Yep, seems like typical Tropico to me… Take the base of the older games and expand upon it in both a good and a bad way.
The additions and changes they are making with 6 look like they should be worth the price of admission for me, I always enjoy some Tropico. Not sure how I feel about some of the aspects of the game they are trying to play up and emphasize, they’re doubling down on the megalomania and El Presidente grandiosity a bit too much for my liking but I’ll roll with it. Personally, I play Tropico less for the now rather hammed-up El Presidente personality plus humour and more for the Caribbean-like setting, aesthetic and the unique blend of city-building/political gameplay it offers.
Though Tropico 5 was a bit one step forwards and two steps back with some of the changes they made, since they couldn’t just wholesale take 4’s content and build on it like 4 did with 3. While the concept of the eras and tech tree was a fun idea, realistically I felt that the game needed more content\variety in each era to execute it better. The building variety was certainly blander for it compared to 3\4 where some buildings like Tenements could have variety in their models and paint palettes. Meaning cities in 5 could look a lot more copy and paste then they might do in 3 & 4.
Despite the fact that Tropico 4 was in a lot of ways Tropico 3 but even grander/better, I think I love Tropico 3 the most out of the new Tropico games. Part of the reason for that would be that they changed some stuff in Tropico 4 which I liked about 3, such as El Presidente having negative traits (like alcoholic or compulsive gambler) that added some flavour your character. Felt like they really cut back on the actual character, in a thematic and RPG sense, by 5 where everything seemed like it was bland minor gameplay-related stats boost.