Mistakes in T1 which need attention in T3

[Coconut Kid]

Production Chains

They must be balanced and thoroughly tested. Balance means both within the chain and among all the chains in the economy.

Based on my experience and the reports I have read -- they are mostly not.

First, between T1 and the PI expansion two major mistakes happened. Tourism was made super profitable. The third stage of the lumber chain was introduced, but it was broken. A minor point was the mistaken guess about grass growth on Ranches coupled with the mistake about announcing starving cows. All were the result of inadequate critical testing.

Second, the ANNO series showed that elaborate production chains are very hard to balance between themselves. With today's computers, geek players can quickly develop statistics about building through-put. T1 made that almost impossible by inserting the highly variable production worker. However, T1 almost broke its own genius by introducing too many variables between competing buildings, e.g. Clinics & Hospitials. The economy does not have to be "balanced" against all circumstances; but each segment has to be functional and have an equal chance of creating failure.

T2 elaborated some/most of the production chains of T1. But then it introduced an alternative source of supply for most of them. Quickly, the players abandoned the complex chains for the alternative. The concept of moving goods by normal means somehow could NOT survive play. So skeletons/zombies were introduced.

Serious Note: Governmental functions such as infrastructure, pure government and defense have to be considered as production chains. Other T1 services categories are "overhead" chains which may or may not be charged to the government account. Perhaps they may be handled as chains that have to survive on their own account.

Lastly, the interchange between production chains and, in Tropico, with the individual citizens (and tourists), is what makes the economy function. And that is what makes the game work. Making food, religion, health care, and education free simply cripples the concept of an economy. Additionally, it distorts variability in the political system.

But most of all -- the production chains have to include not only material goods processing, but also the other social factors.

Well, at least in my opinion. 

[Coconut Kid]

Quick & Dirty "Fixes"
to solve gameplay
complaints !

Both T1 and T2 included such fixes which broke the game play even worse.

>> The "Mother" avatar as initially programmed correctly showed that the female workforce was restricted by "mothering duties" -- except for peasant agriculture. Test players squawked about all the economic dead weight of Mothers. It was fixed by practically eliminating its use. No day care centers though. Very few Mothers are seen in normal game play.

>> The educational "chain" was not productive enough because units are motivated only by actual vacant jobs rather than education itself as a function of a superior rank in intelligence. Test players squawked about desperate urgency to fill key educated jobs. It was fixed with a "work-around" of a foreign recruitment service that operated outside immigation office limitations for a fee. That service was supposed to be limited by the automatic increase in fees (in a straight line progession), but that was insufficent in view of the huge profits going to the treasury in later years (game balance?). Few players REPORT persisting in trying to operate an island educational system.

>> Transporting goods with the subscript of "path-finding" was a plague in both T1 and T2. T1 could not make the "Dispatcher" work as a means of sorting out priorites for trip-tickets to direct Teamsters without the player being forced to micro-manage his industrial empire. So the automatic system is a mystery and unending frustration to players. Then T2 used roads to control path-finding, and assigned "haulers" to using buildings. Even this failed because the haulers had to eat & rest and could not keep up with the demand for goods movement. Simply adding more of them would unbalance the 'overhead' requirements. So the zombie/skeleton mover who worked 24/7 was created.

>> Complex production building chains are harder to make work if they need individual acting units. T2 seemed to suffer this problem.
http://tropico.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/cafe/index.php?topic=7088.msg149467#msg149467
There was debate, but it seems clear that the "Black Market" work-around intended for early, critical needs was not sufficently countered by a straight-line increase in prices.

There are some other examples. Later I shall try to relate some of this to T3.

[Coconut Kid]

Keep Eye on Story Line

The story line sets the goal of the game play, at least so I think. The game needs to be balanced around that.

Here is a comment about T2 to illustrate how multiple features can go astray:

Hayreddin Barbarossa: After a few months of gameplay, I lost my enthusiasm about this game.  I'm sure (and I hope) that I'll regain it in time but here's why I'm not as eager to play it as I was in the beginning. In the main campaign, I often catch myself watching the pirate satisfaction/ captive submission levels. That aspect alone takes so much effort and resources that I can't concentrate on pillaging & plundering, prospering etc.

I don't mean that those aspects should be removed from the game, no! They add a lot of gameplay value. However, their weight could be reduced somehow.

Of course, that is one player. With a good game (one designed to reap many sales and huge replay value), players will find many different aspects in the game play. They have to be warned that the game is not the simple formula of their past experiences.

T3 has to be and told to be not just another "city builder" with a build sequence which leads to victory and/or a beautiful city for a screenshot. It's too bad that T1 got "tagged" as a city builder.

Tropico is (or should be) a game that can be played as a "city builder" - most likely in the sandbox mode; or as an economic exploitation of a land and its people; or as political intrigue involving a volatile population with strong conflicts. It's not a "war game" but has some armed conflict. But with a sufficent level of "niceness or nastyness", you can play all those at the same time.

[Coconut Kid]

Building's Characteristics
Clash with Unit's selection !

A serious impediment to rational game play is the building setting of "service quality"! While one suspects it was derived from games in which the buildings were the drivers, it was at cross-purposes with the independent units of Tropico!

The adverse results were most evident in the health care and religion chains. The instant that the first Hospital and Cathedral are built, the Clinics and Churches become totally obsolete. The units will walk past them to the to the building with the higher quality rating.

This is simply a frustration to the player which should not happen.

With the entertainment / tourist attraction buildings, the confusion is even worse. The primary game play attraction (at least in my opinion) should be the unit's preference for the kind of entertainment rather than the quality setting. This cross-purposes of settings has led to the player's consensus that some buildings are worthless.

With the citizen housing buildings, the quality rating seems almost useless as compared to rental rates. It's astounding to a player to see a newly arrived (recruited) Banker take a free Shack clear across the island rather than the vacant Blue House (with reasonable rent) next to his Bank building. Although lots of "micro-management" techniques have been published, T3 can and should do better basics.

I guess that I have to admit that I am "mico-managing" this comment. The "service quality" rating for buildings is a piece of crap in conflict with the unit's selection criteria. It should be deleted.

[General Alcazar]

Few players persist in trying to operate an island educational system

Seriously?  In any of my games I would probably go bankrupt if I hired workers everytime. I can't imagine paying for 2-3 College workers a year and 3-5 High School mid game, it would quickly get prohibitive. Is it just me who is not so good at building up a large financial cushion on the harder settings?

Even if it made financial sense the "role player" in me would much rather educate native Tropicans, and I believe there is a slight benefit to this as immigrants often have very high liberty demands, so can be troublemakers.

Like many I used to get annoyed by the tardiness of Tropicans when it comes to getting an education, but I find if you keep all the employment slots of a building open to start with (even if you don't want anyone to take up the slot yet and later close them) then you can actually build up a surplus of educated labour.

[General Alcazar]

I guess that I have to admit that I am "mico-managing" this comment. The "service quality" rating for buildings is a piece of crap in conflict with the unit's selection criteria. It should be deleted.

I can see where you're coming from here, there needs to be a balance between other factors (eg. distanced travelled, rent, unit preference) when it comes to the services, but surely the baby shouldn't be thrown out with the bath water?     
The player needs to be rewarded for having 2 Hospitals rather than 4 clinics for example.

[Coconut Kid]

Few players persist in trying to operate an island educational system

Seriously? ...

Yes.

O.K. - I modified the comment to reflect that there are few reports of operational educational systems.

Yours is the first one I can recall. But, of course, my memory is not so good.

 

[Capitaligous]

Few players persist in trying to operate an island educational system

Seriously? ...

Yes.

O.K. - I modified the comment to reflect that there are few reports of operational educational systems.

Yours is the first one I can recall. But, of course, my memory is not so good.

Yeah, I've never heard much about that either. Probably because it isn't necessarily "required" or because it doesn't produce any money.

[General Alcazar]

The education system is not perfect, but I think it would be very unfair to describe it, as they say in gaming parlance, as "broken".

I suppose the slow take up of school/college places is what annoys people, though I would say it is fairly realistic for small developing nations to have a shortage of skilled workers, though in real life the problem is probably more about lack of infrastructure and emmigration rather than an unwillingness to learn.

I have just looked at the high school on my current game, the year is 1995, the school has educated 103 people and in that time wages/maintenance has cost $33,000. So each student has cost just over $300 to educate. The precise maths is beyond me, but this must be at least 5 times cheaper than importing workers.         Of course "skilled workers welcome" would help cut costs a lot, but is also erratic and unreliable, and I do think immigrants cause more difficulty than is acknowledged in Tropico.

Anyway sorry to labour the point and take the thread in an off topic direction- Just from my experience the education system actually works fairly well for me in Tropico.

[Coconut Kid]

[from CK] I guess that I have to admit that I am "mico-managing" this comment. The "service quality" rating for buildings is a piece of crap in conflict with the unit's selection criteria. It should be deleted.

I can see where you're coming from here, there needs to be a balance between other factors (eg. distance travelled, rent, unit preference) when it comes to the services, but surely the baby shouldn't be thrown out with the bath water?     
The player needs to be rewarded for having 2 Hospitals rather than 4 clinics, for example.

I have thought again about that, and I am still not sure -- either about your example or about having a building characteristic over-ride the unit's (person's) selection criteria.

First, your example: Why should two Hospitals be better than four Clinics? In T1, they are both staffed by Doctors and the service is identical <<except for the service quality code>> which has to do only with initial attraction to the building.

If the Clinics were staffed by HS trained nurses and would only recharge the unit's "health care meter" half-way, then a case could be made for a difference.

If the issue were only about "reward" to the player, why punish the player by a building code which drives the units to go past vacant Clinics to Hospitals at a far greater distance? The reward to the player could be about "through-put" and/or level of recharge of the unit's meter. Distance of trip should be a key element -- not a simplistitic (sorry) ratio of buildings which makes one redundant/obsolete. The "real world" uses a balanced distribution of both kinds of buildings, not one to drive out the other.
There needs to be a greater reliance on the units' individual selection criteria to determine the usefullness of buildings rather than an over-riding code attached to the buildings.

This was a great complaint among players of T1. That is some buildings were practically useless in game play. Years of experience has revealed that the "service quality" code is the driver that made them so.

[General Alcazar]

Why should two Hospitals be better than four Clinics?

Simply to reward the player for the extra infrastructure and expense required to build a hospital.

If the Clinics were staffed by HS trained nurses and would only recharge the unit's "health care meter" half-way, then a case could be made for a difference.

This sounds like a good compromise, but I think the "Health" bar on the unit "Happiness" page should increase more with a visit to a hospital, (ie there would still be a service quality differential) even if it stopped being the overriding factor behind a visit.

There needs to be a greater reliance on the units' individual selection criteria to determine the usefullness of buildings rather than an over-riding code attached to the buildings.

I agree. But do you advocate getting rid of the service quality rating entirely or just downgrading its importance when it comes to unit choice as to what building to visit?

I think the "Happiness" bars on each Tropicans info panel (I'm sure there is a better way of putting that) are a good feature when it comes to measuring the progress of your regime and its impact on each individual, so personally wouldn't wish to see them lose importance.

[Coconut Kid]

The education system is not perfect, but I think it would be very unfair to describe it, as they say in gaming parlance, as "broken". ...

I don't think I reported a "broken" system. I think I tried to caution the developers that many players found it frustrating and therefore were likely to use alternatives rather than giving it a fair trial. They typically found the units/persons willingness to go to school not to be intuitive.

No doubt I once again failed to be crystal clear in what I was trying to say.

In my opinion, the big impediment to player understanding of the education chain is the unit's/person's having no foresight. The program drives the unit's interest in education as just another job but as intermediary to an existing vacancy.

It seems to me that it would not be an extreme demand on the programmers to change the "go to Student occupation" routine to one which would use the unit's intelligence level == unit's intelligence level is 'above average' or higher & unit's education level is less than HS/Col & there is vacant "student" slot, then unit goes to student occupation. That's not dependent on vacant jobs requiring education.

There are problems with that too (money as primary motivator for units) -- but it is more intuitive.

I hope that is a small bit clearer about my thought.

[Coconut Kid]

... I think the "Health" bar on the unit "Happiness" page should increase more with a visit to a hospital, (i.e. there would still be a service quality differential) even if it stopped being the overriding factor behind a visit.

That is certainly an interesting concept. However, it goes far beyond a simple, incremental change to T1.

My intent is point out the need to de-emphasize the intrinsic effect of the buildings <<they are the drivers in 'city building' games>> and the need to emphasize the units as the drivers in Tropico!

... do you advocate getting rid of the service quality rating entirely or just downgrading its importance when it comes to unit choice as to what building to visit?

For buildings with staff, a fixed "service quality rating" is redundant to the number and skill level of the staff. If used, the base should be zero in all cases and incremented by scores for the staff.

For unstaffed buildings such as residences, the fixed base "service quality rating" should be retained -- and made equal to rental rates plus made more flexible to reflect environment.

I think the "Happiness" bars on each Tropicans info panel ... are a good feature when it comes to measuring the progress of your regime and its impact on each individual, so personally wouldn't wish to see them lose importance.

I don't think this has anything to do with those, either in T1 or for T3 discussion on unit vs building.

It has to do with the Overview panel for each unit/citizen = > Hunger; > Rest; > Religion Need; > Entertainment Need; > Health Care Need.

They are all satisfied by visiting buildings.

I believe the "Happiness Panel" (thumb up) has no direct connection in its algorithms to the "service quality ratings" of buildings.

[General Alcazar]

I believe the "Happiness Panel" (thumb up) has no direct connection in its algorithms to the "service quality ratings" of buildings.

Well if that is the case then you can disregard all my posts on the subject as I was thinking entirely on that basis which was why I brought it up.

How is the happiness/thumb up panel calculated then?   Surely buildings with a higher service quality effect it positively when they have been visited by an individual?

As a veteran contributor I'm sure you are right but I am confused now!

[Coconut Kid]

... [1] How is the happiness/thumb up panel calculated then?   [2] Surely buildings with a higher service quality effect it positively when they have been visited by an individual? ...

#1: There are ten "happiness" elements plus an "overall" amalgamated/composite rating. Each has, I believe, a distinct method of calculation which is hinted at by the information which appears in the "Info Bar" when you put the pointer on its line. Each of the ten has a weight of zero to ten indicating the unit's interest in that element. Only four of the elements involve visiting a building: housing, religion, entertainment & health care; some of them may be weighted zero. Even if they are weighted zero and thus do not affect the composite rating, they still show their "meter". (Thus, if a unit has no interest in religion, it will still respond to the needs meter on on the 'Overview' page and visit a religion building.)

Housing and entertainment are relatively complex calculations.

The housing building 'service quality' does indeed continuously count (see 'Job & Home' panel), but it is adjusted by the maintenance setting and by the adjacent environment, so the actual number is not the base number. That number seems quite minor as compared to rental fee. The effect of distance from work site is almost unknown, but seems in some cases to affect selection.

Entertainment buildings are selected not only by the service quality (base adjusted by experience of employees), but also by the unit's preference for type of entertainment.

Religion and Health Care are relatively simple. The buildings are selected by the service quality (base adjusted by experience of employees).

#2 There is no evidence or hint that the level of service quality -- either base or adjusted -- carries over to the happiness meters on the 'Happiness' panel. That would require a very complex algorithm, at least so I think.

There has been relatively little examination of the "thru-put" of buildings, so any effect of the base level of service quality on the speed of recharge of needs meters is unknown.

Some of this has been discussed in other threads; this is only a very brief summary.

[Coconut Kid]

Building's Characteristics
Clash with Unit's selection !

A serious impediment to rational game play is the building setting of "service quality"! While one suspects it was derived from games in which the buildings were the drivers, it was at cross-purposes with the independent units of Tropico!

The adverse results were most evident in the health care and religion chains. The instant that the first Hospital and Cathedral are built, the Clinics and Churches become totally obsolete. The units will walk past them to the to the building with the higher quality rating.

This is simply a frustration to the player which should not happen.

With the entertainment / tourist attraction buildings, the confusion is even worse. The primary game play attraction (at least in my opinion) should be the unit's preference for the kind of entertainment rather than the quality setting. This cross-purposes of settings has led to the player's consensus that some buildings are worthless.

With the citizen housing buildings, the quality rating seems almost useless as compared to rental rates. It's astounding to a player to see a newly arrived (recruited) Banker take a free Shack clear across the island rather than the vacant Blue House (with reasonable rent) next to his Bank building. Although lots of "micro-management" techniques have been published, T3 can and should do better basics.

I guess that I have to admit that I am "mico-managing" this comment. The "service quality" rating for buildings is a piece of crap in conflict with the unit's selection criteria. It should be deleted.

I still wish to emphasize this point!

[jonas3333]

I completely agree with you on the Service Quality issue.  I find it very annoying when my doctors live in a shack and the farmer is in the fine home. And neither one is anywhere near their place of employment. Sometimes they do move closer with time but that isn't as common or quickly as it should be. 

And you are also absolutely correct with the entertainment sector buildings.  It drives me nuts when it seems half the island is pining for a cabaret or a casino and then it just sits (mostly)empty even though I have maxed the workers. Since I normally run my industries on "easy does it" I expect them to frequent entertainment facilities more often.  But that doesn't seem the case.  And the churches/clinics vs. cathedral/hospital issue is just awful.  Simcity 4 has very localized way of occupying the nearby buildings.  Black and white 2 also has travel limits which aid in the usefulness of buildings. Perhaps something like that could be implemented.

[Coconut Kid]

Belated Happy April 2nd Birthday to "NEV" !

Hello all.  Newbie here.  I know this post is older then dirt but I did want to say that I also have MM for PC and I have Lazy as well.  Dude isn't crazy FYI.

Also do you all know I picked the games up for 2 bucks at the Goodwill.

When did Tourette's get dropped?

To T3 developers: Please do some heavy thinking about the positive and negative "dictator/player" characteristics. What sounds good in the "studio" coffee lounge may play very poorly across the globe.

 

[Coconut Kid]

One thing that really appeals to me about Tropico is the sheer "vastness" of the game -- which is to say, the ability for replayablity, over and over again, that I just don't find in other games.

It's probably been 2 months since I got Tropico.  I've gone from "gotta-have-a-higher-score" to "let's-rule-openly-and-try-stuff", and there are *still* many aspects of the game that I have yet to explore fully.  And some aspects (scenerio design) that I haven't even played with yet!  By comparison, Black and White lasted about a week, Majesty has lasted about two weeks (though it's still a hoot for multiplayer), and Simcity and Rollercoaster Tycoon lasted for several months, but on a much less grand scale (amazing how many hours a day one can play Tropico while collecting unemployment checks --)

I've seen some threads on ideas for T2.  Here goes...

1.  Multiplayer.  I know this seems like a really difficult approach, but I have an idea for a way to pull it off -- has anyone ever played the boardgame "Juanta"?  Imagine each player in charge of a faction (or run by the PC) and during the terms when the office of El Presidente is occupied by another player, there is still a list of actions that you can peform as head of your faction -- depending on the faction.  I know, I know, I can already hear the gnashing of teeth and the lamenting from the coders.  Hey, it's just an idea --

2.  More building types!  More types of workers!  More stuff to point and click at!

3.  More foriegn powers!  Can't I beseach France for aid?  How 'bout Italy?  And more diplomatic stuff to do!

4.  Here's an idea -- How about El Presidente as a guy that walks around the island and does stuff, like one of the laboring types?  And perhaps there can be periodic assassination attempts?  Or have the game end if El Presidente dies with no heir?

5.  I'd really like to see a little bit of variance in the prices of exports.  Perhaps instead of having them be set prices, the market can have a little bit of ebb and flow as supply and demand vary from country to country -- and perhaps you can only sell goods to countries you are on good terms with -- and perhaps you can buy things from them as well -- perhaps ships will arrive depending on the relations you have with the other countries --

6.  Random events!  I'd love to see 'em implemented.  All sorts of fun stuff possible --

There's tons more.  ...  that's it for now.

He didn't have many misses about what players reported they wanted.

The big miss was random events. Tropico seems to appeal to "builders" and/or control-freaks/micro-managers. They can deal with (or maybe even enjoy) random events in specific scenarios which warn them that such events may occur.

When the "Paradise Island" expansion implemented a system of random events which was variable in the "set-up", suddenly many players reported they hated it and always left it set to "off"! It was just too much of a diversion from whatever they were trying to do. That is, too big a dose of verisimilitude on a Caribbean island.

My personal suggestion is that T3 should not make the "Random Events System" a separate selection in the "set-up" phase of the game. The NATURAL disasters of tropical storms/hurricanes and earthquakes should occur on all maps, but perhaps with far less frequency than the "real" world would indicate. The ECONOMIC and POLITICAL events should be both plus and minus, and the frequency of occurance should be set the same as the level of difficulty for the base elements of the game.

[Servant Corps]

Few players persist in trying to operate an island educational system

Seriously? ...

Yes.

O.K. - I modified the comment to reflect that there are few reports of operational educational systems.

Yours is the first one I can recall. But, of course, my memory is not so good.

 

Gamefaqs has two guides on Tropico, and both guides support operational educational systems. I wouldn't be surprised if the Gamestop Guide also support operational educational systems.

I don't think any of them realized of the way to get people with high education by switching between "Nobody Gets Out of Here" and "Skilled Immigrants Welcome". But, I wouldn't be surprised if many Tropico players rely on Gamefaqs and Gamestop to tell them how to play Tropico effectively.

[Coconut Kid]

Gamefaqs has two guides on Tropico, and both guides support operational educational systems. I wouldn't be surprised if the Gamestop Guide also support operational educational systems.

I don't think any of them realized of the way to get people with high education by switching between "Nobody Gets Out of Here" and "Skilled Immigrants Welcome". But, I wouldn't be surprised if many Tropico players rely on Gamefaqs and Gamestop to tell them how to play Tropico effectively.

I looked at those FAQs/Guides and the message board at 'Gamefaqs'.

It's certainly sad if "many" players rely on those sources since they all date back to before Paradise Island. One is so out-dated as to mention the 500 person limit on population.

Yes, they all "support" having at least one of each level of education building. However, they are all careful to point out that Tropicans will NOT go to them unless there is already a vacant job requiring an education waiting. So they mention tactics such as being sure you are able to absorb the maintenance costs, using the teacher/professor slots beyond one as "holding" jobs for the educated to wait for those jobs where you really need them, etc.

Perhaps it would be useful to elaborate on what an "operational" education system would look like.

When I suggest that few players are satisfied with the Tropican Educational System, I don't mean that they don't build a high school and perhaps a college and staff each with one employee. But they do so only after they have established a strong economy with a plentiful cash flow. However, the use of the Immigration Office plus generous pay policies is far more effective. So the schools are just a "stand-by" measure, and perhaps a sop to the Intellectual Faction.

It is rare to hear of a player having problems of "thru-put" in his HS or College, and so having to build a second one. Even with the "Social Security" edict, there has been no flood of comments about the Unemployed rushing to go to school to draw a pay check.

Has anyone heard of the options (military & religious) having any good effect on staffing guard posts and churches? Most of the comments I have seen are just the opposite. It's too bad Madame President's web site is gone because she w/others did quite a study on staffing churches. IIRC, they found the religious HS wasn't worth squat in maintaining full staffing in churches.

So I submit that having the buildings with minimum staffing is not the same as having an operational (or effective) system.

[Coconut Kid]

Although there was some drift and/or discussion of fine points about T1, this thread is still available for posting.

It is clearly recognized that T3 has an entirely new game engine, and the point of this thread is the game logic rather than the program itself.