"...we're pushing very hard to complete the game, and a demo would cost us several days from our development schedule...with the very large projected demo size (130MB), it's likely most people [would] only get at the demo via [magazine demo CD's], which wouldn't come out until after we GM."

TP:  How did you get involved with Poptop?
GGS:  When I graduated I applied here (is the only big game company in St. Louis) and they gave me the job. Phil and I exchanged some emails one year ago before my graduation, but nothing came out of that. I remembered the company name and applied after I graduated.

TP:  What was your responsibility on the Tropico project?
GGS:  There were many responsibilities, I had programming duties along with some art duties too. In the programming I did the 3D model tools and the 3D model engine, (not the terrain, just the 3D lowpoly units) I programmed the clouds/weather system, the airports and planes game logic (not the ships) and the fish and bird logic. There is some other stuff I don't remember. In graphics, I made all the lowpoly 3D vehicles of the game, (boats, planes, fish, birds) and I also made the graphics of the clouds.

TP:  What is your favorite feature or aspect of Tropico? What features or aspects would you like to have refined a bit more?
GGS:  Overall the game feels and looks good. I don't know, heh, once you do something, you always find ways to do it better.

TP:  Not much has been said about the map editor. Could you describe the editor for us? Will it be as deep and involved as the editor in Railroad Tycoon 2?
GGS:  The map editor will be an expanded version of the RT2 map editor. It's built in the game and no need for external programs.

TP:  Are the characters of Tropico all programmed to behave a certain way or will they sometimes surprise you with random actions?
GGS:  In some ways, yes.

TP:  How difficult will the game be? What determines the difficulty level?
GGS:  There are several difficulty settings, including economical and political 'easy modes,' along with the initial character settings.

TP:  Can you describe how establishing the dictator profile at the beginning of the game will affect gameplay?
GGS:  It's important, but not determining. Your style will determine the final outcome of the game.

TP:   What are the various factions and what determines which characters belong to which factions? How do factions come into gameplay?
GGS:  Factions are important. You will want them all to be happy, and its a difficult task!! If factions aren't happy, they can start an uprising.

TP:   My understanding is that the demo could be released this week. Do you know what the demo will include? Will there be a playable scenario?
GGS:  It will be time limited, without the movies/music and some of the features/graphics removed.

TP:   What does the future have in store for the Poptop? Any discussions of your next project?
GGS:  We haven't decided yet, we have couple of ideas in mind, but at this point nothing is for sure. It all depends how we stand after Tropico is done. :)

Every character has a walk, run, protest, die, fidget, and "attack" animation. The Attack is a rock-throw for most people, but is a shooting animation for soldiers, rebels, generals and policemen. On top of those, a lot of characters have work cycles. For example, you see the teamster push his wheelbarrow and the farmer hoe and pick. The policeman's work cycles include a baton-hit and a special lead-back-to-jail walk. The characters who work indoors do not get work cycles, though. Bankers, engineers, etc. In those cases, they only get the standard six mentioned above. For the tourists, the work cycles are ones like sunbathing.

According to Phil Steinmeyer, Poptop has placed heavy emphasis on making Tropico's vegetation great looking, with widely varied, realistic trees and plants. Their stated goal at the beginning of the Tropico project was to have better-looking environments than Age of Empires II.

In Tropico, there are five species of wild trees, 14 species of shrubs and small trees, four farm raised trees (i.e. banana, coconut), and four farm crops (i.e. tobacco, sugar cane, corn). Counting multiple versions of each full-sized plant, there are over 50 plants.

Trees not only look realistic, but they behave realistically. They grow and sometimes die. In places where other plants have died, new plants sprout up. Tropico's crops grow through five or more stages, ultimately reaching a ripe, harvestable state. If your farmers don't harvest the crops, then the crops die and your people go hungry.

Trees also regrow naturally. A successful logging camp in the middle of a forest will eventually be a less successful logging camp in the middle of a vast field of tree stumps. Over time, new trees will regrow, faster if you take certain pro-environment steps. Nonetheless, you should probably keep your lumberjacks away from your nature preserves.

Plant growth isn't random. Plants respond to a number of factors, mostly related to rainfall, drainage and soil quality. The fluffy clouds that you see in Tropico screenshots drop actual rain, which runs downhill from where it lands, either reaching the ocean or settling into a low lying bowl shaped swamp.

Some plants demand fertile soil to grow well (tobacco), others care less about soil and more about proper elevation and drainage (coffee). While most plants tolerate swampy conditions poorly, sugar cane thrives in wet, marshy areas. Even relative position on your island plays into things - the windward side of your island (the side the weather first strikes as it is blowing in), gets significantly more rainfall than its opposite, leeward side. Crops demanding heavy rainfall grow best on the windward side. Dryer crops such as corn, and rain-avoiding tourists prefer the leeward side.

Farms must be placed in areas with fertile soil, good rainfall, appropriate elevation and close proximity to existing towns, so that food may be grown and the population fed. There are map overlays that show the best spots for the different crops, and an auto-crop setting for the farms, where the AI figures out the best crop based on location.

We got a big chunk of the game's music in - we've got an awesome musician doing it - he had some top 40 hits in South America - I don't want to give the full info on him yet, because I think the p.r. agency is gonna do something with that info in a couple weeks.

The political model in the game is pretty much in now, and reasonably balanced. I started tinkering with it earlier this week - first it was too hard - 2 coups and 3 uprisings in 20 years, and I was actually doing a decent job running the island. I've got it toned down now and it's really cool.

Finally, the game's entering regular testing. I got a bug report from Take 2 - London two days ago - 150 bugs - yikes! A lot of them were trivial (typos and stuff), and some others we had already fixed. Still, we've got our work cut out for us.

We're scheduled to master in English on March 28. Street date is likely late April, early May. (It may be held up by a week or two for worldwide simultaneous release).

There were a couple of things about the game that amused me. First, they've changed the prostitute into a showgirl and the brothel into a cabaret. These are cosmetic changes only, though. The same kind of monkey business still goes on between the showgirls and their customers. So I was sitting there watching one of the artists test the idle fidget animations for the characters. Too much fidgeting? Not enough? That sort of thing. So I asked the artist to show me the showgirls, and he builds a cabaret. I got to see the showgirls walking around looking seductive, which was fun. Now, we obviously won't get to see them plying their trade, but Tropico does let you check a business to see just who's there engaging in commerce. So the artist decided to see who the showgirls have as customers. The first customer, it turns out, was a priest! That was pretty funny. I mentioned this to designer Phil Steinmeyer and he laughed and said he changed the code so that priests were less likely to avail themselves of the showgirls' special talents, but he wondered if he flipped the numbers the wrong way. That's what testing is for, I guess. Oh, and when the game was demonstrated to German distributors in Europe, the same thing happened, and the Germans were quite amused. They loved it!