Some people say the game has been dumped down… their main argument seems to be that wages/rent can’t be freely adjusted anymore, e.g. you can’t pay your uneducated workers the same as/more then your doctors or that you can’t let the poor live in mansions. Hence, so they say, your are quite limited envisioning your very own Tropico (e.g. Worker’s Republic of Tropico).
(I have not played any Tropico since 1. Although I own 1-4. Have installed 4 now, but it seems a bit dated graphics- and interface-wise. I might a enjoy a more up-to-date version more.)
What would you say - how important is this sort of control to the game’s experience?
First off, I adore T4 and recommend it without reservation to everyone. Definitely give it a shot!
Honestly that fine-grained control over wages and rents and such is pretty immaterial 90%+ of the time in my experience (though, as a sandbox game, there are definitely many ways of playing the game that don’t follow my experience very closely). Sometimes boosting a wage can be helpful in nudging people to take one job over another, but closing job slots has been a much better tool to accomplish that goal in my experience. On paper, I can’t say that I will miss it if it’s ripped out entirely.
I didn’t get a chance to play with that much because I didn’t get very far. I had just put up my second factory and no clinics yet when I had to stop. There is something a little different about the buildings though that might play into wages a bit. There is a setting and a lot of those settings are locked behind era where you can adjust like how hard they work and stuff like that. It changes the cost of the building, the productivity so it might be in there.
When you start colonial, it’s a little harder to get to those later era’s and really toy with the edicts and building settings that are locked in later times.
I tried to find out. I truly did. I started a sandbox in the WWII era and built up the island. I tried angering the locals but even with 25% of the island homeless my approval was over 80%. So I baited the Axis into attacking me. I worked them until they hated me to get them to invade against my installation of military towers and bases. Instead of a fight, I simply got a “game over, you lose” screen. No invasion. No combat. How unsatisfying.
My impressions are that this is the same game repackaged again. Even the building sizes (clinic is 2x1, etc.) are of the same sizes. While there are plenty of things to build the game (in the few hours I devoted to it) seems to play almost exactly like 5. Which played almost exactly like 4. Which played almost exactly like 3. I get from this game the same feeling I get from the Total War series. If you love it, you will love this one because it it more of the same. If you are a more casual fan of the series you may find that you are a bit burnt out playing what is essentially the same game again (and again).
This releases March 29th. Anno 1800 releases April 16th. There is little doubt that I would rather hold my money for 3 more weeks in anticipation of the latter title. As for Tropico my current plan is to do what I did for 5 - wait for a discounted bundle with all the DLC to get a handful of enjoyable hours out of it before moving on to something better and forgetting it ever existed.
I finished the first scenario on Normal. At no point was I ever at risk for anything, not money, not loss of anything important. It is the first scenario so it’s not likely to have natural disasters or real armed conflict.
To raise wages you change the budget of the building, and it changes it by every building of the same type. The budget has some additional affects but raising it or lowering definitely changes the wages too.
Starting to sound like Tropico 4 can just be crowned the quintessential iteration of the franchise. If they’re not going to try anything new or find significant improvements, then I’ll be perfectly happy with that game forever.
I think if you enjoyed the latter versions of Tropico at all that this will also be enjoyable. It is a little different. You might have to tweak settings to make it a challenge. It’s hard to gauge with the very first scenario how hard the game will be. Tropico has often had some very difficult scenarios and cakewalks in there. I probably should have done a free map to get further, but I wanted to see how they did events and guidance in scenarios, and that’s fine.
I didn’t get to battles. I can’t say if they improved that, but to be honest the last ones didn’t bother me that much, so it wasn’t at the top of my list. Between the budgeting and improvements on buildings and edicts I think there is some flexibility, especially later with research and era stuff, even if you can’t actually click wages up and down independently. The building budget starts in the middle, two up and two low. In addition there are choices on how the building runs, often locked behind tech, and in addition to that there are upgrades you pay for.
The pirate thing is cute, and it looks like you can do the steal wonders things pretty early (I didn’t).
If you want more Tropico, this is Tropico. If you’re looking for the next level, like Tropico with a major twist… not seeing that. Stealing wonders does not make the familiar overlay maps, the cash crops, the industry vs tourism stuff any different.
If I did that starting scenario again, I would probably not just do Normal because it was too easy… but the point is I would play it again because I like Tropico. I kind of forget why 5 wasn’t as well received so I might not have focused on that as much.
If it’s like the others, if combat sucks hopefully we can buy our way out of it. Goldnuts (Coconuts hiding gold) is just another commodity and there is some smuggling with the pirates, maybe we’ll avoid that usually one scenario that is so combat heavy it can get maddening this time around. I mean if i can smuggle Goldnuts maybe I can just buy off a combative force.
There wasn’t but it didn’t have this smuggling, secret mine thing going on that 6 has. I have no idea how far they went with it. This is me just hoping. I’d rather smuggle Goldnuts and send out my pirates than a huge island battle.
It’s probably not a good idea to have such hopes since I don’t think they changed it that much, but they have to know the military heavy scenarios are probably the least liked scenarios by now.
I don’t remember ever zooming in and checking things out that closely. I feel like since Tropic 3, I’ve never really felt the Tropico series did much in advancing the graphics.
