Throw in a costly natural disaster or political event, and suddenly there is no easy way to progress. It's hard to make everybody happy when your economy depends on scattered strip mines and clear-cut logging camps, and a dip in commodity prices can be deadly. The campaign difficulty steadily increases, and some islands are quite challenging. In Tropico 4, there seems to be no limit to the number of ways you can split the baby. Now living quality is on the rise, and the environmentalists are happy as well. Perhaps the environmentalists are angry over the rise of industry, but I can mollify them with parks and anti-pollution ordinances. Fortunately, a little business investment increases prosperity so much that social services are fiscally painless, and now the communists and capitalists are both delighted with me. The interests I balance interlock too conveniently, which means most of the fun "dictatorial" gameplay options are only useful in cases of incompetence or pure malice.įor instance, glancing at the faction relations table shows me that the communists want a social safety net and better healthcare, but those are both expensive services to offer. In my fourteen hours with the game, I have never had to steal an election or declare martial law. But Tropico is a city-builder, and the answer to most problems is not a vicious crackdown but a new round of zoning. The whole game carries the threat of political violence: the militarists demand more soldiers and guard posts, loyalists beg you to mobilize the secret police and cancel elections, and by twos and threes discontented citizens turn to crime or join the rebels in the hills. Tropico 4 arrives after a year of political discontent exploding into burning barricades and gusts of tear gas, and it would have been fascinating if Tropico 4 fully explored its Cold War-era, dictatorial theme. Even the communists and intellectuals have been yielded to the bourgeois hellscape I have created. The people of Tropico 4's do not fear the tread of the jackboot, but are instead smothered under the heavy yoke of first-rate entertainment options and lucrative employment opportunities. To my great disappointment, I am a benevolent dictator.
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