Tropico 4 [split topic]

[Bored of Canada]

If you're after a good City Building game, I recommend Tropico 4. I played it a long while ago and really enjoyed it, but it was during a really busy period of my life and I just sort of forgot about it. Saw it pop up on the Steam Sales and remembered I owned it and have played shitloads of it today.

I really love city-building games and the new Sim City seemed a bit flawed, this does a lot of the things that Sim City tried to do, like showing everything that is being simulated. Except it works.

It's got fairly heavy themes, where you're setting up a Banana republic, and you can play it like a complete fascist dictator, but it's all got a  dark, silly sense of humour about everything. It's all very tongue in cheek and wry about everything, like an old Bullfrog game or Evil Genius or something.

And it still looks quite nice. It's all bright and colourful, with all this great upbeat samba music going on. Constantly play with a big dumb grin on my face, dancing in my chair.

I really like it. Always forget how much I enjoy city-building/management games until I get into a good one. 

[Bored of Canada]

It IS 66% off on Steam. Hence why I was recommending it and explaining why it IS a bargain. I was entirely on topic, matey.

You know who else ghettoised people for pointing out bargains in discussions of bargains?

The Nazis.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I've always thought of playing Tropico but never got around to it. I guess I have no excuse at all...

[Bored of Canada]

I've always thought of playing Tropico but never got around to it. I guess I have no excuse at all...

Yeah they're selling the big definitive edition thing there, with all the DLCs. I've not played them and they look fairly small and slightly more cosmetic. I've heard the Modern Times one is slightly more of a substantial one, where among other things, you can build the Great Firewall of China and stop your citizens from getting access to social media and the outside world. And it literally blocks the Twitter features it has in game, which is a cute touch.

Point is though. If you're on the fence, you can just pick up the normal edition for a bit cheaper. That's all I've got and I'm having a lot of fun with it. But just depends on if you enjoy these Sim City type games. For the moment, I think this is the best modern one available.

[Zetetic]

Does it have any challenge to it? The biggest criticism I've heard is that 3 and 4 present no real difficulties to the player, even in comparison to the first game.

[Zetetic]

I've always thought of playing Tropico but never got around to it. I guess I have no excuse at all...

AND THEN YOU CAN PLAY HIDDEN AGENDA, PERHAPS.

[Bored of Canada]

Does it have any challenge to it? The biggest criticism I've heard is that 3 and 4 present no real difficulties to the player, even in comparison to the first game.

I believe so. The campaign seems to throw you into scenarios where you have to focus on certain parameters and they get progressively more and more difficult. I did one today where you're thrown into an island with no natural resources, so you have to focus purely on managing the needs of a society whilst also focusing on importing and exporting the right commodities. Like, bringing in coffee from China whilst it's cheap to can it and send of too America and such, or Iron to turn into guns to send to the Middle East, which greatly upsets the US and USSR. Barely avoided a full scale invasion from the Russians after pissing them off a little too much.

So far it's the right mix of stress and "I've got this if I can just do this." Challenging without grinding you into the dirt. And if happiness just plummets completely and things start fucking up, you can get back on track by changing your tactics and just turn it into a police state. As opposed to just being so fucked that you have to restart.

So basically, yes, it does get challenging as you go. I'm only uo to the sixth mission of 20 and it's setting me up on an island with constant rebel attacks that I need to sort out.

Oh. There's also constant disasters too that can ruin your day. Volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts. Etc.

So yeah, it's not that easy. You need to be thinking and multitasking.

[hoverdonkey]

tempted...