Tropico 5

[The Useless Member]

Hola my companeros. This is your presidente bringing a game review about me.

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Tropico 5

Performance:

core i7 3700K @ 4.00 GHz
8 GBs/RAM
AMD 7870 2 GBs
Windows 7 Home Premium
Directx 11

Despite what many are saying, the game ran great with zero technical issues. With settings maxed, the game ran fluidly and smoothly with zero frame issues.

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First Impressions:

As with Tropico 4, when I launched the game, I was asked to put in the information to my Kalypso account. Surprisingly, this is not mandatory and playing the game without this is completely fine. Because I already have Tropico 4, I already have an account; therefore, I put my info in and launched it. Like most games, I am greeted with cut scenes, though I skip them. Once they are skipped, the game truly loads, which is fairly quick. Once in the menu, I click sandbox, the game mode I spent most time in with Tropico 4. While all of this is happening, in the background, I am greeted with the traditional Latin-like jazz I am accustomed to in Tropico 5, but more on the music later. Once I go through the dynastic creator and game setup, I am finally in the game.

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Basic Overview:

Tropico, like its predecessors, follows the story of a power-hungry and spontaneous dictator, referred to by his people as El Presidente. The player is set on a tiny fictional island in the Caribbean. Unlike the previous Tropicos, there are different distinct eras, colonial era being the default and earliest starting era. Each era brings a certain set of different challenges, rewards, characters, enemies, friends, and buildings and each is fairly different from the other. Along the way, the player will encounter factions upholding a certain collection of beliefs wanting certain things to be done, which changes each era. El Presidente not only faces the challenges of appeasing certain factions, keeping foreign powers happy, and keeping his people under control, but he also must defend himself during times of social upheaval. Once conditions get worse enough for a certain group of people, they will rise up in rebellion against El Presidente forcing El Presidente to use military action. If El Presidente loses all of his defensive structures and soldiers, the enemy will burn down his palace marking the end of power for El Presidente and the end of the game for the player.

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Dynasty:

Before the player is allowed to start the game, it is required to create a dynasty member. The player may choose from a limited number of customization options which basically includes outfit, outfit colors, a small number of faces, race, gender, and skill, which brings certain perks and advantages when this dynasty member is in power. throughout the game, there are options to either adopt a new dynasty member or the occurrence of one born from an unexpected pregnancy. Once a new dynasty member is discovered, the player may customize them and give them a skill from a limited list depending on how they came to be in the dynasty. Any member can be El Presidente, with an election and every dynasty member can be seen on the map with generic dialogue and customization. Although only one dynasty member can be El Presidente, each has a purpose in Tropico. Dynasty members can be used as managers in buildings offering bonuses depending on his or her trait. During events with consequences depending on the player's decisions, the dynasty member can act as a negotiator bringing good or bad effects, once even defecting to United States alcohol crime lords during prohibition. Behind every dynasty, there is a hidden Swiss bank account, and Tropico 5's dynasty mechanic has it. Swiss Bank money can be obtained through missions, edicts giving a percentage of money spent on buildings, and just plain corruption. With El Presidente's hidden wealth, he is able to improve his dynasty members' traits allowing a stronger effect. Although this is a good attempt at making Swiss Bank money useful, I still don't see the point of it and I personally cannot see this as a driving force in the game.

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Eras:

A new feature was introduced in this sequel: Eras. The game, by default starts in the colonial era being a colony to an undefined European country during the New Imperial Era. During the colonial era, buildings are limited to the extraction of raw resources. In the colonial era, there is no revolution against El Presidente, only the crown. To get independence, El Presidente must get the revolutionary's approval above 50%, which takes some time to do. At the same time, El Presidente must keep his mandate up, the amount of time he has left to rule over the colony. If mandate runs out, the game is over because power is lost. The era ends when independence is gained. Independence can be gained through force, or El Presidente can pay the crown 20,000 dollars in bonds. Once the colonial era is over, the turbulent world war era is reached. This era begins in the mid 1910's and ends once a treaty with both parties is signed. An alliance with one or the other is a fairly good idea. If no alliance is proclaimed, then El Presidente can be invaded by both. Economically, the era unlocks advanced industry and opens up more factions. Once a treaty with both parties is signed, the Cold War era begins. During this time, the two superpowers are the United States and the USSR. One of the fun things about this game is the creation of nuclear bombs and exportation of uranium, a resource both superpowers want. Finally, there is the modern era. During the modern era, cool and "futuristic" buildings. This is probably the most fun era when it comes to diplomacy. With diplomacy, this is like Tropico 4 with the Middle East, Russia, the United States, the EU, and China all wanting certain things. During each era, certain technologies are unlocked. Technologies can be researched by building certain buildings. As expected, technologies unlock certain edicts the player can issue and certain buildings. Because each era is reached by doing a certain action, it is possible to enter another era without researching all technologies from that era or it is possible for the player to research all the technologies from that era before reaching the next.

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Economy:

Like Tropico 4, at the start of the game, the main source of income for El Presidente's micronation is exports. Exploiting El Presidente's island is crucial to a successful game as it is resource rich and provides wealth and prosperity not only to its inhabitants, but most importantly to El Presidente. Without exploiting the island's rich soil, its seas filled with a plentiful amount of fish, and its rich minerals, El Presidente is unlikely to succeed resulting in his island being buried in debt never able to get out. In the early stages of the game, the main source of income will be crops, whether they are cash crops or food crops. Because the main residential building the player will be building is the country house, the people will not need food because they can grow it themselves. Because of this, El Presidente can save all of his crops for export. Each era opens new opportunities for incomes. During the early stages of the game, the main focus is the exploitation of raw resources such as mining, crops, and woodcutting. In the colonial era, no resources except for wood, which can be made into logs, can be refined and sold for a higher price. Once the World War era is reached, the player gets to opportunity to build advanced industry increasing the income for El Presidente and gives the chance for a stronger and more prosperous economy. Although expensive and requiring an educated workforce, they easily pay off in exports because they are refined. During the cold war era, the mining of uranium and exploitation of oil is unlocked, which El Presidente's island is bound to have a bulk of. As expected, the Uranium may pose problems or benefits on the global stage. The United States or Russia, the two superpowers during this era, may ask the player to export some or stop the mining of the valuable resource. With the opening of the Cold War era, El Presidente is able to exploit his island in another way: naive foreigners wanted to take a trip to his island. Once an accommodation allowing tourists to visit the island (a hotel) is built, there is a chance tourists will arrive each month. Tourists provide wealth from the places they are staying at and entertainment facilities around the island. Because tourists can use the same facilities native Tropicans can, there is an option to allow tourists only in a building. Tourists do not like heavily polluted areas and favor areas with high beauty. Because of these ridiculous demands, El Presidente must strategically plan where he wants to put his tourist area. Once the Cold War era comes to a close, the option to build office buildings is open. Office buildings provide a large amount of wealth, but I still personally prefer relying on industry for income. How well a building works and how much its workers are paid it determined by the building budget. Unlike Tropico 4, it is unfortunately impossible to directly determine the people's wages. Their wages are instead determined in the budget manager. The budget manager manages the workers' wages while also paying for the upkeep for the building and the cost to use its services. The higher the wages, the better a building the works.

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People:

Just like in real life, El Presidente has to satisfy a lot of irrational people. Whether it be the religious faction, the environmentalist, or communists, El Presidente has to satisfy them all. Throughout Tropico 5, the factions, a group of citizens which uphold a certain group of ideas, changes throughout each era. Generally, no matter in what era, if El Presidente satisfies one faction, he will usually upset another. One of the best examples of this is the industrialists against the environmentalists. If El Presidente does not want to satisfy the faction the hard way, he can bribe the factions' leaders resulting in a respect boost. With this respect bonus, problems are less likely to happen with more citizens agreeing with El Presidente meaning less social issues. Overall, factions are fairly simple, but choosing which faction to support can cause a dilemma. One thing I have noticed throughout the game compared to Tropico 4 is the player getting missions or demands from certain factions more; furthermore, this seems to also be true when it comes to foreign powers. Communists seem like they are always the ones wanting things the most, along with environmentalists and capitalists while I hear or get almost no notice from other factions in the form of missions. They're in the game's ledger showing their support for me, but I get little to no missions from them. Although pure fluff, I do really miss the spokespersons/representatives from domestic factions and foreign power. Such examples of this was when I would get a mission from the Americans in Tropico 4 always wanting influence or money from me with its representative having the stereotypical American voice with cliched dialogue, or when it came to the environmentalist's faction leader being named Sunny Flowers. (or something like that; I cannot remember) There are still some of the hilarious stereotypes, but they are far less prevalent. One spokesperson for three factions, named Evita Vasquez is the representative for the communists, the environmentalists, and the the revolutionaries. (revolutionaries only being in the colonial era) When she is one of her alter egos, she sometimes demands unreasonable demands with one of the funniest being when she demanded more liberty happiness from her communist ego, which seems a little strange and irrelevant. El Presidente must try to keep every faction happy, but some are just background numbers in the ledger while some like the communists are more interactive. One of my favorite characters is El Presidente's trusty assistant, Penultimo. He is a faithful friend to El Presidente leading the team who researches technology and telling El Presidente when something is wrong.

El Presidente's citizens irrationally require jobs, happiness, housing, and sometimes education. El Presidente's citizens are grouped together into families. All families have an amount of wealth allowing them to get better housing, food, and entertainment. If they have none of this, they can be unhappy and eventually rebel. Food amount is probably the most important because if it's not a top priority, dozens of people can die from starvation, like what happened in my first game. Healthcare is also a high priority for the same reason: people can die if there isn't any. Other less important things are religion, housing, and jobs. If a Tropicans do not have a job, they get no money meaning they cannot buy a living quarter meaning they get unhappy. Citizen management is fairly self-explanatory; however, it can be very expensive. I personally do feel employment is a bit bugged though with some citizens refusing to work at times.

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Military:

Those those who buy this game, they should not expect any real military control. The player cannot directly control soldiers; they are auto managed El Presidente starts off with his own personal body guard working at his palace. They are armed with muskets. In the colonial era, El Presidente can build a military fort and guard towers. Once built, those who work at these buildings are soldiers. Soldier have a military loyalty modifier. If loyalty is too low, they may create a coup causing El Presidente's rule to be challenged. Disloyalty can be cause by a number of factors from low pay, or to overall happiness. Unlike in Tropico 4, there are actual invasions. Before, if El Presidente was invaded by a foreign power, he would instantly lose the game. This is no more. The player can expect at least 2 invasions throughout the entire game causing a need for military presence.

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The Bottom Line:

Although I still get the feeling of Tropico still being a laid back game, it seems more challenging than Tropico 4 in a lot of ways. From my games, I never got to the point where I had an unlimited amount of money; I always had something to spend it on. During one game, I even lost in the modern era to a coup because my soldiers were unhappy.
Overall, Tropico 5 is a relaxing and fun game filled with humor, a great soundtrack, good and colorful graphics, and can still be challenging at the same time. I personally recommend it to new Tropico players and veterans alike possessing little to no learning curve. Some negative aspects to the game is that I felt there were not enough buildings; however, I am sure this will be fixed with those annoying and overpriced micro-DLC's Kalypso likes so much to release. Speaking of this, the game lengths are very very long compared to Tropico 4. One problem I had was me abandoning games halfway through because I was either bored or I did not like how my town was turning out. Overall, release seemed stable. I give it a...

8/10

[Sir Adrian]

Added

[tbird166]

This game really presents no challenge in my mind.