2 you build pirate ships as your economy. Your pirate ships can lose and be sunk. You can run out of ships and stuff to make them, then you lose (If I remember right)

And your own ship captains gain rank or levels. The higher they get the more difficulty they are to deal with. And I remember the game starts to feel like build a house spot simulator.

The game feels more luck based too. Your whole fleet can be lost in one run. Then you reload the save and they all were wildly successful.

And the high end ships are so expensive to make, losing them is really painful.

[Hellsteeth30]

Aside from the performance issues (I had to run it in directDraw, it's that unreliable).

It just doesn't work as a "piratey" game, doesn't play well. I mean it's OK but not really worth playing over the others.

[LastDefender]

Originally posted by Black:

I liked its sandbox a lot, I bought tropico 1 maybe 2-3 times over the years. I was gamer when tropico 1 was a new game lulz and I bought it. If I had to guess over all the years I probaby got hundreds or 1,000+ hours playing it. And I still never mastered the game.

The longer you play, the harder the sandbox seems to get. Like the people seem to want more and more and more. And your economy feels like you get less and less money.

And the character you pick to start as can really affect the game. Like if you don't allow immigration your island's population can grow at a crawl.

Cool.
Thank you.
Your answer made me buy the game.

[LastDefender]

Originally posted by Hellsteeth30:

Aside from the performance issues (I had to run it in directDraw, it's that unreliable).

It just doesn't work as a "piratey" game, doesn't play well. I mean it's OK but not really worth playing over the others.

I read that some people have problems running the game.
Honestly though, I still have the CD version of a game released in 2001 and if we don't consider the occasional crash, it runs well enough (the same applies to Age of Empire 1, which as you know is a game released in 1997 maybe?).

The random crashes decreased by at least 50% when I disabled Windows Defender and my Antivirus. Also, I changed the compatibility mode long time ago.

With Steam games I NEVER had serious problems running the games I purchased (all my games were released during 2000 - 2009 years). Probably I'm lucky.

[Hellsteeth30]

It's like anything PC related, for some people games work beautifully and for others they can be absolute nightmares. Depends on the environmet they have to work with.

This here craptop for instance can run nearly anything pre-2013 acceptably, even if it's min spec exceeds what this comp actually has. Then again, I generally play strategy games and/or very old action games mostly so super high FPS isn't important.

I'm one of those odd people who can't tell the difference between 60 and 30 FPS anyway, never mind 120.

[LastDefender]

By the way, I've bought Tropico Reloaded in the end.

Both Tropico 1 and Tropico: Pirate Cove apparently work just fine for me.
I had a little problem when I started Pirate Cove, 'cause the game was stuttering.
So I went to the graphics settings and switched to software rendering from hardware rendering; restarted the game and everything was fine!