Development is being polished; this thread is done!

[Coconut Kid]

The Game is in its final count-down! Development Suggestions are now too late.

Here is a thread for your suggestions so the announcement  thread doesn't get unwieldy ! Those that have come up during gameplay are the most useful.

We have been advised by a Haemimont employee that someone from there will be looking in here at the Cafe periodically to see what the Tropico Geezers are thinking.

T3 follows the same general story line as T1. It is not about Pirates. It is about the Caribbean post WWII.

[Coconut Kid]

I was too optimistic, so I'll talk to myself.

Improvements to UNITS according to my random thoughts.

The new game can probably stand the art-work for additional avatars as needed to make a reasonable gender balance in occupations. That is not to say that every occupation has to have both genders represented. Having some critical occupations represented only by females when not supported by historical facts, unbalances the game. This is connected with education levels.

The use of the Mother avatar should be adjusted to a reasonable and rational relationship with the unit "Baby". The female unit with a direct relationship with a Baby unit should have to wear the Mother avatar until the Baby 'graduates' to Child - three years. This does not unbalance the game; it reflects a real problem for El Presidente's workforce and economy.

Minimum age restrictions on units for occupations and building entrance need to be examined to meet historical realities and relax political correctness restrictions. (Besides making programming & game play easier.)

Cows and Goats eat too much too quickly. Instead of eating at a constant rate regardless of the rate of grass growth (thereby reducing the pasture to 'red' and their hunger to alarm level), the rate of grass growth should govern their rate of growth and reproduction. Let El Presidente figure out by the production statistics that he screwed up putting the Ranch there. I also suggest that the 'invisible' fence encloses an area too small by half.

The Birds eat too little; and crap on the Tourists too little. They are a far too under utilized unit. The coders will hate me. The Birds should swarm to corn fields (messing with production), Fishermen's Wharfs, Canneries, Ports, Statues, any food stocks over a year old (such as those at Markets & Restaurants, and other places the Teamsters have neglected), and Beach Sites (based on Attendant's experience). Meanwhile they are lending an ambiance to the general "island experience."

toodle-oo

[Coconut Kid]

Buildings / Government / Media

The restrictions on the numbers of each type of media is the reverse of what it should be.

Media Type	Newspaper	Radio Station	TV Station
Restriction Is	Four	Four	Six
Should Be	Six	Four	Two

Rationale: In 1950 and for years, the technology of TV was expensive and there was not the explosion of ownership of receivers in the 3rd world that there was in the US. The printing press remained the mainstay of propaganda even with an illiterate population. Even radio was restricted by the need for power for the receivers.
It's evident that the initial intent was to give the Newspaper two options (El Presidente's Picayune & Free Press and Dispatch) which didn't make the cut. They should be restored.

The use of the media should be rationalized. It appears the original intent was for one of two basic uses: propaganda OR making money. I would suggest that the basic building should be restricted to propaganda use, with an "upgrade" required to use the money making options.

Propaganda

Type	Increase Respect	Increase Liberty	Increase Faction
Newspaper	Picayune	Today's Press	Voice of ~~~
Radio	El Presidente Today	Radio Free Tropico	~~~ News Flashes
Telly	Working for You	International Views	n/a

Renting Out Facilities to Foreign Sources

Audience/Type	Age 4 - 25	Adult Females	Adult 'Unedu' Males	Adult 'Edu' Males
Newspaper	Comics	Coupons +	Sports & Nudes	Nudes & Sports
Radio	Bubblegum Pop	Romance & Soap	Sports	Humor & Sports
Telly	Three Stooges	Romance	Sports	SitComs

Working out the rates of pay should not be too complex. The issue is the player's ability to guess the numbers of the target audience in the range of the building being rented out. I would rank the Tropican audiences for potential revenue to the foreign advertisers as:

• Adult Educated Males
• Adult Females
• Age 4 - 25
• Adult Uneducated Males

.
Learning With Larry
I think this is a problem, especially with the excess of TV Stations allowed. Larry even teaches Rebels to be better at their jobs. What about the other folks in jobs requiring no education?

I suggest that "Learning With Larry" could better be handled by an upgrade to the College building. It would take the form of a "tower" to represent educational radio & TV with an effect only on folks in jobs requiring HS & College educations. Make it island wide rather than with a radiation effect; but require full staffing of the college for it to work.

Any thoughts?

[El-Bueno]

In T1, buildigns looked nice but were completely static, one thing I would improve on is to make them seem more 'alive' if such a thign is possible. But what I mean is perhaps a little smoke coming out of vents/chimneys, flashing lights, perhaps a curtain gently flapping in the breeze. Maybe even getting a peak through windows of activity inside the building.

Another note on buildings - it would be nice if all buildings were fully rotatable, this helps iwth slotting them together for an efficient town layout. Also visually many buildigns have a 'best angle' which is nicer to look at, so it would be good to be able to manipulate it so their best angles were all facing the same way for pleasant viewing (I know you can rotate the map, but as that is disorientating I usually have the map facing the same way always)

[Jabberdau]

Some simple guidelines would probably be easier digested  , so here are mine:

Based on the demo of Imperium Romanum, here is which things will have to be learned in order to change the usual formula:

Terrain: Tropico had a system where crops was affected by height, downpur and wind and an overlay button so you could see where the most optimal areas where to place different farms.

Units: There is 4 social classes in IR which are tied to the levels of their houses (and fulfilling of basic needs). In tropico needs do not define who can work or live where. Education and pay does. Kinda more like in the real world. This is the "classes" of tropico (uneducated, highschool and college). YOU decide their pay, and even though someone has an education OTHER factors decide what job they will take as well. Someone with a college degree could take up a job as farmer (not becoming criminal in stead).
Experience in a job makes a unit perform that job better, and it comes from TIME doing that job.
The basic NEEDS in tropico is not so much about resource gathering EXCEPT for food, religion and healthcare. It is about liberty (newspapers, radio, TV), job satisfaction etc. Look up what kind of needs each citizen have and how it works at cafe tropico. There are a lot of things explained in detail here which could aid you, save you some work.

Factions: Unique for tropico is the factions. Each unit can be a member of up to three of these which three degrees of commitment and everything from revolts, immigration, foreign relations, elections etc. depends on these. Thats something that will have to be implemented.
(Communists care about housing, Capitalists about advanced economy, intellectuals about education and so on)

Housing: Is just another NEED in tropico. Units are independent. Family sizes also vary.

Almanac: There where lots and lots of statistics one could look up in tropico. For this new game it would be good if the system from IR where expanded to the same level, BUT streamlined also. Trimmed a bit maybe. For example, you could see which jobs people on your island had, but as a graphic representation. This might have been better if it was just raw numbers and percentages.

What is really important is to make a game where YOUR decisions as a player makes a difference, and to be able to see that. You could not see in tropico if a family was doing well compared to another. Maybe make some small graphic changes to the units. If the farmers are payed neraly nothing their clothes might be ragged and so on. Its the little detail that makes it fun when it all comes together.

[Caribbean King]

I would love to see more upgrades to more buildings, even the palace.  Also I know this might rub people the wrong way but I would love to still be able to have the "editor" cheat in the game  Sometimes I just like to be able to have absolute control.  More traits to choose from, please add that.  This might sound dumb, but please design the game so that it's on a tropical island.  Tropico 2 was on an island but it had that whole pirate thing going on.  I have more suggestions but I'm in the middle of writing a term paper so I'll be back sooner or later.

[Caribbean King]

Okay I'm back for now (taking a break from studying, please wish me luck on my finals).  The women in Tropico did not have to many job choices so it would be nice if they had more options. More events happening in the game would also make it great, please make a lot of them too (stuff like hurricanes, and prices of goods going up and down, another country asking for financial aid, celebrities coming to the island, kids being bad etc.)  Building looking more stylish like maybe the nightclub having flashing lights.  Make the palace look even more lavishing then before, and add more tree's, bushes, and flowers (I like to make big gardens for my palace and pretend I'm a king).
  Maybe a bigger map (I always find myself making my island bigger with the editor and having little water).  OH AND PLEASE DON'T FORGET THE MUSIC, PLEASE MAKE SURE IT'S TROPICAL, AND IF YOU CAN GET THE SAME PERSON WHO DID TROPICO 1 MUSIC THAT WOULD BE GREAT.  Please have it so all the buildings rotate, and even make more buildings.  Please don't make the game cartoonie. Please re create all of the buildings and edits from Paradise Island, and have it so you can use the edits multipliable times.  That's all I can think of now, so I'll be back later, and the next time with better details.
   

[Coconut Kid]

The women in Tropico did not have too many job choices so it would be nice if they had more options.

Yes, new programming will likely make more occupations bi-gender. They should also have the obligation to spend three years as a 'Mother' to get their baby developed into childhood.

More events happening in the game would also make it great, please make a lot of them too (stuff like hurricanes, and prices of goods going up and down, another country asking for financial aid, celebrities coming to the island, kids being bad etc.)

Are you talking about "random events" which PI added to the game, or something else?

Building looking more stylish like maybe the nightclub having flashing lights. ...

I don't think we have to worry about graphics.

Maybe a bigger map (I always find myself making my island bigger with the editor and having little water).  ...  

Perhaps you really don't pay careful attention to the original settings as you start the game; that is, set Water Coverage to the minimum. If you do that and still use the editor to minimize water coverage, you risk freighters getting lost and having no area for Fishing Wharfs.

[Juan]

This is concerning the random events,I think hurricanes should be scrapped, the economic losses that can be potentially incurred from it often makes the game unplayable.I mean I've had hurricanes destroy factories and docks full of goods. Losses often go into hundreds of thousands of dollars.As a player i find it to be an necessary challenge which while adding to realism does make it very annoying.

I have another problem with rainfall patterns in Tropico. Crops such as sugar require high levels of rainfall. That means that they can only be grown on certain narrow strips of lands.Rainfall patterns never remain constant so area's that were once fertile for growing sugar may not be so next year or for 5 consecutive years after that.

Minimum age restrictions on units for occupations and building entrance need to be examined to meet historical realities and relax political correctness restrictions. (Besides making programming & game play easier.)

The minimum age for working in Tropico is 13 right ?
How would you alter that age ?

[Coconut Kid]

The minimum age for working in Tropico is 13 right ? How would you alter that age ?

No, it is 14. (Incorrect, see correction in later post.) That is when the units shed the "Child" avatar for an adult avatar. Or they are supposed to do so.

That is also the age when marriage could occur -- in some contries (Chile) today that is the "age of consent" -- so a female Child avatar could become a Showgirl.

Child avatars have entertainment needs. While they have no money to pay, the initial paytesters were upset when they ran free entertainment for Retirees (or whatever), children were in the Pub and Cabaret.

So -- there are lots of minimum age restrictions on 'occupations' other than 14. Many of the 'educated' occupations are restricted to 16, 18 or 21 -- which has the effect of keeping citizens from going to school before that age. Those settings are arbitrary and set by US politically correct prejudices. They distort the game.

How would I change the minimum age restrictions? I would drop them all. But I would make the time required in HS and College more nearly reflect several years actually there and not just walking across the island. Of course immigants with education would have to have an older age set.

 

[TeamStar]

Droping the age of consent would be more realistic.   

[Caribbean King]

  I hope they make all the buildings useful.  The jail is really only used if you want to put people in jail, not that  you have to. 

[Coconut Kid]

Dropping the age of consent would be more realistic. 

I'm afraid I don't follow you; or you didn't follow me.

First -- Juan is correct and I am wrong ! The Manual says Child avatars change to adult avatars "at age 13" !

Now I will restate my reply to Juan because I dragged the red herring of "age of consent" into it when it is not pertinent.

Quote from: Juan on December 10, 2008, 11:00:29
The minimum age for working in Tropico is 13 right ? How would you alter that age ?

Units lose the Child avatar (hopefully) during their 13th year of age. However, that does not mean they can take any line of work. Some occupations have a minimum age. There has never been an official release from the publisher(s), and the reported experimental checking is limited. What we now believe to be true is:

• Age 16, Soldier ; Mother/marriage
• Age 18, Barmaid, Showgirl, Journalist, Policeman, Teacher, Rebel ; enter Pub/Nightclub, Cabaret
• Age 21, Pitboss, Priest, Banker, Bishop, Doctor, General, Professor ; enter Casino

The minimum age per occupation makes the jobs unavailable to younger persons as an inducement to go to school (Tropicans do not plan ahead).

I would not change the age 13 advancement from Child to adult. I would drop all the other minimum age restrictions with two exceptions:

• The morality (not PC) issue of marriage, child bearing & prostitution: Age 16
  • Female units should continue to be the marriage initiators in Tropico
  • Showgirl's & Mother's experience meters should run in reverse
• The International Convention (a bit out of time sequence) on "child" Soldiers: Age 16
  • Not applicable to Rebels
  • Conscription does not over-ride
  • Old enough to be a Soldier, old enough to be a General

.
So - otherwise at age 13 all Tropicans get thrown - sink or swim - into the world of work.

These are, of course, the native born. I have never seen a Child avatar immigrate, while I have seen them emmigrate. I suspect the code to generate immigants already randomizes ages; I would set it at the ends of the "bell curve". With few exceptions, all immigrants should be in the age brackets 14 thu 20 and 54 thru 59. The ones who come on their own at the young end; the ones you pay to "recruit" at the old end.

I hope that makes my ideas a bit clearer.

 

[Juan]

I hope they make all the buildings useful.  The jail is really only used if you want to put people in jail, not that  you have to.

*Waits CK quotes the Cafe Tropico guide on the usefulness of jails*.

[General Alcazar]

Great to see there is still a Tropico community on the internet, and I hope this forum will grow again with T3 on the way !

Anyway, my thoughts and suggestions-

Factions,   I hope these are retained, they were certainly an interesting feature of Tropico, though in my opinion they were not taken far enough.   For T3 I would like the faction concept to be expanded without making it too complicated.   It is possible to play Tropico and pretty much ignore factions (aside from the militarists) of course monitoring factions makes for a more engrossing game, and a successful regime, but nevertheless I am sure many casual players (rather than long-termers like most on here) more or less ignored the factions.

I don't have this thought out perfectly but changes I would to see:

-Faction membership is simplified, Characters should not be members of more than 2 factions, and often only one. For instance typically a character might be a strong supporter of say the Religious faction with environmentalist sympathies.
   Reason: Importance of their main faction is increased, therefore it is easier to see where political sympathies lie and makes interacting with factions more wothwhile. What is the point of belonging to 3 or 4 of the main factions? It negates the point of a "faction". 

-Faction leaders should have greater importance. Essentially they are like the leaders of political parties, except having factions is more fun than having political parties. I know they had some importance in Tropico 1, but it was not clear how much.
   Reason: Makes factions easier to please or Alienate. makes bribe/arrest type edicts more useful.

-Whether or not a Faction leader supports you should have a very strong (but not absolute) influence on whether faction members do in an election.
Reason: Again makes monitoring/interaction with factions more worthwhile.

-If relations are terrible an entire faction (all its workers) will go on strike, ie. stop working and start protesting.   You will then receive a demand e.g. Religious may demand a Church to be built, Communists may demand a 50% cut in rents.   The strike will continue until the demands are met OR you brutally crush the strike by eliminating/arresting a number of the faction and the rest are scared off (and the braver ones perhaps run off to be rebels).   

I could go on but don't want my first post to bore everyone!    I will be interested to hear anyones response, whether agreeable or not. 

[Coconut Kid]

Responding to Juan's comments on Hurricanes and Rainfall:

Hurricanes: Since they can be "shut-off" unless a scripter builds them into a game, I don't think they need to be 'scrapped'. It might be that they need to be more finely-tuned in the way they destroy buildings and 'goods in transit'. As a point of reference is this year's experience for both Haiti and Cuba. Very serious disasters in both cases. From the game player's point of view, perhaps perhaps playing with the random events (mainly hurricanes) on should be more forcefully reflected on the scoring page. Recovery from a disaster should score some points, eh?

Rainfall: The game treatment is a very simplistic way to treat Caribbean weather patterns. For some islands, the rain (or lack) is constant; for others it is not - a variation from year to year. The shifting "strips" and constant wind direction try to simulate an amalgamation of problems for several islands with a minimum of code. An alternative would be to tune the rainfall to the initial Vegetation setting for the island: Barren/ a little rain random years ; Sparse/ some rain only in March, June & November ; Normal/ regular rain January thru June ; Lush/ regular rain 12 months ; Overgrown/ downpour 12 months. I think the point is that even a slight effort to 'simulate' actual conditions is going to create problems (or should) for the player. Uniformly distributed rain would have to include other problems, IMHO.

 

[Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel]

I think hurricanes should be scrapped

One thing that I'd like to see though, is hurricanes added to the list of events that can be added to a user-created scenario with "EventAdd.exe" (or whatever 'event editor' that they include with the game)

[Caribbean King]

  I have a good feeling about this game, a game that we have not seen any screen shots for or, have any new information about.  I think that the developer's are really going to come to this site, read what we have to say, and then deliver. I think they will do a better job at listening to us then EA games does on the Sims 2 board.  Over there we feel as if the developer's say they will listen and come to the board but they really don't

[TeamStar]

Dropping the age of consent would be more realistic. 

I'm afraid I don't follow you; or you didn't follow me.

What I meant was, I believe that in the old caribbean countries, some children would start working at a younger age than 13.

[Coconut Kid]

  I have a good feeling about this game, a game that we have not seen any screen shots for or, have any new information about.  I think that the developer's are really going to come to this site, read what we have to say, and then deliver. ...

If you looked at the "screen shots" published before T1 was released, you would wonder what happened. Pretty pictures don't show how the game play works - if you don't mind my saying so.

We do have new information about T3. The basic game program / game 'engine' is being entirely rewritten. No longer will the game run on a modification of the RR Tycoon 'engine' / program. The graphics will be up-to-date 3D. The publisher and developer have promised that T3 will be faithful to the philosophy of T1. The developer's scout has already been here and read some stuff.

Screen shots are like seeing a horse carrying a can of beer. So what? I want to know what went into the can.

 

[Coconut Kid]

*Waits CK quotes the Cafe Tropico guide on the usefulness of jails*.

LOL 

Thank you Juan -- that's a great one!

I think I have to defer to 'Coffeebean' -- She had never seen a Jail on the map until she played a scenario which had one 'prepositioned' for ready use.

Still LOL 

[General Alcazar]

I would not have a broadcast radius for TV and radio stations.   Tropico is a small island so it seems reasonable they should reach the whole island once you have spent so much capital on the tv station, power station + education.

Also find some way of making travel to differant parts of the island easier, thereby making it easier to have multiple settlements rather than one large town and a few outposts.

[Coconut Kid]

Factions,  ... changes I would to see:

- Faction membership is simplified, Characters should not be members of more than 2 factions, and often only one. For instance typically a character might be a strong supporter of say the Religious faction with environmentalist sympathies.
   Reason: Importance of their main faction is increased, therefore it is easier to see where political sympathies lie and makes interacting with factions more wothwhile. What is the point of belonging to 3 or 4 of the main factions? It negates the point of a "faction". 

Sorry to disagree. The complexity of membership in factions is one of the unique features of T1. It reflects the "real" world. Your proposed change is based on making it easier for the player. Think of it this way: Tropicans do not carry membership cards in the factions. They exhibit a level of support or simple rejection for a faction. (Almanac lists) The simulated world is not intended to make it easy for El Presidente. This is one of the best features of T1; I hope they keep it.

- Faction leaders should have greater importance. Essentially they are like the leaders of political parties, except having factions is more fun than having political parties. I know they had some importance in Tropico 1, but it was not clear how much.
   Reason: Makes factions easier to please or Alienate. makes bribe/arrest type edicts more useful.

The difference between factions and political parties in a generalized simulation as Tropico is a difficult line to draw. In T1, the faction leaders fully represent the faction. The program is complex but it probably doesn't poll all supporters and weight their feeling. It uses some of El Presidente's characteristics & policies and adds in the Leader's Attitude. Therefore, the importance of the bribe, and other methods influence over the leader to change the level of relationship with the faction. For example: if the Communist faction leader is living in a shack, it makes no difference how good the housing situation is for the rest of the faction supporters. But be careful how you get him/her out of the shack. You may be underestimating the faction leader's importance in T1.

For T3, the Faction Leaders MAY be the link for the "multi-player" mode.

- Whether or not a Faction leader supports you should have a very strong (but not absolute) influence on whether faction members do in an election.
Reason: Again makes monitoring/interaction with factions more worthwhile.

We simply don't know if that already happens in T1. There are too many factors to monitor already.

- If relations are terrible an entire faction (all its workers) will go on strike, ie. stop working and start protesting. You will then receive a demand e.g. Religious may demand a Church to be built, Communists may demand a 50% cut in rents. The strike will continue until the demands are met OR you brutally crush the strike by eliminating/arresting a number of the faction and the rest are scared off (and the braver ones perhaps run off to be rebels). 

Now you are branching out into something very different from "factions" and going into labor relations. Labor Unions may or may not have goals identifiable with factions. Certainly strikes only by 'hard-core' members of a faction make little effect. T1 had some development stuff which was left on the cutting room floor. T3 may pick up on some labor union stuff. But it is my suggestion that it is inappropriate to imagine factions as labor unions - even in a game.

 

[Coconut Kid]

I would not have a broadcast radius for TV and radio stations.  ...

How about the Newspaper? This is a very generalized simulation. Also there are different sized islands. This is 1950 to 1975 technology. I think the TV Stations are not properly restricted. Who had the money to buy the receiving sets and where did they come from?

Also find some way of making travel to differant parts of the island easier, thereby making it easier to have multiple settlements rather than one large town and a few outposts.

Really? Please check out Haiti today. Do you see any high-speed railroads or universal ownership of personal autos or even reliable bus service? Then think back to the second half of the last century. I think T1 was intended as somewhat of a "simulation" -- not a fantasy. I'm hope T3 is not a fantasy.

 

[General Alcazar]

The complexity of membership in factions is one of the unique features of T1. It reflects the "real" world. Your proposed change is based on making it easier for the player

My proposed change is based on making it clearer for the player. But I agree with the first sentance, it was a unique feature of T1 but I really don't think they made enough of it, which is why I want to it to be CLEARER to the player what effects interacting with a faction has but not necessarily EASIER to deal with the consequences.    My thoughts are based on the opinion that the factions were a very good idea that was not developed enough, as I said it would be possible for a casual/novice player to pretty much ignore them.

Really? Please check out Haiti today. Do you see any high-speed railroads or universal ownership of personal autos or even reliable bus service? Then think back to the second half of the last century. I think T1 was intended as somewhat of a "simulation" -- not a fantasy. I'm hope T3 is not a fantasy.

I see your point but Haiti is somewhat of an extreme example.  Maybe I was alone in being slightly annoyed that in T1 all your activity had to, for the most part, be clustered around your main settlement. In my opinion either travel to differant parts of he island should be made easier OR perhaps more realistically, families living in an isolated town or settlement should not take jobs on the other side of the island if they can't get employment locally, so that you don't have construction workers and factory workers travelling  right across the island to work and then "clocking off" a minute later because they are exhausted.