L'Overture Strategy

[Coconut Kid]

Why have an Army or Police Force?
It takes time and effort to manipulate a country.

Every year, when the Almanac pops up, I cycle through all of my army and check their happiness, respect etc. - and if it appears too low, and there is the chance they could join a coup, they are removed. Either fired, if there is no imminent threat; or imprisoned and starved in the Dungeon if a coup appears on the horizon. [He also prescreens army members to try to ensure that they have the highest courage and lowest leadership possible. Unfortunately, he says less about trying to manipulate their faction support.]

I also check the happiness index and look at the most unhappy 20 [entire population] and see if they look like they are causing trouble, or may do in the future. Often they have terrible respect and happiness, so I'll write them off as a bad investment and ensure they do not cause any more trouble, by either dropping them in the Dungeon or arresting them, then eliminate via nearby Guard post.

Should the person have some kind of education I will give them a few chances to find alternative employment that suits, this normally make them happier, as would be expected.

Then I check out all faction leaders each year and, if one looks upon me unfavourably (when I think they should at least be satisfied!) I'll make sure they 'resign' and can often find the replacement is more to my liking. In fact changing faction leaders happens often on my islands. I soften waves of arrests with Mardi Gras, etc. [Unfortunately, he doesn't mention bribes or why he doesn't use them.]

After that it is the common peon and I really don't worry too much about them, unless they are protesting constantly. Then they will be arrested and be given a swift ticket from the land of the living, by the Soldiers.

It is all a kind of Stalinist series of 5-Year Plans, but of a Capitalist vein. If they protest (or even look like they might protest, they are a threat!) then it is better for the rest of my loyal peons to have the enemy dealt with.

Oh, as an added note, guess what my favourite building is? No, not an Army Base, or Guard Post, but the Immigration Office. Yup, those girls sure make up for the tyranny and poor wages, hence their high pay.

Mr.P has practice in almost all aspects of oppression. Sometimes he is a bit heavy handed when one wishes he would be a bit more manipulative than so direct.


The Prison has a maximum term of seven years. The "Pardon" system is the same as eviction - SHIFT-Click on the prisoner to be pardoned.

The PI addition of the Dungeon is useful. Now that you have prisoners on imitation gruel, I suspect that the boys will not get much time on the target range. Let's just say I have not seen a single person get out of there alive. Quiet starvation out of sight. Even regular gruel shortens life.

[Coconut Kid]

Do you really want to see the secret police -
or only their reports?

... Tropico does a wonderful job of immersing me in the problems and rewards of total control of a nation's destiny. I love the economic model; the types of commodities available for development are exactly what you find in the types of Third World countries that often fall into tyranny.

Because I'm an historian, I really wanted a game that is dynamic politically, and simulates the ebb and flow of power politics. I love the factions in Tropico, and the fact that you must balance competing interests against each other in order to stay in power. And the individuality of the citizens is a great feature. A single citizen can support a variety of factions, and this, I think, is very realistic.

I would argue that the game really needs a secret police element. Secret police are found in every dictatorship, and in Tropico a secret police office could be used to extend govt control to a lesser degree than soldiers.

I submit that Jonny3 misses the point of the detail of the Almanac. The player also can click on any NPC and look at their thoughts - which are not only for fun. The player is the "secret police" with very intimate information about all citizens (and tourists). What Jonny3 and others seem to want is an AI code to tell them what they are too lazy to read\see for themselves. Or perhaps they wish to cloak the "Muerte" cheat in some sort of silly "on-map" disguise. Why disguise it from mechanical NPCs? It seems that players just "need" something on-map to make them feel that they are in control of "spooks."

The Secret Police exists and they is The Player himself \ herself. The Secret Police "office" is the Palace itself. The chief of them is El Presidente himself -- why should he trust anyone like J. Edgar Hoover? Napoleon trusted Joseph Fouché, who is sometimes described as the architect of the police state. His ideas and practice still form the foundation of much of the world’s intelligence gathering systems. Indeed the old intelligence maxim: ‘Where metrication rules Fouché follows’ is probably as true today as when it was conceived some 200 years ago.

So the player can't see himself on the map; so what? He sees everything. When he clicks on a citizen, the NPC answer recognizes him - most of the time.

Consider the uses of the Information Panels available for all citizens:

• Overview = ID + 5 needs bars
• Happiness = 10 factors + weighted average for overall score
  • Do not confuse these bars with the needs bars
• Politics = factions supported
• Job & Housing = repeats these two items from the happiness panel and provides links to the buildings
• Family = parents, spouse and children (when there such)
• Skills = Courage, Leadership, Intelligence + Current occupation (avatar) with skill (experience) bar
  • Previously held occupations shown as space is available
• Thoughts = not just for amusement; they show when individuals are triggered to take actions

[Coconut Kid]

Caution !

The weight individuals place on each of the ten happiness factors does change, but for unknown reasons. Here is a cross reference to a discussion:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=8583.0

[Coconut Kid]

I believe that PopTop indicated that it was not just "genetic" traits, but rather all characteristics which are passed from parents to children.

• Intelligence
• Courage
• Leadership
• Faction Support Levels
  • Note: Every individual has a 1 through 100 rating for all factions; they are divided into quartiles.
  • Only the top three quartiles show up with '+s'.
  • The bottom quartile is listed as "Detractors."
• Weight on the ten Happiness Factors
  • Note: Each individual's ten happiness factors are weighted from one to ten.
  • The weight is visible by the shading of the text.
• Perhaps, the three favorite entertainment types?

This makes it important for the player to get to know workers and their families.

[Coconut Kid]

03/01/10 Email by Mr.P.

CK, you point about the inputs that influence immigration is well made, however I have to say that my experience is that the Caribbean wage is a prime driver to the volume that come and over what timeframe. If you have ever read my AAR, you will see that I tend to micro-manage all immigrants and code them, based upon their likelihood for dissent. (I must confess, T3 is far less challenging when it comes to repression - You really have to try hard to have the people rise up against you!).

I therefore do review all immigrants and have found that

• job availability,
• salary [by quartile] and
• liberty

to be important drivers. When I have run a developed island and suppressed liberty, closed off job slots and reduced salary $10 below Caribbean average, the number of immigrants were between 40-50% down than when these conditions were no applied. Now, it could be argued that such fluctuations would have occurred has I not undertaken such measures, but running it three times with suppressed indicators vs non-suppressed, the reduction was between 40-50% across all tests. Hardly scientific, I agree. However I am one for simple tests at assessing my (and others’) anecdotal observations and it appears to bare it out, albeit I cannot assess to what degree the job availability and liberty adjustments have been drivers.
I certainly support his findings. I suspect that simplisticly, the pay seems most important because it should be considered two elements: relation to Caribbean Average, and relation to vacant jobs -- and the check should be run by quartile.

I opine that the programmers used the pay quartiles in very sophisticated ways in relation to faction support.