Tropico 6 - Make El Presidente great again

So it’s not Haemimont making it this time, it’s Limbic Entertainment. It looks like they’re taking the gameplay in a new direction and not just iterating a bit more on the old formula.

I just wish the name Tropico wasn’t being used for this. Stealing the Statue of Liberty is great, but that belongs in Evil Genius 2, not Tropico 6.

The first one might have been serious, but 3, 4 an 5 have been, as the article said, tongue and cheek and ridiculous. Stealing the statue fits right in with that. I do hope those kind of quests or interruptions are minimal.

I like the idea of dealing with a group of islands though.

Yeah, I’m down with them going a little over the top with stuff if it means the franchise goes somewhere a little new. I do wonder, however, if we should be nervous about losing Haemimont and the beautiful road-placement system in their engine. That is an underrated piece of technology, there.

[quote]
The mention of hackers perked up my ears, as I live in a nation enduring its own comically incompetent dictatorial simulation, abetted by a foreign power’s information warfare. I asked Tosta, does Tropico 6 directly reference current events?

He demurred. “The Tropico series has always been satire of political events,” Tosta said. “There’s always a bit of inspiration when it comes to the topics we have, or the inspiration for a gag, or a funny side story. Right now we’re living in times where there’s a lot of stuff available for us to make satire of. It’s not that we said, specifically, ‘There was an intelligence scandal, and we need to build a gameplay mechanic around it.’ It’s rather that we have a gameplay mechanic, and gameplay is king in Tropico, and we have a way to give it some character.”[/quote]

But what grabbed my attention in our conversation about the new game is when Tosta admitted how easy it was to appease all of the factions in Tropico 5

Finally! This is what I miss most from the original. In the Haemimont games I never felt like I was under any real pressure to meet the demands of my citizens.

If anyone understands French here and wants a funny Tropico video, there this:

Looks like you’re in luck![quote]Ever since Evil Genius came under the Rebellion roof, we’ve always believed that Elixir’s beloved real-time, lair-management and world-domination simulation deserved a follow-up. We’d like to make this super-duper clear – this isn’t a remaster. Evil Genius 2 will be a fully-fledged sequel and it won’t be free-to-play. Our focus currently is on a PC release, but as ever we’ll look at other platforms and see what fits and what doesn’t.

THE STATE OF PLAY

Now, before you get too excited and start furiously drawing up your blueprints for a Gravity Disruptor 2.0, development only began this Spring and is still at a very, very early stage. We’re currently fleshing out the tech that will make Evil Genius 2 a reality. This will be the first real-time strategy game built in our in-house engine Asura, after all, so we need to do a little bit of extra work under the hood before we expand the team, nail down gameplay design and go into full production.[/quote]

Who are they going to sue to fund development though?

Nice! Now instead of complaining that nobody is making Evil Genius 2, I can complain that it’s a different developer and I don’t trust them to be true to the original. It’s a major upgrade for my whining.

But seriously, I know it’s going to take a lot of money to make a sequel, so I’m glad somebody is willing to take that risk.

I am quite happy someone is making Evil Genius 2. My only wish is to make it so that traps can’t be easily spotted by enemy agents and that your minion NPCs will never trigger traps. I came to the conclusion in EG1 that traps were FAR more harmful to yourself than to the enemy. Eventually I only made entire corridors of locked doors which did a much better job of protecting my base then any trap did.

This looks pretty good, if they can pull it off.

This game always floats the is it too much like the old game and not enough new line… I did like some of what I saw at the end.

Yeah, the individual actions against different citizens looks interesting. Did Tropico 5 have little plot-lines and quests and such, moving beyond a Simcity-esque approach? I missed that installment.

5 had quests, maybe 4 too, I mix those too a lot. There were quests/missions/goals short-term too in one or both of them. I know you could jail and assassinate on an individual person by person basis, even re-educate them. It seems like they might be building on that though. Tunnels would be new. The looting, stealing is new. The buses and the other transport options are new… so some of the game looks like the same ole but other looks new or building on an old theme.

I am pretty sure 4 didn’t, so I am glad I skipped an installment. This looks much more interesting now than it did. I was bored with a simple world-building mechanic.

You’re probably better off. I was fine with more of the same and now with MP! But really those two felt too close to the same. 6 might feel even newer for you as a result. I do remember sending someone who was running against me in jail for some re-education after he lost… and I may have sent the military to take car of one who as about to win.

The trans improvements and tunnels seem great to me.

4 is fantastic. 5 is garbage if you, like me, can’t get past the horrific army mechanic that you’re forced to engage with over and over. I’d love for 6 to be good, but I’m definitely waiting to see.

I would say 4 is just as bad as 5 when it comes to combat, but 5 forces you to like… do it.

Oh for sure, the combat is super dumb in 4. But you can pretty much build a couple army bases and get on with your life. 5 really grinds your face in the awfulness until you have to restart entire scenarios because you didn’t plan for the scripted piles of enemies to teleport onto your island at whatever timestamp.