Originally published on Computer Games Online

Pineapples and coups d’etat? Perhaps it should be no surprise that a company founded by an avowed "Parrot Head" and named after a line in a Jimmy Buffet song would eventually get around to making a game with a light-hearted, Caribbean theme. Still, after the success of PopTop Software’s Railroad Tycoon 2, forgive us if we expected their next game to feature planes or trains again, or perhaps even automobiles. Instead we get Tropico, a game of tongue-in-cheek Latin American politics. When compared to the gaming "Clone Wars" to which we’ve been subjected over the last few years, Tropico, slated for a fourth-quarter release, seems as refreshing as a light breeze on a tropical beach.

So what kind of game is Tropico? According to PopTop’s founder and President Phil Steinmeyer, "You're a Fidel Castro-style ruler, trying to build up your Caribbean island, keep your people happy, and stay in power. Tropico is ultimately a game about people. Most strategy games are either about money (i.e. Railroad Tycoon II), things (SimCity), or conquest (just about everything else). Tropico is about exercising influence on people, to make them happy, or failing that, to repress them and/or otherwise keep them from tossing you out of office."

As the newly installed dictator of a mythical Caribbean island, your difficult and fascinating task is to lift your tiny nation out of poverty and civil unrest. Want to restore democracy? Go ahead, but keep your people happy or they will vote you out. Want to rule with the strong hand of the army? Achtung, baby, but the Church will be your enemy and the peasants may revolt. Whatever you decide, keep funneling some money into that Swiss bank account in case you need to take an extended vacation abroad.

Tropico promises to be a unique game, one that combines the building you see in titles such as SimCity and Railroad Tycoon 2 with a light-hearted infusion of Latin American politics. You will have to pacify various internal and external (US or Soviet) political factions. You will have an army, but Tropico is not a game of military conquest -- the army is there to enforce your rule and root out those pesky rebels in the jungle -- or have your head on a bayonet if they are displeased enough to attempt a coup d’etat.

There’s even a dash of The Sims in this game, as your citizens will each have their own psychological profile and motivations. These are individuals going about their daily business, like the teamster hauling crops to an exports dock or the mom at home watching the kids. "They have homes, jobs, and identities," Steinmeyer explains. "Just like us, they like being safe, well-fed, employed, and spiritually enriched."

Tropico also promises to be very easy to get into—almost all of your activity as a player is limited to building things—but difficult to master. Plan and build well, and your people will prosper. Plan poorly, and you’d better hope the Army is on your side.

Havana Daydreamin’

PopTop’s offices are located in a suburb of St. Louis in a rather drab industrial complex—no Ion Storm-ish luxury appointments here. In this small facility, across the highway from a Chrysler assembly plant, PopTop has slowly grown from one employee (Steinmeyer) to 10. Given that Tropico is a strategy game, which up until recently meant you could expect it to take a back seat to other titles in the eye-candy department, I was a bit surprised when I saw the game up and running—it’s simply beautiful. It’s a rare Caribbean flower blooming in the industrial Midwest.

"Technically and artistically, the game is far more ambitious than Railroad Tycoon 2—about 4 times as much art, all constructed in 3D, targeted for very high resolution output," says Steinmeyer. Tropico is built on a modified version of the Railroad Tycoon 2 engine, but looks significantly better. It will include a generous amount of ambient animation, such as clouds floating by, people in their daily lives, wildlife, and trees swaying in the breeze.

The artwork has a real Latin American flavor too, as artist Steve Mohesky explains. "Most buildings will show the cumulative effect of poverty, aging and decaying that occurred in Cuba in the 1950's. Paint peels, walls are chipped and cracked, roofs sag. The exception will be the areas of tourism and Government. These areas will have a more maintained look—the feeling of poverty and neglect won’t be so apparent."

When starting a game, you’ll be able to choose between a randomly generated island or a variety of pre-designed scenarios. Tropico will allow you to zoom in one level closer than you could in Railroad Tycoon 2, allowing for quite a bit of detail to be displayed. You can also zoom out and see the entire island, which should be quite helpful to any "hands on" dictator. You can even see how the mountainous terrain affects weather patterns, which will help you plan farms and other construction.

Tropico will be playable at resolutions up to 1600x1280, and in a nifty design move by PopTop, the interface will scale with the resolution. If you play at 1600x1280, the buttons and interface will be the same size as they would be if you were playing at 640x480. The only difference will be a more detailed, artistic look for the interface at higher resolutions.

Spending Money

Tropico is first and foremost a game of building. You’ll be able to build over 100 structures, such as hotels, golf courses, banks, universities, apartment buildings, casinos, and more. Build mines and then decide whether to export the raw minerals or build a factory to refine them to sell for even more money. Build tourist attractions and attempt to lure the heavy hitters from the US to your tropical paradise to spend their Yanqui dollars. Just be sure to keep your own people happy. The last thing you want is for your impoverished citizens to turn to a life of crime and rob the touristas—they’ll return home and badmouth your island, causing the tourist trade to plummet.

"Players interact with the world primarily by building," Steinmeyer says. "The player has no direct control over the people of the island, but they will respond to what you build. Build a mansion and a needed doctor might move in. Build a mine near an ore deposit and untrained workers will become miners and work the mine. If there are rebels in the hills, build a military outpost nearby and the soldiers will patrol and hopefully eliminate the rebels." Indeed. In the pre-alpha version we saw, Steinmeyer built a mine and unemployed workers drifted over to become miners. After a few minutes of busy ore production, a fat and sweaty teamster came over and hauled it away. Tropico promises to be one of those games that will have you gawking from time to time, fascinated at what your island population is up to.

Steinmeyer also believes that his game will be more detailed, both in structure and graphics, than any other builder he is aware of. "It's sort of like SimCity done at a tighter scale, where each building matters. This style of game has been popular in Europe for years (the Settlers series, 1602 A.D.), but because of poor marketing, and sometimes dated graphics, the European hit games haven't succeeded here. Tropico will have state-of-the-art graphics and great gameplay, and hopefully should introduce a lot of American gamers to people-oriented builders."

Tropico is a title what will ask you three basic questions: What do you build? When do you build it? And where do you place the building? There are numerous checks and balances in the game, but the main constraint is money. "You start off with some basic income," explains Steinmeyer. "You might have a minimal tourist trade and maybe some foreign aid coming in. But you’ll have to build up your island’s economy to expand your income."

So what do you build? Your people need housing, so that’s always a good start. But what about commerce? You’ll need an industrial base to keep your people employed. Food? Better build some farms. Maybe you could boost your tourist industry by building a luxury hotel? You’ll need ports to export your goods. Tropico promises to be a classic strategy game of benefits and tradeoffs, and each fledgling dictator will have to fine-tune the decision-making process based on situation and leadership style.

When do you build it? If your crime rate is high, it’s probably a good idea to wait on expanding your tourist trade. By the same token, if civil unrest is high, one solution is to build a secret police headquarters. Building a tobacco farm might be a good way to generate some cash, but your people can’t eat cigars. Maybe corn would be a better idea.

Where do you build? Now this might be the most subtle aspect of Tropico. As Steinmeyer explains, "Buildings affect the environment in two ways. First, people will interact with a building consistent with its function. If you build a factory, people will go there to work. If you build a pub, they will go there for entertainment. That’s all easy and intuitive to understand.

"Second, each building has an ‘aura’ associated with it that emanates outward. We’re currently planning on six types of auras that a building might have, each of which can have an impact on the island and the people. The auras we’re planning on using are crime, tourist appeal, residential appeal, governmental respect, governmental repression, and pollution." He noted that a building like a brothel might have both tourist appeal and crime associated with it.

The only structures your people will build on their own are shanties, if they have nowhere else to live. You can bet that their happiness levels will drop if you fail to provide adequate housing and force them to live in lean-tos.

After you build, many structures can be modified in ways that will affect your population. For example, after you build an airport you have an option to set a terminal fee. If you do so, the airport will generate more money. However, your tourism trade will take a hit—tourists like bargains. You can build a gourmet restaurant and then turn it into a wine club. This will boost the morale of the rich (an important faction to pacify) and make them like you better. If you allow a Longshoreman’s Union at your port, your port workers will be more expensive, but you will receive a boost in export monies. PopTop is planning on including a wide and diverse collection of building choices for you to explore.

Rancho Deluxe

The resource tree in Tropico is simple; it consists of money and people. You need money to build new structures (you can’t build on credit) and you need people to work in the structures you build.

Beyond that, you’ll need to take advantage of natural and agricultural resources. Your island paradise will support a variety of crops, some suitable for food and some (such as tobacco) for export. The lure of foreign money can be a trap, though—your people will need to eat, so the cash crops may have to take a back seat for a while.

You’ll also be able to mine a variety of minerals and metals. These can be exported as raw materials, or refined in local factories to be sold for even higher profits.

The final, and far more nebulous resource, is time. Steinmeyer explains how this factors in. "Things take time. Educating workers, building new buildings, operating your farms and factories all take time. Even if you have unlimited resources, you still have to wait for things to be built." Once again, planning will be important. Don’t wait too long to start building those military outposts, or the rebels may become far more than just a nuisance!

It’s My Job

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Tropico is its growing population. You’ll start a game with approximately 20 people on your island, but by a scenario’s end, you may have as many as 500. All of these citizens will go about their daily lives without any direct intervention on your part. And their lives can be a visual delight, too. Professors look appropriately nutty, teamsters look like they’re ready to knock off for a beer (or knock off your head), the ladies practicing the world’s oldest profession look steamy and sultry, and so on. Artist David Deen has carefully crafted the look of the populace. "I want the characters to be naturalistic, with a touch of humor. They should feel like real people seen through the eyes of a cartoonist, with just enough personality to lighten the political mood."

Each person is an individual with over 40 unit attributes that will determine his or her motivations. These variables include the person’s background (where he or she was born, educational level, economic environment in which he or she grew up) and the person’s current status (whether he or she has adequate food, shelter, money, employment, entertainment, and more). Other attributes include overall happiness, happiness with your regime, likelihood of revolt, political liberty, place of upbringing, leadership, salary, job happiness, and much more. You’ll be able to click on a person to check a lot of their attributes, although some factors will probably remain hidden and nebulous… just like life.

With over 40 different attributes to track, maintaining a happy population might seem like a daunting, impossible task. Not all attributes will be equal, though. "The two most important elements that players will want to focus on are the person’s job, which determines how valuable he is to the economy, and the person’s happiness, which determines how likely he is to rebel," said Steinmeyer. As long as these two aspects are carefully watched and guided, everything else should be gravy.

Another vital factor to balance will be the educational level of your people. If citizens are not adequately educated, they will not be able to perform some important jobs—grade schools, after all, don’t turn out many doctors. On the other hand, university graduates will want jobs commensurate with their educational level, and if your economy doesn’t supply those jobs, they’ll be forced into jobs they don’t want and their happiness levels will drop. Some might even emigrate to foreign countries where the opportunities are better.

Jobs are classified into three educational categories: uneducated, high school, and college. Dockworkers, farmers, miners, prostitutes, and other (admittedly vital) basic workers can get by without any formal schooling. Shopkeepers, teachers, and priests, though, need at least a high school education. College-level workers include generals, bishops, bankers, doctors, and journalists.

Workers are also ranked by their skill levels in any given job. They start off with a skill level of zero, but can work up to level five. The more skilled they are in their jobs, the more productive they will be. A stable economy will help in this regard. If your economy fluctuates and too many workers flood one kind of industry, some seasoned pros will be forced to switch jobs and start over with a skill level of zero.

Now, employment is the siren song of life, so don’t worry about empty, echoing offices and silent factories. If you build an industry and lack workers for it (say, for example, a new hospital which has no local doctors), foreign workers can come to fill those slots. They’re a bit of a problem, though—imported employees cost more and are more unstable politically.

A better staffing option is to find workers the old fashioned way—get your people busy "makin’ bacon" as the saying goes, and produce some babies. If the population is well fed, sheltered and happy, you’ll experience a baby boom. Tropico citizens go through a normal life cycle, and you’ll see them as children, then students and workers, and eventually retirees.

Finally, to back up your governmental strategy (and dictatorial whims), you’ll be able to take some direct actions against your citizens. For instance, you can order your police (or other appropriate agent) to deport, spy upon, arrest, shoot, bribe, or brand as a heretic a troublesome person. If successful, you will incapacitate the targeted individual. The drawback, of course, is that your action will likely stir up resentment among the people, but what’s a little unrest to a true leader like yourself? In addition to taking police action, you’ll also be able to spend that government money and issue important edicts (see Edicts sidebar).

Everybody’s Got a Cousin in Miami

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, or in Tropico’s case, the military fatigues. As a player your most difficult task will be staying in power. When the game begins, your grasp of power will be, shall we say, a bit slippery. Steinmeyer explains. "Many factions exist within your island’s population. If you annoy one or more of them too much, they may attempt to throw you out of power via an election, rebellion, coup d’etat, and so on. To make things even harder on the player, many of the factions will have opposing goals. For example, the rich will want to be much wealthier than the peasants, and the peasants resent people who have a lot more than they do. It won’t be easy to please all factions."

The various political factions are derived from the individual worker traits. Some of the factions that will make an appearance in your population include the following:

The peasants. These uneducated workers want food and housing and resent the rich. Displeasing them will lower productivity and might lead to a rise in rebel activity or even a popular uprising.

The rich. These college-educated people want low taxes, a good business climate, and safe streets. Displeasing them will hurt your economy, cause some to leave the country, and might even spur them into funding a political rival.

The military. This group wants high wages and prestige for the army. They distrust the peasants. Make them unhappy and they may stage a coup d’etat.

The clergy. They want to see a lot of churches built. They resent foreign contact with nations that have different religious views and are suspicious of the rich. If you don’t stay on their good side, they may condemn your leadership and hurt your standing with the peasants.

The expatriates. These are the foreign businessmen living on your island. They want liberal trade policies and smooth foreign relations. Displease them and your foreign trade and economy might suffer, and they might even sponsor a foreign coup d’etat.

But just as in real life, citizens in Tropico are fairly complex. One person may fall into several different categories—an expatriate might also be rich, for example.

One of the chief difficulties of government is trying to please your people. A Latin American Lincoln might have said, "You can’t please all the people all of the time, although you’ll wish like crazy that you could." Steinmeyer elaborates on this unique challenge in Tropico. "Ideally, you'll please all the people and they'll all love you. In fact, the better you do at building and running your country, the more money you'll have to go around, and people will be generally happier. However, it's almost impossible to please everyone. Even if your country is prosperous, the success of a few will cause resentment and envy among those on the bottom of the ladder. If you spread the wealth equally, those classes who are normally considered 'elite' (doctors, professors, generals), will resent their lack of status. You don't want resentful generals. So it all boils down to a balancing game."

How will players gauge how their people feel about the government? "You can always click on a person to see his or her happiness level," says Steinmeyer, "But there’s also a window that monitors the political feeling of the nation. Through that you can drill down to various political subgroups." Moreover, if the situation worsens, a disenchanted group will begin to communicate with you through dialogs with its representative, and you’ll see that group’s productivity drop. "Finally, your on-screen advisor will warn you of the possibility of a coup or uprising, and if you can’t effectively defuse the crisis, it will occur."

If It All Falls Down

Ah, there’s nothing like the smell of burning resentment and smoldering anger. And when conditions get too bad in your Latin American wonderland, there’s only one possible outcome—revolt! And uprising may be started by any of four different groups: the people, the army, the Church, or the rebels. "There has to be a significant amount of unrest in a group for an uprising to start," explains Steinmeyer. "The group will also need at least one leader to launch the uprising, and the uprising must have a reasonable chance of success." He also noted that foreign powers and your own upper class can fund rebellions, so don’t just focus on the muttering peasants.

When an uprising occurs, your people will begin to choose sides. Some may join the uprising, others will remain loyal to you, and the wise ones will opt for neutrality and hide out in their cellars. Marching rebels may try to seize an armory and arm themselves, or seize TV and radio stations to increase their support. Eventually, the rebels will march on your palace, and you can watch the battle unfold. "There is no real-time combat mode like you’d see in a game like Command and Conquer," says Steinmeyer. "The battle simply resolves itself without direct intervention from you. Soldiers and armed individuals count for much more than unarmed people, and they also get a bonus for defending the palace."

If the uprising succeeds, you’re out. If it fails, you’ll haul the leaders off to jail or watch some of them become rebels and head for the hills.

You might also be voted out of power during an election if you have chosen to offer your (fickle and ungrateful) people democracy. In this sad case, you can declare martial law and void the election, although this will cause an immediate uprising. (Your only hope to cling to power after such a declaration is in the loyalty of your army—treat them well!)

You’ll have an idea of your chances in an election by checking your political popularity. "It’s the summation of the feelings of the people on the island," explains Steinmeyer. "If there are 50 people and 30 of them like you, then you have an approval rating of 60%. Popular approval is only part of the picture, though. You need to be popular with the important subgroups. For example, if all five soldiers are among the twenty people who disapprove of your government, then you run a strong chance of a coup d’etat." The attributes of individuals within each subgroup will also be important. "Individuals take actions as they see fit. If all five soldiers are uncharismatic cowards, you may be safe. If one is a brave, charismatic guy, though, he will probably be the one who leads a coup attempt."

Fins

Of course, no island is an… um… island, and so Tropico also models external politics, at least to some extent. To establish contact with a foreign power (either the U.S. or Russia), you’ll need to build a foreign ministry. As you might guess, it would be a challenging task to remain on good terms with both of these superpowers.

Benefits of friendly relations, though, include better prices for trade goods, possible money grants or loans, possible military and political support, and access to higher level buildings that you couldn’t build otherwise. Hostile relations will result in less appealing actions—trade embargoes, funding of opposition groups, and possible support for a coup d’etat.

So how do you get on a superpower’s good side? Establish that foreign ministry, trade with them, have a government style similar to theirs, and possibly let them build a military base on your island.

You’ll alienate a superpower by establishing an opposing political system in your country and by befriending their rival, but hey, better to be on somebody’s good side than nobody’s, right?

Living and Dying in 3/4 Time

Tropico will offer several difficulty levels and a host of scenarios with specific goals. At the easiest level, you may never actually lose a game if you manage to stay in power. You can just build up your island. Harder levels may require you to satisfy certain goals within a limited timeframe. Possible victory conditions might be reaching a certain population or happiness level, amassing a wad of money into a Swiss bank account, becoming head of all the islands (a sort of United Nations President), and more. Defeat rears its mocking head if your government is unseated via a coup, rebellion or election, or if time runs out in the scenario you are playing.

Some scenarios will be based on real-world countries or situations. One likely possibility would be Cuba in 1958—you’ve just seized power and now you have to remain in control for 40 years. Difficulties in a scenario like this would be a hostile U.S. and a lack of a tourist trade.

But Tropico isn’t all day-to-day fascist grind or democratic struggle. Once every game year you’ll have a grand presentation, and appear on the balcony of your palace to view your (hopefully adoring) population. Every citizen of your island will be shown, along with the major buildings of your capitol. Your people’s attitude will be visually reflected, and you can select the topic of your annual New Year’s Day speech, which will have a short-term effect on your people’s morale and attitudes.

And not all would-be dictators are the same. When you start a game, you’ll set up your alter-ego by going through a checklist of character traits. Here, you can choose your background (farmer, dissident, army officer, leftist author, and so on), your character flaws (womanizing, excessive drinking, or other "minor peccadilloes"), your good points (war hero, good administrator, et al), and how you gained power (election, if you’re feeling generous, coup d’etat if you want the power all for yourself). Each of these character traits will confer some type of bonus or penalty to your new regime.

The timeframe of each scenario will start around 1955 and last approximately 40 years, although PopTop may also include options to designate successors to allow players to play for longer periods, even infinitely.

Banana Republics

Tropico has all the earmarks of a hit strategy game. It’s lighthearted in its portrayal of Latin American politics, yet offers a deep series of checks and balances for players to fiddle with as they try to build up their island’s economy. Graphically, it promises to be at or near the top of the pack. Randomized maps will offer a good deal of replay value. So what are the potential pitfalls?

Our chief concern is the one area that many developers seem to have the most trouble getting right—the artificial intelligence. Tropico is really putting a lot of pressure on its designers at PopTop. The people in the game need to behave with a believable level of intelligence for the game to be both challenging and a good depiction of a banana republic in operation.

Game balance is also essential, as this is the critical feature of any strategy game. Assistant designer Franz Felsl stresses that PopTop is well aware of the need. "We are continually fighting the detail vs. ease of play battle. Currently the ease of play side seems to be getting the upper hand, though it's probably due to a rather hefty initial detail push. Wheat side or rice side? Great taste or less filling? These are problems that face us on a daily basis."

Tropico should arrive later this year, and promises to be a burst of Caribbean sunshine in the midst of winter. Brush up on your Spanish and read those biographies of Castro. A unique gaming experience awaits.

Buildings

From bus stops to bordellos, all the necessities of a tropical empire are yours to allocate:

Housing
Tenements, houses, apartments, and luxury houses.

Industry
Lumber mills, food processors (packing houses, etc.), cigar factories, foundries, rum distilleries, and jewelry factories.

Farming
Fisherman’s wharves, farms (banana, coconut, citrus, corn, pineapple, coffee, sugar, and tobacco), and ranches (goat and cattle).

Mining

Offshore rigs, logging camps, and mines (iron, bauxite, copper, tin, gems, gold, and silver).

Resort

Bungalows, cheap hotels, hotels, luxury hotels, pools, spas, gaming areas, tennis courts, casinos, and beach sites.

Entertainment

Pubs, night clubs, restaurants, gourmet restaurants, souvenir shops, sports complexes, newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, and bordellos.

Infrastructure

Docks, ports, airports, bus stops, taxi stands, truck depots, power plants, electric substations, and marinas.

Military

Guard stations, barracks, mess halls, command centers, armories, foreign military bases, military police stations, and secret police headquarters.

Government

Palace (you’ll start with this), a fortified palace, a capitol building, customs, embassies, and prisons.

Human Services

Health clinics, hospitals, emergency shelters, marketplaces, banks, chapels, churches, cathedrals, high schools, and colleges.

Landscape

Fountains, small gardens, trails, archeological sites, plazas, statues, scenic outlooks, and golf courses.

Happiness

Here’s what makes your Tropico people happy, in order of importance.

Food.
Shelter.
Job.
Political liberty (freedom of speech and the ability to cast a meaningful vote).
Health and adequate medical care.
Safety from physical threats (natural disasters, crime, rebels).
Money (in particular, whether a person’s job pays well).
Financial equality (where nearby people aren’t making more money).
Entertainment.
Religion.

The absence of a single element can cause unrest. If several are missing, the affected people will be even more likely to rebel.

People

It takes all kinds to make a country. Here are some of your would-be citizens.

Edicts and leaders

Assistant Designer Franz Felsl is a huge Master of Magic fan, and he’s worked a bit of that title’s magic into Tropico in several different ways.

"Just as the type of wizard you play in Master of Magic affects everything in the game, the attributes you select for your leader influence the entire game," says Felsl. "If you were good with nature magic in Master of Magic, in Tropico you might be good with the criminal element or religious factions. By changing a few things about the character you create, you change the way the game plays. It gives the players more knobs to turn to change the gameplay experience.

"Edicts are more like spells. They influence the reaction of people in the world. They change the pace of the game by invoking changes through the people. Examples of edicts, which usually cost money, might be a Papal visit or sensitivity training for the army (which will make the people like them better, but makes them a bit less effective as fighters). You might issue an edict for a contraception ban that allows increased birth rate, although you’ll need to be in good with the Church for this to work. Other edicts might be an All Saints Feast or Carnival or creating a slush fund. Most edicts you issue as a dictator have to funneled through a leader of a faction group, so you’ll need to be on that faction’s good side."

Tourists

The tourist trade is an interesting aspect of Tropico. Each tourist will have built-in logic that rates his or her stay on your island, and this will be added to a pool of numbers that are crunched to determine just how attractive your country is to the tourist trade. Things like cost, attractions, and crime will all factor in. You can juggle your hotel prices if you see that your trade is flagging or if your rooms are constantly full. Build casinos and restaurants and other attractions to beef up your tourist trade, but be careful where you place them. Hotels and other buildings do better with shrewd placements. Build your hotels with a nice view of the beach and the forest. Build your factories on the other side of the mountain so the pollution doesn’t bother the Yankee tourists.

Finally, build some golf courses. Tropico comes with a small game within the game...a golf course designer. You can lay out your holes, place tee-boxes, and more. No, it’s not a full-fledged course tool like you’d get in Jack Nicklaus Golf, but it does look like fun.

by Mark Asher