It depends on what is meant by FUN. If you enjoy binge drinking, bullying the class nerd, slapping your girl friend around, sodomizing the altar boy, and such antisocial activities - then evil despot is for you. But why limit yourself to a computer game?

The game is a lot deeper than the simplistic choice posited. It is possible to roleplay a wide variety of personality types. It is not necessarily "benevolent" to trick the people into being happy. Happiness is a relative thing after all.

The goal of the game is to stay in office for a fixed term (up to 70 years), and there are alternative scoring systems if you are into numerical scores. If you have time to torture the people just to show that you can do so, then you are wimping out when you set the difficulty sliders.

That's a pretty good summary of what most expert players advise.

To that I would add that players need to watch the productivity of resources because they run out! The mine ore is exausted, but the miners keep on going through the motions. The lumberjacks start having to walk too far to get to the cutable trees. And so forth. Additionally - don't overdo the teamsters.

It's interesting how much people learned early on; but then was forgotten because threads like this were not make "sticky."

A very precise observation which gets into some of the fine details of the visual programming. Technically, the building occupies the full grid square(s), but space is left to units can pass without appearing to walk through walls. While it is possible to pave under buildings (and some players do so routinely because they believe it speeds up unit movement), it does complicate things if you decide to bulldoze the building and build another. It is probably better practice to use unoccupied grid squares for roads. Great precision in matching roads to building entrances probably doesn't gain much increase in speed of movement. It more a matter of what looks good to you.


That is a valid observation in cases where people have reason to establish paths before roads are built. When you build roads before you place buildings which attract people, you have more freedom in road placement.


The programming deals with the visuals -- so the player does not see people ghost or drift through one another. Consider how long units spend in other activities, and you see that worrying over the length of these path-finding blips is being far too sensitive to the game clock.

The actual difference the road surface makes in speed has been given by the developers.

It was finally confirmed that the productive rate of buildings (generally) varies not only based on the skill level of the workers, but also on whether they are actually present in the building. The concept is "through-put." Goods are moved from the input queue to the output queue faster. Patrons are moved from entry to exit faster. Workers gain experience only while they are 'on-the-job'.

NOTES:
> The amount of variation in output of the Electric Power Plant has not been specifically identified beyond the filled job slot level.
> The concept for Maids is that the Tourists "rest" faster; the tourism rating is not affected.
> Soldiers and Police have fixed patrol routes for their work based on their employment building; they don't work indoors. You don't want them just wandering around.

---

Lollygagging = main meaning today is of purposeless activity, of fooling around, spending time aimlessly or dawdling or dallying.
Many American veterans will remember it, since it is part of the standard repertoire of insults used by NCOs to verbally chastise new recruits — in this case to accuse them of fooling around or wasting time. To American civilians, however, it sometimes has a subsidiary meaning of “to indulge in kisses and caresses”, not a sense much encountered in the military.
It first appeared in the US about the middle of the nineteenth century. A wonderful citation from an Iowan newspaper, the Northern Vindicator, in 1868 suggests that a lovemaking implication was around even in its early days: “The lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life by their love-sick fawnings at our public dances”.
Jonathon Green, in his Cassell Dictionary of Slang, suggests it may come from a dialect word lolly, meaning “tongue”. If it is, then it’s a close relative of lollipop, which is also thought to come from the same source. Another spelling of the word is lallygag. (French kissing?)

The original intent was to depict prostitution "in the open." In order to get a "Teen" ESRB rating, the names had to be changed from Prostitute and Bordello to Showgirl and Cabaret. The idea remains the same; women do not patronize the Cabaret.

Each sea zone has an indicator of how well the zone is known. How fast that changes (improves) should be a gage of the relative effectiveness of various missions. Of course, when you know the zone "like the back of your hand" - all has been discovered, don't you think?

Modified from previously posted comments about T3.

I have puzzled over this method. I was looking at the background of my favorite small island, Saint-Barthélemy, and the parts of the picture started to fall in place. Saint-Barthélemy's history of sovereignty:

• Discovered in 1493 by Colombus during his second trip,
• occupied by the French in 1648,
• the poor soil and the dry climate of the island prevented its economical development,
• run by the Knights of the Order of Malta from 1651 to 1656,
• became a French colony in 1659, and its inhabitants mostly lived from buccaneering.
• In 1785, King Louis XVI swapped the island for trade rights in Gothenburg with King of Sweden Gustav III.
• The Swedish king suppressed tax from the island; the capital was renamed Gustavia; the former French careenage became a free port (prosperity!).
• On 16 March 1878, the Swedes sold the island back to France.

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Fast forward to 1950. You have a dry, unproductive island on your hands -- farm it out to an international religious order such as the Knights of Malta. Instead of El Presidente, the player becomes Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Tropicanius.

The player can tinker with the idea as s\he works up the story line, eh? At least it sounds to me like a feature of interest. Of course, it will be very important to fictionalize completely the identity and structure of the order. The Sovereign Order of Malta has a web site sufficent for research on the topic.

However, I wish to point out a few possible titles which could be used in lieu of "Grand Master".

• Grand Abbot
• Grand Commander
• Grand Chancellor
• Grand Hospitaller
• Grand Prior

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If the fiction were to be that the Tropico island were not the headquarters of the order or that the order were not military -- Prior or Abbot respectively,  should be considered.

The player's substitute for "El Presidente" -- whether Grand Master, Grand Abbot, or Grand Prior -- would certainly outrank - both civilly and religiously - the Bishops of the cathedral.

From the Strategy Guide:

   Pirates in Tropico 2 may live in their own island world, but that world depends on plunder from the greater world for its existence. Sooner or later, your exploits come to the attention of Spain, France, or England. And depending on the situation, this attention can be very good or very bad. International relations with the Great Powers can be very good if you manage to forge a strong bond with one of the three, gaining protection and perhaps even generous money grants. But if your acts of piracy anger one or more of the powers, your balmy island may face the prospect of a full-fledged invasion.
   In almost all games you can avoid serious trouble (i.e., invasion) from the Great Powers if you are willing to court one of them from the start. Immediately issue the Announce Peace Policy edict with one power, and then follow that up with the Prohibit Victims edict toward that same power. If you really want to knock their socks off, you can even issue the Free All of Nationality edict, choosing to release all captives on your island who are from the country you’re courting.
   These fine gestures may very well foster “Harmonious” relations with that country. If that happens, you can issue the Declare Patron edict to create a special relationship with the friendly nation. A patron country gives you 100% protection from the other two Great Powers. An added lucrative benefit: a patron makes an ideal Smuggler’s Cove customer.

... some excellent advice from Jon Edwards, Frog City programmer and engine-master for Tropico 2:
As I see it, the ultimate achievement is the ability to issue the Raise the Jolly Roger edict and declare independence from all the Great Powers. You can hunt anybody anywhere and fend off any potential invasions. The Jolly Roger dramatically increases your pirates’ security and your captives’ despair. Pirate happiness is maximized (reflected in the pirate happiness score). My image for this level of achievement is the infamous Hell Town of Tortuga.

There's more to read in the Strategy Guide.

From the Manual:

Raise the Jolly Roger edict
You declare the independence of your pirate isle from all powers. This automatically cancels announcements of peace, any patron relationship, and any letters of Marque. Additionally, you are free to attack any ships you wish. It results in a loss of invasion protection, if you had it. You must repeal this edict before issuing an announcement of peace.

Special Missions
Besides cruising for plunder and captives, there are some special missions for your ships to perform. For the most part these missions are relatively safe. You control the missions using the mission menu on the ship detail. Since these special missions are also edicts, you can use the edict options menu to assign missions as well. In this case, the final part of issuing the mission orders is selecting which ship will go on the mission.
Foster a War
A ship assigned to 'Foster a War' will depart for the area in the sea where you assigned it using the strategy map. It will look for ships of one particular nation, raise false colors and then fire upon that ship. It will not press home the attack, but will instead try to escape after shooting. The goal is to make one of the Great Powers angry with the other.

By way of speculation, it seems to me that since the description above does not specify the nation the ship looks for (assumption is that the player is not allowed to set that item), that the selection is randomly set. It may be set on the nation which is most frequent in the designated sea zone regardless of any existing patron relationship. That way it will make contact quickly and frequently. The false colors will be either of the other two powers, perhaps according to relative current diplomatic status. The pirate ship assigned should be fast, carry a full load of cannon, and have a captain with good sailing skills.