Tropico 4 - The fool proof guide to success that even El Diablo could follow

I noticed Tropico 4 seems to be difficult for some players. I tried to write the complete guide to easily succeed in this game. It contains details about all the factions and foreign powers, what they want, what they can do for you, how to make money and how to spend it. I took an approach that deals with 100% industry. No tourism, no farming. And it works very well, is easy to pull off and, as far as I can tell, a fool-proof way to succeed on every campaign map. But even if you do not plan to turn your island into Industrico, there is still plenty in here for you! The guide goes into detail which buildings to build first and how to get the money flowing early on, how to expand, which buildings to choose and how to space them. What factions there are, what makes them happy and unhappy and what happens if they are fed up with you. What edicts to choose from and what side effects they may have. What foreign powers can do for you that you possibly didn't know yet. I played the whole campaign along this guide and it was just a little too easy.

Preface

I wrote this a while ago on the board and someone suggested I should make a guide out of it. So about 2 years later now (yeah, I'm a lazy person), here's the ultimate easy-street to "winning" T4.

I played the campaign down without a problem, aside of that last mission. That need actually a bit of a different approach that I'll explain in the end of this, but all the other missions work along these lines. All of them. No matter the special goals, no matter the actual story, no matter the attempts of the game to convince you to take another approach. Play it THAT way and you WILL succeed, whether you want to or not. It's the fast-pass to glory, the easy way out, the backdoor to success.

That said, of course that's not the "right" way to play the T4 campaign. What I do in this path to success is, essentially, ignoring the mission goal until I have my island up and running, and then, when I have more money than I could waste on anything, I humor the game by jumping through the hoops it presents as the storyline. Only if the story doesn't hinder me too much in my "quest for money", or if the reward offered is interesting, or if the negative effect until you fulfill some mission goal (like 20% lower income 'til you do whatever) I'll go for it. That even (usually) works out in missions where you have an imposed time limit (again, aside of that last mission, but even there's a way to "gag" the game engine). It is most likely not the way it "should" be played. But to hell with that, it's your game and it's your decision how you play it. Of course you can also take these suggestions and adapt them to be more of how it "should" be played. Or just toss them and just use the information about the factions and foreign powers to hammer out your own strategy.

It is, after all, just like I said, YOUR game!

El Presidente - the making of a man (or woman, for that matter)

Of course the right traits help. They're far from everything, but they can actually give you a bit of a boost here or there. My approach to success is industry, industry and industry. Ignore farming, ignore tourism, ignore anything else. Industry is the key, industry is the way, industry is the goal. So, what you want to do is to make background, rise to power and traits boost industry output and prices.

Backgrounds
Useful backgrounds in this context are:
Miner: For early mining money. Useful when you need money fast at the start of the game. Less useful later on, though, except in the last mission.
Self-made Man: THE usually best background.

Rise to power
Elected as Capitalist. No way 'round it.

Traits
Administrator: Cheaper buildings, if you really need to. Useful in that last mission, else the "holy industry trinity" is better)
Constructor (with expansion): Faster building and free cement factory
But generally it's the holy industry trinity:
Entrepreneurial (+production)
Financial Genius (+product price)
Hardworking (+production)

Of course, since you want to get all traits to max level (for that lovely achievement) you will eventually play with them a little. It's not THAT big a difference with most of them. You should avoid the ones that have a negative impact on your rebel defense (like coward), though, if you have to expect rebel attacks!

The basics of the game

First, take a look around your island. The first thing you want to do is to rip out every single road. Why? Because it's curved. And curved roads take up space. And we don't want that. You want right angles in your roads and as few curves as you can get away with. Also, pretend to build a farm so the game shows you the grid (don't place it, just activate it to get the grid to display). That is the grid you want to align your roads to.

Yes, you can also build mostly straight roads "against" the grid (i.e. "diagonally"), but then the roads don't really go straight and you'll waste space. Try to stick with the grid if at all possible. That may lead to longer roads but in the end you'll be able to squeeze more buildings in less space, resulting in shorter roads altogether. On some maps your initial buildings will be aligned "diagonally", then your best bet is usually to leave them alone, do a 45° bend and expand "true" to the grid. In general, though, you will have sufficient space for anything you'd like to do.

First buildings
The first building you want to put down is the ministry. Because you need a foreign minister. Because you need one to issue the USSR aid edict. Because half price on Tenements is what you are looking for, Tenements is what you will stuff your population into. And you have to do it fast because your standing with the USSR will suffer if the housing is shabby, and you need 50% standing with the USSR to issue the edict. Else you have to build expensive houses, and we don't want that. We want those lovely tenements. They're cheap and fast to build, need little room and house 12 families (that is 12 single people, 24 people if they move in as couples). Most of all, though, they make communists, capitalists and environmentalists happy (directly or indirectly, I'll get to that when discussing why shacks are BAD) without breaking your bank.

Second, look around for places you could put mines on. Mines are a quick and easy way to some early money fast. Unlike farms which take a while to grow their stuff, mines will produce money from the moment the first worker hits the soil with his pickaxe. Mostly we'll need them for the first few years to get some money rolling. Don't worry about mining "away" resources that we might need later for factories, later we'll rely on imports (more about import/export later). Unlike T3 you can actually build your mine ON the mineral spot, just don't build anything else on it. It also seems that if you build the mine ON the mineral spot, it will go poof once the mineral is gone (which is good since it won't tie up 5 workers for nothing). And yes, mines make environmentalists unhappy, but in those first years they have nothing else to complain about so it's ok. Besides, what self respecting presidente cares about the 5 treehuggers on the island?

Third, get a market place up and running. The reason for this is simple: Markets are the food hub for your people and you will want to mostly rely on markets and imports lateron rather than producing your own food. I usually have very, very few farms, most of my corn comes from imports. For this to succeed, though, you need a few markets (not TOO many! Just enough that people can get to them in a timely fashion) and enough teamsters. The main reason why later in the game you end up with lots and lots of money but still starving people is that your teamsters cannot deliver the food in a timely fashion to all the markets. Don't overdo it with markets and ensure you have plenty of teamster offices running. Don't worry, they're dirt cheap in the end. You might also want to look into investing in another dock or two.

Another thing you absolutely MUST build for this tactics is a cannery. The reason for this is how imports work, it seems that your industry gets preference over corn when money is tight. With a cannery, you can ensure that papaya, pineapple and fish gets imported, and teamsters deliver that to marketplaces rather than canneries if food is low. Hence, indirectly canneries ensure that food will get imported and distributed.

Road layout
You want a "grid" layout, with just enough intersections to offer your people alternatives to the "main road" to spread out traffic, but not so many that they start to slow down the flow of traffic. Every intersection slows the traffic down so you want few of them. It's actually faster for people to drive further if that means you have less intersections. If you notice congestation, try to find a way to "reroute" your traffic. Often that's not possible, but sometimes you can offer them other roads, people do actually even take detours when these are less congested. Just like in real life. Also, try to find out just why people want to go where they're going. Maybe the only reason you have insane traffic in one spot is that this is where your only cathedral or hospital is located, if so, find a spot to build another one, preferably somewhere far away where there is no traffic.

A few not-so-obvious tidbits

There are a few things that you need to know to minimize the "now how the heck did THAT happen?" moments. A few important things are by no means evident without say, so I think one SHOULD say them.

Shacks and their effect
Shacks are, simply put, where people live who don't have any other home building their shack "somewhere". People would of course prefer living in a "normal" house. But there are a few reasons why they will live in shacks. First, and obviously, if there's no housing available. The "Economy" tab will tell you the details of the housing situation with the "open housing slots" and "homeless" information. Of course, both should be close to zero. The former because it's economically unfeasible to have more homes than you need, the latter because else you will have shacks. In the end, it's still better to have empty homes than shacks, so when you have to err (and can at least halfway afford it), err on the side of having too many homes!
There are two other reasons why people would live in shacks. First, because a potential home is too far away. How far "too far" is depends on a lot of factors, mostly on whether they can drive there. The closer a garage is to the potential home and to their other potential places they'd want to go, the further away they may be. If they have to walk, the distance is a LOT shorter! I get to garages in a bit.
And the other reason is simply if they can't afford it. Unemployed people and students are most prone to this problem. The free housing edict can remedy this problem, oddly "Social Security" (which should provide people with money) doesn't seem to do anything.
Shacks also have a few very nasty side effects. Most notably, around shacks you will notice a DEEP RED zone of pollution and crime, both being VERY problematic. This is why shacks make THREE factions unhappy: Capitalists for the crime, Environmentalists for the pollution and Communists because of the shacks themselves. In a nutshell, you DO NOT WANT shacks! For no reason. Ever. Hence the USSR development aid edict. You want to build Tenements. They are by some margin the cheapest way to stow away people.

Garages, roads and people traveling
People walk very, very slowly. Even a congested road is better than them walking anywhere. Also, people do not like walking. They will only walk for a rather short path before considering something "too far away". They will, though, accept driving once across the island to get where they want to go. So what you want to do is to put up a LOT of garages. Usually, my spacing of garages is about a garage every 3-4 Tenements (or buildings that will make up the distance that 3-4 Tenements would create). Maybe 6 tenements, tops. Yes, THAT close to each other. You definitely want a garage next to key buildings that your citizens will visit often, like markets, churches or clinics, or later cathedrals and hospitals. On the other hand, you do NOT need Garages near buildings that have their own road access (like mines or most of the industrial buildings). If it connects to a road, it comes with its "built in" garage. ALso note that people need a garage to drive FROM a place, they can drive TO any place no matter whether there is a garage (provided there is a road, of course), but they can't get away from there anymore, leading to LONG walks. And the more time people spend walking, the less time they spend working, because all the time they "waste" will come out of their work time. Try to convince your boss of that in RL, that your commute is part of your work, and not your leisure, time...

Transportation of goods, imports, exports and teamsters
Teamsters work the way one would expect them to. They go to the place where some raw material is produced (or the dock if it is impoted), transport it from there to the factory that uses it (or the dock if it is exported), pick up what is produced at the factory and transport it to the dock if it is to be exported or to a facility where it is supposed to be used (like furniture or cars (expansion) supposed to be sold in the supermarket, or lumber from the lumber mill being used as input material for the furniture factory).
While that seems logical, it is less obvious that it is actually crucial to streamline these ways. It is absolutely stunning how much teamsters actually contribute to road congestation. Correct placement of the teamsters office makes the difference between an unusable road grid and one that doesn't look like L.A. downtown rush hour traffic. In 99 out of 100 maps (i.e. on EVERY map) you DO NOT want the teamster office to be where it is originally located. A good spot would be somewhere between your docks and your industrial buildings, preferably away from where your citizens will travel to get to church, hospital or market. Certainly NOT in the middle of downtown, where it usually is originally! It's almost invariably a good idea to build another one near the docks and blow up the old one as soon as you have the money and/or start noticing traffic jams.
Try it in an old game where you have clogged roads, build a teamsters office near the docks, demolish the one downtown and you will be surprised by the difference!

The problem with construction workers

Workers and working
It's a commonly known problem: Your construction workers seem to be doing anything BUT working. It's not just your construction workers, but all your workers. You just notice it the most with your construction crew. You have a fully staffed construction office, but it seems that only one or two of them are actually working. If that. In a nutshell: Yes. That's exactly what happens.
It seems that people in Tropico only work when they don't have anything better to do. "Better" being here, essentially, fulfilling their own needs. Getting food, sleeping, having fun, anything but working. And the less time they "have to" spend on that, the more time they will actually spend working. So your goal is that your "key personnel" can get their so important private life done in as little time as possible.
It is important to know that not allowing people to satisfy their needs doesn't help. The first idea would of course be that if someone can't get any leisure activity done, he simply won't waste time on it and instead go to work. What actually happens is this: The person decides (based on his "happiness bars") what to do next. If there is such a place where he can fulfill that need, he will go there, occupy a slot in it (from the moment he decides for it, not only from when he arrives to when he leaves!), his relevant "happiness bar" goes up and he will go for the next unfulfilled desire. If everything is at relatively high levels, he will instead go to work until they drop below a certain threshold again and the "needs fulfilling routine" starts over.
If he now CANNOT satisfy a need, he will stop for a moment and not do anything, his happiness indicator in the relevant area will drop a little and he will do something else instead. That actually seems to mean that you can take pressure off your church by building a casino (because some people will rather satisfy their "fun" needs which is lower than their "religion" needs bar). Most of all, an unsatisfied need will make people protest eventually instead of working (protesting time is essentially time he would instead be working), which not only ties up the protesting person but also everyone in an area around him and in the worst circumstances can lead to them becoming a rebel.

Construction time again
A few more things about construction and construction workers. Construction workers will drive to the construction site with cars provided by the construction office (needs no garage) but will return to the office (or any other activity they may pursue instead) on foot or with a car provided by a nearby garage (if one exists, that is). This also means that if you build a garage far away from your town (e.g. to establish a tourism center), it is near certain that your builders will WALK back because he will start walking as soon as the garage is built but it takes a few seconds for a garage worker to take up his post, and the construction worker doesn't turn around to get a car even if he just walked like a yard out of the 10 miles back to town. Usually, if you can at all afford it, it is a good idea to quick build the garage so your workers will come back more quickly when they build the rest of what you want to build there. Likewise, items you build somewhere in the "middle of nowhere" where you also don't plan to build a garage or even road (e.g. for the electric substations) are usually better built using the quick build option.

Now that the basics are in...

Ok. The foundation is set, now let's start planning the game. Our next steps should be:

1. Population planning (housing, healthcare, immigration, services)
   
2. Education planning (high school)
   
3. Production planning (which industries where and why)

Population planning
You want of course people to come to your island. But you want the right amount. You don't want too few so your economy stalls because it lacks the workforce. You certainly want too many to come because if you can't house them and employ them, your crime rates and your pollution will soar (and make capitalists, communists and environmentalists unhappy all at the same time). You might get away without an immigration office for now (these things cost money, need to be built and most of all tie up one or even two of your precious (because still very rare) high school workers, and right now your builders have better things to do!), but be prepared to build one once things start to get out of hand. Keep an eye on your unemployment/open spots tab in your statistics every time a boat comes in (note that it takes a little before the unemployment statistics gets updated!) and check the communist faction happiness every now and then to ensure you have enough houses and adequate medical services. The very LAST thing you need is your precious educated workforce dying because the unwashed masses clog your clinics!
Build some Tenements, every 3-4 Tenements down the road build a Garage there, too. Yes, let me say it again, you DO want that many garages. You don't want your Tropicans to walk more than absolutely necessary, they walk really, really slowly. You also want to build a church (right next to a garage, preferably like the market behind one) and a clinic. One each. NOT one per garage! And yes, you will build ONE church and ONE clinic. They will suffice until you build cathedrals and hospitals.

Education planning
You want to build a high school early. Not too early, but as soon as you have the basics running (a mine or two, a few tenements to house your people, a church to keep the religious entertained, a clinic to keep them alive and a positive cash flow to buy food) you will want to get a high school going. The way I play it you NEED an educated workforce and hiring specialists is simply too expensive. Training people takes time, though, so you want to start early. Hire a few teachers from abroad (3-4, or if you can afford it more). Try to make teachers the only people you hire from outside (but hire them generously, fill that High School!). Set the salary for teachers a bit higher than for other educated workers to ensure that people would rather teach and multiply the amount of knowledgeable people than sit in embassies or other useless places. You also want to issue all the training and teaching boosting edicts (see below with the edicts what's what).

Production planning
Factories have the downside that they almost invaraibly need blueprints. Unless of course you find some foreign power to provide you with one. Now, it's hard to rely on something like this, but since it's pretty much unimportant which industries you establish in what order (to some degree, I'll get to that), go with the flow and go with what the powers offer you.
It's rather likely that the Russians will sooner or later provide us with Distillery blueprints, the Europeans will ship Jewelry factory prints, the Arabs teach us how to build weapon, the USA provide furniture and chemicals plant prints and China should provide us with prints for a cannery. Counter-intuitively, though, that happens more likely if we have less than perfect standing with them. It becomes clear why, when you consider that those offers usually come with a tacked-on request to export a certain amount of the product this factory produces, which only happens when they feel you should improve your standing with them. In my experience, it's quite likely that you will eventually get a distillery, the weapon factory and the cannery. Your experiences may vary. In the end, it's a matter of preference, mostly.
The only noteworthy exception to the "don't care" rule are the cement factory (if you have the expansion) and the chemical plant (as soon as you have electricity). Aside of being the only two factories that need no raw materials (and hence even produce at full speed if you cannot import anything for any reason), the cement factory also not only needs no blueprints but provides you with cement to build faster, the chemical plant can be upgraded to boost your hospital efficiency.
A factory that is a pretty sweet cash cow is the weapons factory (ignore the negative effect, it's usually negligible). That can be reworked into a "safety net" too by shutting down the iron mine as soon as you don't really need it anymore (simply fire all miners and close the workplace slot), so you can reopen it at any time should you become unable to import iron for some reason. Oh, and produce landmines. They really sell for some pretty penny, to hell with the Berne convention!
Aside of that, the industry you aim for should match your economy and how much you can spend on imports. If money is tight, jewelry factory and oil refinery are not quite the industries of choice. Gold and crude oil tend to be expensive goods! Instead go for the cannery, food and coffee are cheap!
Oh, and buy all the improvements that boost quality and output. I can't stress that enough. Especially the quality enhancers (like machine rolled cigars or expensive jewelry) are huge boosts because for the same amount of raw material you get more money out of the end product. The real money is in those factory upgrades. GET THEM!

Money, money, money

We need money, and lots of it. Most of all, we need a positive balance for imports. So how do we get that?
First of all, you don't need a positive balance all the time. What you need to aim for is that your balance plus your projected exports will cover your imports. Unfortunately you can't tell how much you want to import until you actually have that much money in your pocket (the number in the dock only shows you how much you will spend on imports, which is invariably 0 if your current balance is negative). Your goal is to always ensure your exports will push your balance above 0. If they don't, you are in DEEP trouble!
Don't overspend early on. Always make sure you can import, i.e. your exports push your balance out of the red into the black. Start by building mines. Iron, bauxite, gold, even salt. All is good. You might want to build a fishing building, they don't really cost you room (unlike farms) and may provide some early money and/or early food when you are struggling getting your balance positive. Most of all they provide profit from day one, like mines, unlike farms which need to grow crops for a few months before they start turning a profit.
As soon as you can afford it, build a high school, you need educated workers for the factories. The concrete factory is a great start (provided you have the expansion). Otherwise you might want to start out with a cannery which is also cheap, both in building as well as in raw materials. Oh, and don't forget that you have to allow imports on every single factory, or you'll have a hard time getting raw materials!

...and then further into the game and towards the end
By now you have an economy that can turn a profit. By now the eco-nuts will start crying about pollution, so build a garbage dump and put it on recycling, that usually shuts them up. Check the factions sheet from time to time and when they indicate that pollution is high or that there ain't enough garbage dumps, build another one. Also buy the upgrade for it (and the second one once you have power in).
This is usually also the time when you'll start to try to fill your ministry and issue a few crucial edicts (see below when I discuss edicts). You will most likely not be able to hire an interior minister because you need a policeman for that. Since we not only want a police but also an interior minister (for the anti-litter ordinance), build a police somewhere where there's some crime. Make sure first that there are no shacks because they skew the crime statistic!
The next thing you aim for is a College and a Power plant. Build a college and hire 2-3 profs. By now you should be able to issue the USA development aid edict (if you haven't issued it yet), issue it to cut the price for the power plant in half. Considering that it pretty much pays for itself when you want to build a power plant (and you DO), it's pretty much a given that you will eventually HAVE TO issue that edict, so do it when you feel you can spare the 2 grand. Build the power plant when you can afford it, make sure that your industry buildings have power (if necessary build some power substations) and buy the relevant upgrades that require power. You might want to switch it to run on gas instead of coal to keep the environmental impact low (the cost ain't that big a deal). Also buy the garbage upgrade that needs power and take a look through your industry building, some of the really powerful (and profitable) industry building upgrades need power. A few other buildings that you will want now that you have college educated staff (in no particular order) are the academy of science, the customs office and the weather station. You will also be required to build armories to keep the militarists happy and a few guard stations. If the military threatens to stage a coup, build a military base and issue the army modernization edict (something that's also a good idea if you have to deal with rebels a lot).

A quick rundown of buildings

Allow me to do a quick 'n dirty list of buildings that you might want, along with a brief hint of their lesser known uses.

Housing
Basically, all you need here are Tenements for the first few years. Don't build bunkhouses, houses, shanties or country houses. They all either take up too much space or are hardly better than shacks. With the USSR development aid, tenements usually offer the cheapest houses for their rather ok quality along with the maybe smallest footprint a house can have per occupant. Later you may want to build condos, if you really need the housing quality (e.g. because people happiness is a mission requirement), but in general, it's tenements all the way. If you feel generous and if you have a nuclear power plant, you might want to consider installing ACs.

Wellfare & Economy
Churches: One. Exactly one. The one you need to build to keep your religious from complaining that there ain't no churches on Tropico. Later, it's cathedrals all the way. Higher quality, higher capacity and the price simply doesn't matter later on anymore. What matters is a high religious satisfaction, and that requires cathedrals.
Clinic: See churches. You want to rely on hospitals rather then clinics. Better quality and it seems people use it less. You'll build one early because you neither have the electricity nor the money for hospitals, but you can as well tear that one down to make room for something else once you have hospitals in.
Customs office: Often overlooked, but as soon as you have 2-3 factories running, they really start to pay off. Put to export boosting and watch the moolah roll in! And later, when you have more money than you need, switch them over to custom duty mode for some "private money".
Weather station: If your island is in the path of tornados or tsunamis, if it is prone to earthquakes or volcano eruptions and the like, you DO want this building, expanded fully. At the very least it will keep your people alive, and it may well offer the option to lessen the blow or even avoid earthquakes or volcano eruptions.
Shopping Mall: Nice building for later, not essential early on. There is a line in the "speech bubble" section of the population concerning it, oddly though there is no happiness for shopping itself. Still, something you'll want in the end, but they're costly because they weigh down on your imports heavily. Have a strong economy to power them! I am NOT kidding, these things can suck you dry!
Bank: Nice for slush funding and boosting your final score, useless for lowering price. By the time you can use them to lower prices (they need college education people, and then it takes time for them to gain experience), you don't have money problems anymore.
Stock exchange: Generally pretty worthless, but useful to get some of the buildings that you want but don't want to fund, like the whole entertainment stuff. In general, though, I prefer to own my businesses.

Entertainment
Generally something left for when money is rolling in steadily. 'til then, let people complain if they want. What you should build is the Childhood Museum because it makes the Loyalists happy, other than that, well, nothing here is really absolutely essential. Yes, people will hit the streets and protest. Let them. Barking dogs don't bite.

Government
Ministry: Must have, as said in the beginning. Keep on coucil of ministers mode.
Immigration office: Should be built as soon as the influx of people isn't to your liking (too many/few).
Foreign office: As crucial as it was in T3, as uselss it is in T4. Simply and plainly useless.
Police station: Something you'll eventually want, mostly because it's the prerequisite for the secret police and you DO want that. Not absolutely crucial early in the game (if crime is your problem, it's likely that you actually have a problem with housing).
Prison: Not necessary. But fun!
Fire station: Can be crucial if your island often suffers from droughts or if you sit underneath a volcano. Can be used to improve the housing in the surrounding area, but in general you want to put it on special training to make sure you have crack firefighters for when you need them.
Army base/armory/guard station (bunker with expansion): Something you want to build when your militarists are complaining or when the rebels are on the rise.
Nuclear Program: Useless. If you have the money to fuel this, you usually don't have a problem keeping the superpowers happy.

Education
Grade School: Takes up way too much real estate for its benefit. Not to mention that it houses VERY few kids. Especially since the only gain would be in "spelling bee" (intelligence boost) which you can accomplish easier.
High School/College: Essential to have one of each. More is not necessary.
Academy of Science: Useful to boost graduation (with educational standards) or to lower blueprint price (with grants). I usually put it on the latter mode 'til I have all the blueprints I need or the price lowering level reaches about 45% (of a maximum of 50%), then switch over to edu standards.
Propaganda Tower (expansion): Useless. People love me anyway.
Newspaper/Radio/TV: A newspaper is too roomy for its benefit. Ignore and use TV and radio instead. TV is especially valuable for its "learning with larry" program which boosts skill gain along with allowing a few interesting edicts. Sadly you can only have one TV station on "learning" mode, so make sure it covers as much are as possible and especially your industry.
Radar Dish: Quite useless, generally. But fun.
East point (expansion): Useful to get soldiers quickly, but generally only needed if you face battles regularely. Doubles as a college, but only for male population (so you can't get power plant or oil rig staff out of this, so you need to build a college anyway).

More buildings

Food&Resources
Generally, I import most of my food and all of my industry raw materials. You might want to consider building a farm or two and a fishermans wharf or two to ensure there's going to be food even if times turn bleak, and of course you want market places, but aside of that, you can safely ignore that ledger.

Industry
The opposite of Food&Resources, all of these should eventually be built, in general one of each is plenty to ensure you cover every base in case the market for something caves in. You might want to wait for some foreign power to give you the blueprint.

Infrastructure
We've talked about garages and roads.
Construction office and teamsters: You'll probably want to relocate the ones you start with. It's unlikely you need another teamsters office early, but you will want to build another one when you notice that you have money, you could import food but still your marketplaces run dry and your people skip meals.
You might also want to build a few more construction offices. In my opinion, one per 150 people or even one per 100 people is useful, unless you forgo its use by quick building mostly (which you actually can do easily later on).
Garbage Dump: Essential. You'll need a few of them to keep pollution under control. Check your pollution map often and (if it's not due to shacks), make sure you have a garbage dump near the pollution hotspots.
Power plant/nuclear plant: Your first power plant should be non-nuclear. Because you most likely cannot afford running one when you start to need/want power. You have to import uranium and that is VERY expensive initially (if I'm not mistaken it costs about 50 grand to fuel it initially and it keeps running a pretty high cost level). Generally, I build a nuke plant as soon as I start to run into the limits of my first non-nuke plant (usually around 200MW usage). Oh, and I do without wind power. Maybe build a token one to make the environmentalists happy, otherwise, just ignore.

Tourism
No tourism.

Attractions
See tourism.

Luxury Attractions
Take a wild guess.

Landmarks
Generally mostly fluff and decoration which I ignore. Trees, gardens and fountains can be used to locally improve the environmental happiness, something you might want to consider if environmentalists pose a problem or when a mission goal requires you to reach a certain environment happiness. A mausoleum will eventually be needed to keep the loyalists happy, and it is a good way to know where the next rebel attack will happen: They ALWAYS attack a mausoleum if one exists, unless it is a scripted event that demands otherwise.

IMPORTant business - The not-so-obvious logic behind imports and exports

As our very life will depend on imports (remember, most of the food will have to be imported, as will pretty much any kind of raw materials our industry needs) it is crucial that you understand how imports and exports work. The key element here is that imports will ONLY be bought if you have a POSITIVE amount of money in your account. So while you can still build something if your cash is between 0 and -10,000 imports will ONLY happen if you have more than 0 dineros in your purse. Also you should know when imports and exports happen. Exports happen when a ship is docked and your dock workers transport what is stored on the dock to the ship. If you receive the message "a ship has not been serviced by the dockworkers", find out IMMEDIATELY what went wrong here! It can happen now and then later in the game when you have a huge island with congested roads, but try to minimize these events because you need that money for your imports!

Imports on the other hand happen just BEFORE a ship leaves, automatically, provided there is enough money in the bank. When you click on the dock, you will get the information how much money will be spent on imports. That is not necessarily the amount of money you'd need to spend to fulfill all demands of your people and your industry if the money in your bank is low! Compare the expected "import expense" with your current money in the bank. If the import sum is at about the level of your current balance, chances are good that you will not import as much as you would probably want to.

Due to the nature of importing/exporting, it is likely that you will actually have more money available for imports than it looks before a ship comes in. Because your exports will happen first and provide you with money. Imports will not happen until the ship leaves again. This means you have to be careful and not jump the gun with building! It is tempting to see the money roll in when your dockworkers sell the goods, and you sigh a breath of relief that you can finally build what you've been waiting so long for. But if you do, it can easily mean that you cannot import anything anymore. Remember: You CAN build up to -10,000 dineros. You CANNOT import anything with less than 0!

That means, wait with any build orders until the ship has left, unless you can be absolutely certain that you WILL have enough positive money in the bank left for all your imports. In general, it is usually a wise idea to wait for the ship to leave.

An example: You have -6000 in the bank and want to build a church, costing 5000. So you cannot build it now, because you can only spend 4000 more on buildings before you hit -10k, the spending limit for building. You also know that you need to import goods for your industry and food, even though the dock indicates you'll import for 0 dineros. That's because your cash level is negative, you cannot buy imports without positive money. A ship comes in, you sell goods for 15000, putting you on +9000 dineros. Your import indicator now tells you that you'd import goods for 7000. DO NOT BUILD THE CHURCH YET! Wait for the ship to leave! Else you will build the church for 5000, your balance goes down to 4000 and you can only buy import goods for these 4000 now instead of the needed 7000. Your people will starve, your industry will run idle lacking raw materials. Instead, wait for the ship to leave. You'll import goods worth 7000 so industry and people are well provided for, leaving you with a balance of 2000, which is enough to build the church because for BUILDING you can go negative, but not for IMPORTING.

This is crucial. If you don't understand what I wrote above, just don't build anything while there is a ship in the dock unless you have more money than you can spend, and you'll be fine. :)

That also means, though, that you have to be careful with spending, especially during the first years. You want to make sure that your exports will push your money above the 0 threshold so at least SOME goods will be imported. Remember: With this tactics, your island is fully and absolutely dependent on imports! No imports mean that your people starve to death and that your industry does not produce anything! You will be left without people and without money if imports do not happen!

Making factions happy

One of the key elements to success is to make your citizens happy. Not only because they need to be happy to vote for you and keep you in power. If their happiness sinks to 0 and stays there, a lot of BAD things can happen, called a "faction disaster". You do NOT want that! Communists makes rebels flock to your island, Environmentalists picket your mines and the Religious tell everyone going to church that you're the antichrist and make them hate you. And that will continue until you somehow manage to improve your standing with that faction, you can't simply "sit it out". So let's see what makes them happy and what happens when they're not.

Capitalists
They're by some margin the ones that are easiest to please, mostly because their interests are our own: They want a strong industry, they want fat profits and they want low crime. The former two are basically our goal, too. Low crime rates need low unemployment and few shacks. In other words, if crime is your problem, the answer is not police but more houses and more job creating buildings.
Faction disaster: Corruption. Export prices sink by 20%. You HAVE TO avoid that! You are dependent on exports, 20% minus on exports is sinking you easily!

Communists
They want good health care, good housing and lots of food. So if they start to complain, you need more Tenements (any kind of housing is good as long as it ain't a shack), more hospitals or clinics (or a sanatorium with expansion) and food (so make sure those teamsters are working and the markets are staffed, and of course that you have the money to import the grub).
Faction disaster: Rebels. Rebels will come to your island with every ship. Also something you HAVE TO avoid. More rebels than soldiers is a near surefire way to eventually lose your palace and the game.

Intellectuals
Another faction we'll please easily because their needs are ours: They want education facilities and free elections. The former is exactly what we want too, the latter is not really a big problem since everyone will love El Presidente anyway (OR ELSE...!).
Faction disaster: Student Protests. Nobody will graduate as students are busy protesting and not learning. Only a minor nuisance as long as you already have a decent workforce.

Religious
The most problematic faction. Because invariably, their needs are nobody else and pacifying them just costs money without generating any. Basically what they want is churches and cathedrals. And to make matters worse, for these buildings to really do anything they also need highly trained personnel that could be productive instead. And as if that's not bad enough, they're also usually one of the numerous factions! How again did you outlaw a faction... sigh. No. Seriously. Of course we'll try to make them happy, but they're really a PEST!
Faction disaster: Anathema. People visiting churches and cathedrals lose respect towards you. Pretty much a rather weak threat, unless there's an election coming up. Then it can very quickly lead to GAME OVER.

Militarists
Not easy to please, but essential. Angry militaries tend to lead to short Presidente terms. You want them happy and staffed. Not overly so, since they don't produce anything that could be sold, but it sure helps to sleep easy if you know you have thrice the soldiers on the island than you have rebels, and that these soldiers are loyal to you to their grave. Basically, if they complain about too few generals, build military bases or armories, if they complain about too few soldiers (or too many rebels), build watch towers (or bunkers). If you can't build towers because you lack armories, build armories. You may also consider an edict or two (see below when I explain edicts).
Faction disaster: Ultimatum. Military coup will almost certainly happen. I think I need not explain why this could be VERY BAD.

Environmentalists
Another faction that will give you headaches. Basically they hate mines, they hate logging camps and they hate pollution. In a nutshell, they hate anything that's easy money. Since you need mines early in the game you can't do much about the first problem (but early they don't really complain a lot), but you will have to deal with the pollution problem by building garbage dumps. Put them on recycling to make the treehuggers happy. And that's basically it, they're usually not a very numerous faction (like the religious), so if they're angry, who cares as long as they don't start picketing our industry? Just keep them above 0 somehow, build them a few wind power and recycling plants and they should be quiet.
Faction disaster: Protests. Protesters blockade an industry or mine (workers will still have to be paid but no production). Not THAT big a problem, but these basta... nice people usually know what mine or industry makes the most profit and costs you the most if it's running idle.

Nationalists
Not really a big trouble usually, just on a few maps they can really become a nuisance. Generally, what they don't like is immigration or any kind of cooperation with outsider and they want high wages. In general, as long as you steer clear of any kind of foreign aid and army bases you should be good. Foreign aid early in the game can generally be a good thing to deal with the problem of getting a doc on the island early on, just avoid having to do it later in the game.
Faction disaster: Rioting. Street fights between nationalists and immigrants leading to deaths. Something you might want to avoid, it costs you people.

Loyalists
A great faction. They love you. They want you. You're their saviour, their pop idol. What they want is you to build a Childhood Museum and a Mausoleum. The former is usually a good idea, since it doubles as a cheap early entertainment place, the latter is something for, well, later. They're easy to please and everyone in that faction WILL vote for you, no matter what. You want as many people IN that faction as you possibly can, but in general you need to do little to please them.
Faction disaster: Disillusioned. People lose faith in you and drop out of the faction. Not an immediate problem, but since they are so easy to please and Loyalists are absolutely GUARANTEED to vote for you in an election, you'd actually want as many people as you can in this faction.

Election time

In general it's very possible to win elections, unless you really messed something up royally, so you should let them happen. People get really unhappy if you simply forgo elections, especially if you chose a "raise to power" trait with high democratic expectations.

At any rate you should always opt for elections with speech. It does sway people when you talk to them. Not to mention that it's fun to hear who El Presidente blames this time for his own blunders.

There's three things you can decide when writing your speech: What hot issue to talk about, what group to praise and what you want to promise.

Hot topic
In general the issues you get presented are the ones with the lowest satisfaction, lowest to least-lowest (I dare not say highest in this case...) from top to bottom. In other words, usually it's the best choice to simply take the topmost option here, since it's the one most people have an issue with and most people will feel that you know of their pains and for some odd reason they think that you care.

Group praisal
Hovering over the various groups with your mouse tell you their current satisfaction with you. Praising a group boosts that satisfaction by 10%. Usually you will probably try to boost the group with the lowest satisfaction.

Promise
In general, you should only make a promise that you also plan to fulfill. An unfulfilled promise will help you in this election but bite you in the rear in the next. Building promises are self explanatory (build the promised building). If you promise "satisfaction", or "adequate ($whatever)", it means that the relevant satisfaction level must be at 45 or higher by the next time elections are due, if you promise "enough military" or "enough generals", the military faction must report sufficient generals/soldiers (or at least not insufficient ones) in the faction ledger.
There are of course times when you should deviate from this standard. It's usually not really very helpful to discuss a topic and make a promise that affects the same group you praise (unless of course everyone's totally happy and just one group is in the gutter). So talking about housing, praising the communists and promising adequate housing is not really very helpful. Try to mix and match it so it makes more than one group, preferably three groups, happy.

Important factions
Check the factions ledger from time to time. Not all factions are created equal and likewise some are more important than others. If you have 22 intellectuals on your island, 40 militarists, 30 capitalists and 200 communists, you can pretty much safely ignore everyone but the communists. You need 50% of the votes, and if just 2/3 of the commies vote for you, it simply doesn't matter anymore what the rest thinks of you.

The ministry - An often overlooked source for bonus events and money

It does pay to employ good people (with high/good values) as ministers (secretaries, for you US people, I'm not talking about clergy here! :)), since from time to time events may happen where a minister causes something good or bad to happen. Depending on the minister different events can happen if they have good skills:

Economy: Free factories, better export prices.
Education: Free schools/colleges or educated people coming to the island
Interior: Erh... I honestly forgot... Anyone know?
Foreign: Double foreign aid, rarely price changes for exports
Military: Avoid next rebel attack

Aside of that, you need a relevant minister for a few higher level buildings (e.g. an education minister for the academy of science) and to issue pretty much any edict in their area (e.g. to issue foreign edicts you need a foreign minister). Generally, you want a staffed house later on. Not so crucial at the beginning (aside of the foreign minister for the USSR aid edict).

Oh, and if anyone complains about your ministers, fire them. It's easier to replace ministers than to deal with the consequences of keeping him or her.

Events - Red/yellow stars and blue cirlcles that make life exciting

Every time you hear a "plink", somewhere on the island a blue circle or a red lined yellow star pops up, usually either above your ministry or above your palace (sometimes above other buildings). These are events. The stars are storyline events (most of the time you have to fulfill them at some point, or you get presented a few options and one of them needs to be chosen to further the storyline), while blue circles are events that offer you a chance to boost your standing with a faction or a foreign nation.

The stars are map and mission specific, and to avoid spoilers I'll not discuss them here (I'll later write a guide for the campaign missions if there's anyone wanting one). They're fun to find out about, enjoy them!

The blue circles can in general be split into two groups: The ones that only give you standing and the ones that give you standing and something else. In a nutshell: You want the latter ones. For one simple reason: Blue circles only appear if you can get a benefit out of them. If you have perfect standing with the middle east, you will NEVER get a blue circle that offers you a free Weapon factory blueprint for exporting weapons. Because only the middle east offers that. So you do not want to accept an event that would only improve your standing with the middle east if you are also aiming to get the relevant blueprints. Or, worse, they only ask for weapons without offering you the blueprint, leading to you not only having an open event but also you have to buy the blueprint out of your own pocket (or rather, that of your island)!

You can only have 5 events open at a time (it is possible to have more if you have 5 open and another one, e.g. elections, happen that you cannot disable), including the campaign mission event (usually meaning that you can take up to 4 events because the first slot is usually taken by the campaign mission). That also means that if you have 4 open and an election is coming up, you cannot accept another event since you now have 5 events (the 4 you had plus the election event)! And trust me, nothing is more annoying than having 5 events open and FINALLY getting that blueprint offered that you so wanted but you can't accept it. Because the blue offers, unlike the red/yellow ones, don't stay open forever, they will eventually be retracted if you don't take them.

Of course you can accept events that you can easily fulfill to boost some faction standing because you want to reap the benefits. If you're about to build a new hospital anyway and just then the communists beg for one, you can safely accept that event because the new hospital is already being built and you get a few points of commie standing for free that way.

Foreign relationships

There are 5 different foreign "power": USA, USSR, Europe, China and Middle East. Good standing with them has various beneficial effects:
USA: More development aid and more tourists.
USSR: More development aid and cheaper resources.
Europe: More desaster recovery aid (more money if your buildings get destroyed by earthquakes or tornados, up to the point where it actually becomes a viable source of income on some maps...) and cheaper specialists
China: Cheap luxury items (for supermarket) and better prices for canned goods (exports).
Middle East: Cheap crude oil and occasional gifts of money (usually 30k).

Making them happy/unhappy
Aside of the obvious ones (i.e. what's listed with traits, background and rise to power as well as fulfilling missions given by the powers). Effects to be gained by good/bad standing:

USA
Likes: High liberty, good relations with the capitalists
Dislikes: low liberty, bad relationships with capitalists, debt
Effect +: More tourism, more foreign aid
Effect -: Less foreign aid, invasion (if very low for longer time)

USSR
Likes: Good relations with communists
Dislikes: Bad relations with communists, debt
Effect +: More foreign aid, certain raw materials can be bought cheaper (salt, iron...)
Effect -: Less foreign aid, invasion (if very low for longer time)

EU
Likes: High liberty, good relation with envionmentalists and intellectuals, low pollution
Dislikes: bad relation with envionmentalists and intellectuals, nuclear program
Effect +: Extra disaster relief money, Cheaper foreign workers
Effect -: lower disaster relief money

China
Likes: Low liberty, Tropico importing luxury goods, "open door" immigration policy
Dislikes: "Tropico first" immigration policy, alliances with USSR
Effect +: Increased (selling) price for canned goods, cheaper luxury goods
Effect -: Embargo on some raw materials or luxury goods

Middle East
Likes: No crude oil exports, crude oil imports (for oil refinery)
Dislikes: Too many churches/cathedrals, crude oil exports
Effect +: Better prices for oil products, occasionally money gifts (30,000).
Effect -: Crude oil embargo

Edicts

Many edicts are a necessity. Most in the 5 areas of ministry need an active secretary to be enacted. Usually, only the "general" ones can be issued without a secretary.

General edicts
Bribe leaders: Never really used that one (except if required by the campaign).
Early elections: Same.
Free housing: Useful to ensure nobody lives in shacks, and the income from houses is petty change anyway. Simply issue it. Makes commies happy and the hit on capitalist happiness is easily compensated by the powerhouse industry we have.
National day: What can I say, I like fireworks. Not really necessary but it looks nice and gives you loyalists! It's just quite exensive early on.
Hola presidente: Another fun but not outright necessary one. But if you have a TV station, issue it!
Tax cut: A useful "last resort" button when you're about to lose an election.
Food for the people: Should be enacted if you can afford it and have enough food. Feeds your people better, makes them happier and healthier.
Social security: A not so cheap but very efficient way to get all factions' happiness up. Generally a good idea to activate.
Humanitarian aid: Can be a good idea during the first years to get free food and medical facilities. The crime and pollution is crippling, though, so try to get rid of it as quickly as you can or your capitalists and environmentalists will hate you as much as the nationalists hate you for enabling it. Try to do without, but it's better to have this than people dying. Cancel as soon as you can, i.e. have a staffed clinic.
Nuclear testing: Don't even think about it!

Education
Literacy program: Very useful to speed up training, enable as soon as you can.
Sensitivity training[/i]: Useful to get liberty up despite police and soldiers. Enable when you can afford it.
Same-sex marriage: Makes the rather hard to please religious unhappy, but same-sex couples can move into houses that way. Usually I don't use it, more houses are cheaper than more cathedrals.
Book BBQ: Students learn slower, that alone is enough reason to never touch that one.
Ideology book: We have no stupid people. So... no.
Polit education: Lowers production. No deal.

Foreign
Praise: A good tool to avoid an invasion. Otherwise, rather useless.
Development aid: Both crucial, first get the USSR, later the USA before you build the power plant. Note that there is a 2 years wait period between them.
Alliance: Avoid. It makes the other superpower unhappy and really pi..es the nationalists off.
Trade mission: Neat way to get some freebies, but needing an airport to get it under way is a bit of a letdown. Don't build an airport just for that, but if you have an airport, go for it!
Papal visit: Good way to boost your religious happiness, but you can only do it once!

Economy/Tourism
Industry Ad Campaign: As soon as you have a TV station and 3-4 factories, keep this running all the time!
Pollution Standards: Enable as soon as possible.
Tourism Ad Campaign: No tourism, no need for an ad campaign.
The Headliner: Cheap enough to use when you need to boost the entertainment. But have a few entertainment places before you do.
Building Permit: Sweet way to pump your swiss bank account. If you care about that, go for it, if not, well, don't.
Pan-Caribbean Games: VERY expensive for little gain.
Mardi Gras: Crime can be a problem, so probably rather no.
Spring Break Package: No tourism, no spring break package.
Geographic TV Special: No tourism, no...
Print Money: Try not to do it. It's pocket change for more expensive buildings. As soon as you build for more than 60k, you lose money out of it. And 60k is really not that much, build 30 tenements or about 5 factories and you're there...

Interior
Prohibition: Crime is easy to control, that's less of your concern. And the higher productivity sure is nice. Still, it also means you have to shut down the distillery, one of your main cash cows, and the cheapest entertainment buildings become unavailable. It would be a cool edict early in the game, when you want happy religious and more productivity, before you can afford the insanely expensive distillery anyway, but just then you don't have the interior minister you need for it...
Contraception Ban: Lowers freedom and ... I need immigrants, not kids. Kids don't work for 13 years, immigrants do it right from the start!
Anti-Litter Ordinance: Do it! Lower pollution is worth anything, including lower liberty! A TV station easily compensates that.
Secret Police/wiretapping: Two different edicts, but you want them together if you can at all afford it. Wiretapping is VERY expensive, but well worth it. Build a restaurant or pub as the Secret HQ and a few bad events (especially bombs and strikes) lose all their bite and can actually be used to pump your standing with various factions.
Inquisition: No way!
Off to florida: Nope. Keep them locked up and throw away the key. More fun!

Defense
Amnesty: Good idea if you recently improved the situation on the island (like, say, if you finally managed to get rid of shacks or finally built that cathedral).
Martial Law: Avoid that one.
Military Modernization: Do it, if you can afford it. Not only does it make the military more efficient (lowers losses in fights against rebels as well as increasing the chance to succeed in suppressing rebels), it also pleases the military and makes coups virtually impossible.
Conscription: Worse than useless. People forced to be soldiers are just cannon fodder and the few that COULD be good fighters (because they have good courage) will turn into rebels.
Lure the rebels: Can be a good idea if coupled with Amnesty. First, issue amnesty to lower the number of rebels, then if you know you can handle the remaining rebels, lure them. It's easier to fight 10 rebels twice than 20 at once!
Silence the rebels: usually useless. It's better to use the money to build military buildings and get more soldiers. Can be a last-resort tool to avoid an impending attack of an overwhelming rebel force to buy time to get the soldier headcount up, but it seems not to work against attacks that are part of the mission script.

FAQs

Here I have collected a few questions that happened to appear time and again on the Steam boards concerning Tropico 4. If there's anything missing, don't hesitate to bring it up and I'll add it.

I have unemployed people despite having a lot of free positions
Note that not everyone can fill every slot. Some jobs can only be filled by men, some just by women. If you have rather few entertainment buildings (like me) and few "equal opportunity" places (like farms) you will have unemployed women. You can remedy this (money provided) by simply building a construction office, it takes unskilled female workers and speeds up your construction. Of course you can always put up entertainment buildings, if that's more your style.
Likewise, if your open positions are in factories, you may suffer from a lack of educated people. Check your highschool whether there are enough teachers. If not, hire some from abroad or kick out educated female staff from other places. If your problem is that your people are too stupid, put an academy on "Education Standards" to get smarter people.

I have homeless people despite having free housing slots
Either your people are too poor to afford the homes or the homes are too far away from where they need to work. You may consider issuing the "free housing" edict or ensure that everyone has a job and build some homes closer to where people work. The shacks are a good indicator where they'd enjoy their homes to be.

The scneario says I should concentrate on tourism/farming/whatever and industry goods are 20/30/50% down in price
It's still more profitable to go industry. The second (or was it third?) campaign mission is rigged that way. It's still heaps easier with industry than with tourism to have a fat wallet.

My people starve despite me having lots of markets
Do you have the money to buy food?
Check your teamsters. Are your teamsters offices staffed? Maybe increase the salary a little to convince people to work there. Maybe build a new teamsters office if they seem overworked. Food for the people usually helps here, as do more teamsters and more docks. If everything else fails, build a corn farm to tide you over.

How do I ensure that I win elections?
Easiest is of course to keep everyone happy. A good indicator that there's danger of a lost election brewing is lots of protests. What you want to do then is to check who you need to "convince".
Basically, you need 50% of the people. So find out what factions are prominent on your island. People who support a faction (communist, capitalist, environmentalist...) usually share common interests and preferences, which are often contradicting those of others. So if you have 20 capitalists and 50 communists, who do you keep happy? Exactly. Sing the Internationale and order some Vodka! Or, in game terms, build houses, issue free housing and food edicts and ignore the capitalists. Even if they all vote against you, if just 2/3 of the commies are on your side the capitalists can as well go to hell.

The last mission - SPOILER ALERT!

As said in the preface, the last mission cannot be "cheated" this way. If you want to retain the surprise and not spoil the fun of discovering the scenario, you should probably stop reading here.

So, since you're still with me, the following section DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS! Last chance to bug out!



Fine. You wanted it. Ok. So, the problem about that last scenario is that you will have a VERY stiff time limit as soon as your island holds 100 people. You cannot successfully run the island along the aforementioned tactics this way because this approach takes far too long for you to be profitable. I think the idea of the scenario is that you have to issue the money printing edict a few times.
My solution was simply to avoid the trigger that starts it. I kept the population on the island below 100. Build an immigration office as soon as you have about 70-75 people on your island, set it to "skilled workers" until you have a population of about 90, then instantly shut down immigration with "tropico first". You may want to open up a little every now and then as people die or leave, but always only to "skilled workers" because with "open borders" a LOT of people will come and can easily trigger the 100 people limit. 100 people is pretty tight, so you should strip down to the bare minimum of buildings and staff them with the absolute minimum to keep them running sensibly. Garages should have only one worker and the dock needs only 2. There's plenty of places for mines, build 3-4 and make sure that you do get the gold. The mission that will be triggered when you reach 100 people will be to have 50k money within 5 years. When you have about 30k, you can open up the boarders again. In total you have time 'til 2012 (hard limit), which is usually plenty of time.

[battlezoby]

On the other hand, there are still many missions / challenges on the Original Tropico (no number) that I still haven't been able to complete.

[battlezoby]

It's been a while but I don't think you need any tourist or people working the Tourist Dock or Motel for the Blimp to work. It's not a big deal, but I think it's usually worth the price just for boost. It's only if you don't have enough beach for the dock that might be an issue. (But that's what all my insanely overpriced Teraforming is for - see my screenshot if you haven't already.)

In my mind though, I still think people would be better off without hints. Game is more than easy enough.

Heck, I can't even remember the "last scenerio" and don't remember if you mean normal campaign or Modern Times since nothing is very hard unless you make a mistake that prevents you from finishing like mining all the Gold before a non-optional quest comes up to export more gold.

[Fly]

I see the blimp and yes, if I have a tourist resort for some reason, the blimp is a must-have, but getting a tourist dock and motel just for the blimp seems overkill, also because it will tie down some staff and the tourists will be pretty unhappy, clog my (very, very few) entertainment resources and so on.

By the time I don't care about the money and population to build and staff the entertainment district and the tourist accommodations, I also don't really care about the blimp anymore either. There are way better things to sink your money in. An Academy of Science for example, for the cheaper blueprints and better eduacated people. Or some banks for urban development and cheaper buildings.

[Zaraline]

I do think it's worth to build a random tourist place (motel, mostly), to access the blimp. The Presidential Eye work mode is basically the same as having El Presidente visiting a place, but it happens instantly and its an AoE.

[battlezoby]

Honestly, I think the guides need more warnings as they have become good enough that people are now finding the game to be too easy, and we can no long fix that by making our own hard challenges since they shutdown the Public Server.

@AlexMBrennan: The Booze Barn thing, is, IMO, ONE OF the worst such hint. Let people have fun with the game before trying to make it too easy for them, again, in my opinion.

[AlexMBrennan]

With respect, you are seriously underselling the benefits of booze baron - double rum price makes the distillery obscenely profitable compared to a mediocre +15% productivity from self made man. You do not need any other industry (except for scripted events) so just line the shore with docks and rum distilleries.

That is what the nuclear testing edict is made for - instead of slowly building mines to pay for a high school and, eventually, industry you can build a distillery on day one and import sugar and high school educated workers to start raking in the obscene profits immediately.

[Mentlegen]

love this guide, thanks a lot for it

[Louis XXX]

I don't know why is this guide is so dramatic about some points (curve roads, space amount, tourism, farms, etc.). It's possible to build diversed economy and win elections easily. Only obstacles are natural disasters or embargos, but they make game interesting.

[Space_Girl_DFTBA]

@styx I'm not sure if it's true for all crops, but I've noticed that my sugar farms/plantations/camps tend to degrade the crop conditions over time: wherever the sugar fields are (and a bit surrounding it) the crop conditions tend to become less good for every crop

[SadonicShadow]

@Styx. That is what I did on one of my islands. I pay my bankers, doctors and the army 50 dollars a month and everyone else a dollar with no housing, healthcare ( thanks to sanatorium only the elite get healthcare) or education. Everyone slaves away in the plantation and anyone caught protesting are either shot or sent to a labor camp depending on my mood. The funny thing is the Army is perfectly ok with my slave state I built. I have conscription enabled so anytime a free army job opens up its filled almost immediately by a desperate slave looking to improve their station. My armed forces sit at a constant 200 or so level so no matter how big the rebel force gets they are crushed almost instantly with plenty of new recruits lining up to replace my losses. Its perfect!