Data Management

Banana Republic to The Gap

Tropico gives you a lot of choices for your economy. You can keep it agriculture-based and sell coffee and sugar, turn your country into a tourist trap, or become a real economic powerhouse exporting canned goods and cigars. Of course the best strategy is to mix things up so your economy doesn't rely on one market, and luckily Tropico gives you that option. Choices=good.

Tropico is also a lesson in economics. You'll definitely learn a thing or two about managing money. For example, you'll see that it takes years to see a return on your investment but when you do it's well worth it. Building two tobacco farms and a cigar factory will suck about $20,000 out of your bank account before it makes any revenue at all. But if you wait a few years the same factory will generate $40-50,000 net profit per year or more. The same logic applies for non-revenue producing buildings like hospitals, churches, schools, etc. You can't quantify the money they make you, but they boost the level of your economy with happier and more productive citizens. It's great to see a game that builds these aspects of economics into the basic gameplay.

Big pimpin'

An average city

Management by clicking around

Data management in Tropico is fantastic - so good that all Sim games should take lessons from PopTop. First off there are a ton of overlays, one for just about everything you can think of. You can the best area to grow each crop, how attractive the tourist areas are, the state of the environment, your economy; the list goes on and on. Building statistics are available when you click on them. You can see if a building isn't cutting it by looking at the monthly and to-date profit margins. Trends are long-term as well, and sometimes you can play through 25 years only to realize your pineapple-based economy really isn't working.

The Almanac of Tropico is another boundless source of information. You'll find graphs of everything of relevance in the game, from net income to how many college educated citizens you have. It's a great tool to see what needs improvemejnt in your country. Once I had a really slow flow of income, and I couldn't figure out why. I checked through the almanac and I found that I only had five teamsters - the cargo wasn't getting to the docks. I build two more Teamster's Offices and the money started rolling in. Tropico excels in feeding the player information.

Your people are dumb

Wish I made that kind of money

Overall Tropico is a challenging game with a steep learning curve. All of the gameplay points I've mentioned are constantly going on at the same time. You need to worry about keeping your citizens happy, building up your economy, keeping political parties happy, keeping tourists happy, making sure you stay in office, planning building and road layouts, and stashing a little cash away for your retirement. It can become overwhelming at times. These brief periods are overshadowed by long periods of enjoyment from running your own country. It may take a while to get the hang of it, but it's worth it in the end.