Today you can often hear complaints that lately too much politics has been crammed into games. However, firstly, politics in games existed before. And secondly, the problem of those who complain is usually not about politics as such, but specifically about “pushing in”. When political motives and, what’s more, hints at very specific countries and personalities are organically integrated into the plot, and even into the gameplay, players are much more likely to accept the rules of the game and even praise the developers if they managed to reveal the topic.
Tropico, released in 2001, was just such a game with political overtones. The appearance of our El Avatar and the climate on the island clearly hinted at a very specific state. And the fact that the player was given the freedom to win the support of the population with both carrots and sticks removed suspicions from the developers of propaganda for or against. And placed all responsibility for the means to achieve goals on the player.
Tropico: Skylines
I admit right away that I am familiar with the Tropico series mainly from reviews. So without proper experience I will not compare the game with previous parts. But I can compare it with games that I personally played. For example, Cities: Skylines, because in both we improve the map entrusted to us for the population and at the same time the activities of each resident are meticulously simulated.
However, C:S simply sets the Sim’s route in accordance with the chosen job, demographic indicators, needs, etc. Therefore, if someone gets stuck in a traffic jam or goes the wrong way, they are immediately “teleported” to where they need to go.
In Tropico 6, on the contrary, each Tropican himself is the central element of the simulation. If the path to the workplace is far away or somehow blocked, he looks for how to get around the obstacles, while work stands still. If something happened to him on the way, it will affect his performance and when he finally gets to the goal it will affect his efficiency and desire to work. To satisfy the needs for entertainment or faith, a person must not only be within the radius of the corresponding building, but directly go there, and in addition have the money to pay for the entrance (some buildings are accessible only to those who have the required level of income).
The camera in the game has an extremely high degree of freedom. You can look each of the Tropicans almost in the eyes at any time.
Of course, a simulation with such scrupulousness of each inhabitant of the Tropico Archipelago requires a lot of your PC resources. In the corresponding settings there is even a slider that limits the number of wards. By default, two thousand, but to get even to these numbers, you have to try.
It is necessary to provide normal nutrition, healthcare, entertainment, housing, a sense of security. This is mainly done through buildings, but often the indicators can be adjusted by passing the appropriate law or changing the operating mode of the building.
Of course, you need to take care of the population in measured doses so that your economy doesn’t go down the drain. But don’t keep everyone “in a black body” by turning work into hard labor. Dissatisfied residents can simply leave the island through the nearest port as quickly as they arrived. Or even worse – run into the forest and become partisans attacking your buildings.
Politics Tropico
To prevent bloodshed and destruction, it is necessary to appease not only individual residents, but also political factions. In your “banana republic” there will be communists, monarchists, militarists, capitalists, and many others. Each faction, by the way, has a specific leader, by sending whom a suitcase with banknotes can temporarily increase the approval rate of the entire faction, which in turn will increase the approval of the Tropicans who are members of this faction.
The coolest (and least legal) tricks are available from a certain Broker for your personal savings in a Swiss bank. And you will also have to replenish this Swiss account by concluding transactions through a Broker.
However, bribery is more of an emergency measure, and a very costly one at that. It is much more profitable to simply fulfill the requests that one or another faction makes to you with enviable regularity. This could be the adoption of a law, the production or import of a certain product, the construction of a building. Interestingly, these tasks are quite random. A militarist general may ask for a batch of rum, and a Communist leader, say, a tavern. However, when constructing buildings you can receive a permanent bonus to relationships. And here everything already corresponds to the inclinations of the party. Believers rejoice in chapels, militarists in barracks and watchtowers.
However, factions are internal politics. https://aussie55casino.co.uk/ And there is also an external one – various countries and international blocs, which are represented by the ambassadors of the respective powers. They do not directly influence the population, but they offer lucrative trade contracts and other types of support. This is if the relationship with them is good, but if you quarrel, they will cut off your trade, or they will also launch an attack on something valuable from your infrastructure.
The main way to improve relations with foreign powers is also to fulfill requests. Which are also quite random. However, when it comes to trade, the ambassador will ask you to enter into an export or import contract with his country.
As in “real politics,” you will have to maneuver between the interests of different groups. And not only because they are often opposite. Some laws and contracts may be inherently unacceptable to certain ideologies or powers. But, on the other hand, the mentioned suitcases will always help make a politician friendlier.
Far Cry…6? Coincidence?
To protect against those with whom you failed to make friends, you need to build watchtowers, forts and other buildings, the garrison of which will resist enemies external and internal.
True, you won’t be able to control troops directly. Maximum – select one of the attacked buildings as priority. And then the garrisons will move forward first of all to protect it and only then to protect other buildings. Yes, in the event of a large-scale invasion or attack by several factions and powers, a fairly large number of buildings may immediately come under attack.
In peacetime, military buildings are also useful. Towers identify hidden rebels and criminals, and checkpoints can also collect tolls.
However, the most interesting opportunities are provided by buildings for “raids”. Depending on the era, you have access to: a pirate lair, a commando base, a spy academy and a cyber operations center. Moreover, each era adds a new building, and therefore new opportunities. Nowadays, your pirates may still be hunting for treasure, commandos will be wreaking havoc in neighboring countries (it helps to make your archipelago look more attractive to tourists and immigrants amid the surrounding devastation), and hackers will steal technology in order to avoid paying for blueprints and research.
Raids with the aim of stealing and bringing to Tropico some of the wonders of the world are a separate category. Stonehenge, for example, or the Eiffel Tower. Such attractions will increase the attractiveness for tourists, while at the same time giving you a certain global bonus. True, the corresponding operation requires longer preparation, and subsequently a batch of some resource, or some other maneuver to implement the plan. Looks like one of the developers replayed Evil Genius.
Your Presidency
In general, the tone of the game balances on the verge of malicious satire and cartoonishly crazy moments, such as the aforementioned theft of the Eiffel Tower and, for example, an order for rum as a requirement of the Militarist faction.
Leaders of factions and ambassadors of superpowers, by the way, are also made in the same satirical manner. Firstly, externally – the portraits look like typical cartoons, and it’s not difficult to guess who they painted from communist leader Marco Moreno or Russian ambassador Vlad Orlov. And secondly, as they say, internally – every request is always accompanied by some comment about the fact that one has to give bribes even to find out the size of the bribes or about self-sacrifice for the sake of the idea of self-sacrifice.
But in terms of “humor and resourcefulness,” your first adviser and faithful comrade throughout the entire company, Penultimo, is ahead of everyone else. A man of bright contrasts – gushing with crazy ideas, but at the same time giving practical advice both in the main plot and in additional tasks, more than once demonstrating contempt for the people and cowardice, but at the same time ready to take a bullet for his President.
Oh yes, in addition to the “sandbox”, the game has a storyline. Well, that is, how, the plot… the missions are rather loosely connected with each other, but they are all presented as “chapters” in the life of El Presidente. Starting from the “colonial era”, when he was appointed governor on one of the islands of the tropical archipelago.
Like many other maps, the first mission has more than one island and as the story progresses your protectorate expands. On one of the islands, the future Presidente finds gold mines, and on the other, Penultimo, who in turn comes up with a plan to transport gold inside coconuts, bypassing the representative of the Crown. By the way, you will really need to start collecting coconuts and switch the mines to “secret protocol” mode in order to organize smuggling.
But this is just the beginning. Then there will be a chapter dedicated to Prohibition, where you will have to catch the mafioso with one hand… and with the other cooperate with this mafioso, making profit from the rum trade. And an attempt to create an amusement park with animals from recovered DNA (however, things will not turn out exactly like in the famous film). And many, many more different adventures, about success (of course, success!) which old Penultimo will tell us.
I was very impressed by how the developers managed to intertwine story missions, satire and the gameplay itself, where you need to raise the economy, establish communications (when the map is divided into several islands, organizing effective transport links is not so easy) and maneuver between the demands of factions and superpowers.
Need more…tools
My main complaint with Tropico 6 is the lack of control and analysis capabilities. And if the first can still be justified by the fact that we have “indirect control” here, then the difficulties in figuring out the various “what”, “where” and “why” are a clear mistake of interface designers.
For example, when choosing the next import/export contract, you often have to switch several times between the available trade routes tab in the trade menu and the “resources” tab in the “Almanac”. What prevented me from writing among the details of the contract – how many resources do I have for export??
At the same time, the problems do not end after the conclusion of an export contract. After all, if you decide to export raw materials for which you have a processing plant, it is completely unknown where the carriers will take the next batch. It happened to me that nothing was exported for years until I simply put all processing on pause. This is the only way to guarantee that the goods will be transported for sale.
The same goes for resident satisfaction. The Almanac displays the “average value for the ward”, but it may well turn out that at first glance a normal level means high satisfaction at one end of the island and zeros at the other. Therefore, in order to find out who is dissatisfied with what, you will have to click a lot on the Tropicans and the tabs of their dossier.
And you will have to click, because the percentage of general approval tends to slide down to one due to the fact that someone did not have enough money for a drink or the rating of a faction having dropped by 5 points is now not enough to motivate voters. Well at least there are the above-mentioned suitcases. And a property qualification can be prescribed in the constitution – wealthy citizens are more likely to be satisfied. But again, it is problematic to calculate in advance how the next decree will affect the situation.
And last but not least, the lack of tools is felt in the Steam Workshop. In fact, all that is there are cards. And then they were made by a “generator”, and not in the map editor, which is not here. So don’t expect any original buildings, mods with scenarios, or any other content that seriously changes the gameplay of the game. A very serious omission against the background of the abundance of strategies where all this is available.
My experience with Tropico 6 led me to an interesting discovery. In fact, the genre of this game is immersive sim. Yes, exactly the genre where games like BioShock or Deus Ex are considered. The only difference is that the basis of those projects was a shooter, and here is an economic strategy. However, in both cases, the basic mechanics serve only as a means to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the game world. The goal of the whole process is to make you feel like El Presidente, living in a palace among coconut trees and every day making decisions about how to arrange his native island or an entire archipelago.
The game even features customization of your avatar. Clothing, accessories, appearance. You can even make El Presidente a woman if you decide to try on Queen Deidrana’s skirt. And you can see all this right in the game, for example, when you give a campaign speech or visit the theater. Moreover, even these actions are part of the gameplay – “going out” and the correct choice of points in the election program raises the level of approval.
Another thing is that for this very dive you will have to work hard. Otherwise, you will go broke, turn everyone and everything against you and end up like that same Deirdran. But if the talent of a manager (and manipulator) lies dormant in you, then the Tropico archipelago can truly become your paradise.