Mr.P's important posts collected.

[Coconut Kid]

Tropican Defense Force (TDF)
Staff Manual #2002-B

Also published as:
Tropican People's Army (TPA)
HANDBOOK #ONE

Unless El Presidente wishes to be in constant conflict with the Military Faction who will ridicule him without mercy if the Army is not large enough to fight off a few bananna and coconut eating monkeys from the forest he has ordered to be cleared by his loyal loggers (potential conscripts), he needs to take Mr.P's wisdom seriously. That means checking these links and paying attention as he reads.

Military Controlled Island?
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=7060.0
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=806.0

How Large Is Your Military?
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5899.0

You should have one soldier per 50 population early on. Then when you get to 200, you need a general. The general can take the place of the 4th soldier. I am not sure how many they require once you get over 200.

What determines which side a soldier joins in a coup?
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=9156.0

Suppressing an Uprising
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=845.msg8501#msg8501

Military Buildup
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=8282.0

The Making and Unmaking of a Rebel
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=6521.msg209288#msg209288

Warning!
This publication is subject to editing and
supplemental change at any time.

More of Mr.P's posts and notes may
be discovered by the lone clerk.

[Coconut Kid]

A Cross Reference to one of my rants about Rebels:
'fish' swimming in the sea of citizens
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=143.0

El Malo was a longtime poster who led the charge for a "Search and Destroy" edict which would put the carefully built (and expensive) army to use in combing the forest to rid the island of Rebels. I never felt comfortable with the concept because it seemed to require a counter-measure for the Rebels -- such as ambushes, mines, kidnappings, etc. All that seems outside of the ambiance of the game.

We know that the 'cutting room floor' has an edict, "Eye for Eye" which seems to have been intended to take retaliation on the families of the Rebels who attacked a building. The family members of Rebels would be "highlighted" so as to be available for the player to use the 'arrest' or 'eliminate' edicts; or perhaps the application of one or the other of those edicts would be 'automatic.' That would have been a bit 'heavy-duty' for a "suitable for teens" rating. Pulling wings off flies, eh?


Another Cross-Reference which falls on the index under
Know Your Enemy!

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=10000.0

[Coconut Kid]

Just a little info on the need for a Prison, in the event you also have a Dungeon.

Not because you have to you understand, but because you need to. During a coup all Soldiers [and Generals] converge on the Palace, as normal.

Well, given the Dungeon is staffed with Soldiers these:

i) Could be part of the coup, so will not stop shooting up your Palace to start arrest [capturing] their co-conspirators.

ii) As your loyal Soldiers dispose of the traitorous element - possibly including Dungeon guards - you will reduce the capacity of the said Dungeon as you 'remove' the staff working there.

Therefore it is important (if you have a Dungeon) to have both a Dungeon and a handful of Prisons - staffed by Policemen, if you intend to rule with an iron fist or deal with coups successfully.

Posted for some unknown reason on the Night Club board.

[Coconut Kid]

N The "Fear" Factor N

In the Tropican world, there is no 'fear'. To understand that, channel the Wizard of OZ about a brain, a heart, and courage. There are signs and symbols which substitute.

In the Tropican NPC, fear is an absence of courage and a full measure of respect. Conversely, the NPCs who threaten El Presidente have high courage and little to no respect.


IMHO, the oppressive ruler has to do everything possible to increase the people's respect in order to counteract their lack in other happiness factors. They may be very unhappy otherwise, but if they "Respect" you enough -- they will be docile.

Mr.P has done the ground work on building and maintaining a loyal and efficient Army and Police. Now it remains for a skilled script writer to take the drudgery out of the applications of these principles. A few generally applicable quarterly events in "Cafe Dave's 'Event File'" should make that part of El Presidente's life easier.

[Coconut Kid]

The Militarist Faction Leader
and why s\he is more important than
any General!
He is the defacto political commissar of the army.

The political commissar (also politruk Russian: политрук from политический руководитель: political officer) is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education (ideology) of the military, and their loyalty to the government. Historically, the commissaire politique (political commissary) first appeared in the French Revolution (1789–99), guarding it against anti-Revolutionary (ideological) thought and action, and so ensuring the Republican victory. They were appointed with various jurisdictions. Despite a French Republican origin, the political commissar usually is associated historically with the Soviet Union (1917–91), where the Russian Provisional Government of 1917 introduced them to the military forces to ensure the government’s political control. In the event, after the October Revolution, the political commissar remained in the Red Army until 1942.

Experience and interpolation now indicates that the treatment of the Faction Leader (of any faction) is extremely important. By analogy to the effect on family members and if the Faction Leader is considered the "target" : the wave effect is by quintiles:

• Target \ Leader = 100%
• +++ level supporters = 80%
• ++ level supporters = 60% including possible additional plus
• + level supporters = 40% including possible additional plus
• Detractors = 20% possible additional plus

IMHO this is an important concept of the Faction Leader's position. When used in conjunction with the faction growing tools, the player should be able to crush some factions by growing others.

For the Militarist Faction, this means that the faction leader is a very important part of Coup prevention and\or suppression even if s\he is not an army employee. Unrest among the faction spreads to the employees of the army very quickly. To keep such expensive employees, you have to try to have them aligned with the faction. Well, do you wish to try to separate the army from the faction? When the army has to go into combat, don't the weak (or detractors) faction supporters become the first "chickens" - perhaps even ahead of those who have low courage.

IMHO to have a reliable and useful army, you have to integrate it with the Militarist Faction.


How the factions work
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=8282.msg213031#msg213031

Coups - watch your back
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=2872.0

[Coconut Kid]

Screening the Army's Employees.
Performing your own "Spook" function.

... A closer look at the individuals feeling on their specific needs [happiness factors] usually tells a different picture however. Most Tropicans have one, sometimes two needs which are heavily weighted, such as food, liberty or housing for example. When I have had coups more often that not the soldiers' satisfaction in these key weighted needs are low. Whether this is due to bad provision by El Presidente, or because the soldier has not been to, say, the food shack, is not clear.  A review of the other Tropicans and their view on, say, food provision, will help clarify matters.

I have undertaken some of my own off-the-cuff testing with regards to the army.

The first time I receive a warning I have paused the game and listed all soldiers and generals in the almanac and assessed who I believe will be loyal and who will turn traitor.

The factors I considered – for each individual - were:

i) Overall respect and happiness
ii) Assessment of their weighted need(s) (e.g. food, housing, religion, etc.) Remember the effect of weighting on these needs demonstrates the valued importance to that Tropican.
iii) The factional leaning(s) of the soldier and my relationship with the faction(s) they support.

Based upon this I can then make an accurate assumption as to who is more likely to be loyal and who to turn traitor.

Overall, re-assessing each time the coup warning level worsens, I am around 75-80% accurate, leaving maybe 1 out of every 5 traitors in the ranks, but also arresting (I would have to guess) 1 loyalist who would otherwise have supported me.

It can be quite time consuming, so now I just cull the army every 2 years, unless I desperately need the trained army to repress my people/rebels. ...

Note that Mr.P is discussing the ten happiness factors shown on panel two of the information on each individual citizen. Perhaps there could be further refinement of those which are incompatable with the military life. For example Brf points out that #8 Liberty is reduced by soldiers, so army employees tend to make themselves unhappy. How do you off-set that?

It is probable that there is an interlinkage between army employees and supporters of the militarist faction. That makes it reasonable to spend familiarization time on the civilian supporters also.  Perhaps Tropican style politics dictates that the Leader of the Militarist Faction is the 'de facto' commander of the Army.


Secret Police Dossiers:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=910.0

[Coconut Kid]

Here is a fragment of a lost interview about the Paradise Island expansion:

Ed Beach, executive producer at BreakAway Games:

Well, it's a lot easier to play as an evil El Presidente now. The army base can be built to keep your soldiers happy while the rest of the populace suffers. You can conscript uneducated citizens into the army. You can also invoke the martial law edict to cancel all upcoming elections or try to win elections by intimidating the voters -- the less courageous ones may vote for you if you keep throwing your election opponents in jail. So we now feel the toolkit for being a proper Caribbean dictator is complete!

There is no "Counter Insurgency" (Search For & Destroy Rebels) Edict because there is no 'Organized Insurgency' ; there is no rebel base and no rebel formation, just some of them wandering around - fish swimming in the citizen sea. Think of them as full time protesters with guns.

[Coconut Kid]

...  I tend to have around 5 Soldiers for every 100 citizens, plus the associated Generals to support this number, and a further 5 policemen for every 100 citizens.
Granted, by the time you get to a population of 500-750 your island can look like a mass of green camouflage, but hey, that is why God the programmers gave us Army Bases (plural intended!). ...

Actually, that is an awkward way to state it for most players since the Soldier to General ratio is really a Guard Station to Armory ratio (yes, the Army Base messed-up the computation by providing Generals without an Armory -- a pseudo-armory) ; and Police Station employees are not divisible by five.

Let's try a chart. 

|Population in Hundreds	|Soldiers \ Guard Stations + Palace Guard @ four	|Required Generals \  Armory +1 Army  Base for 3 ea.	|Policemen \ Police Stations
| ONE (100)	| Five (5) \ One (1) + 'full'	| One (1) \  Armory	| Five (5) \ One (1)
| TWO (200)	| Ten (10) \ Two (2) + 'full'	| Two (2) \  Armory	| Ten (10) \ Two (2)
| THREE (300)	| Fifteen (15) \ Four (4) + 'full'	| Four (4) \  Armory +	| Fifteen (15) \ Two (2)

¹ One Armory building is required as the foundation of the Army. One General is required for every three Soldiers except the Palace Guard. So after the first Armory, further required Generals may be employed at either another Armory or at an Army base.

I'll leave you at three hundred population because I think you can construct the rest of the chart to fit your target population on your own.

You also may wish to check this cross reference link:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=7060.msg212841#msg212841

[Coconut Kid]

..., I am terrified of my own soldiers and hate being blackmailed by them into paying them more.  ...

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5440.0

[Coconut Kid]

Yup, Conscription is supposed to be in the expansion.

Check out the recent interview with Ed Beach Here! Broken Link

Ed Beach, executive producer at BreakAway Games:

Well, it's a lot easier to play as an evil El Presidente now. The army base can be built to keep your soldiers happy while the rest of the populace suffers. You can conscript uneducated citizens into the army. You can also invoke the martial law edict to cancel all upcoming elections or try to win elections by intimidating the voters -- the less courageous ones may vote for you if you keep throwing your election opponents in jail. So we now feel the toolkit for being a proper Caribbean dictator is complete!