Forced to stay on Tropico

[Slacker]

Whenever I do a random map, I usually set it to Immigrants Out just because I can never keep up with housing for the floods of people moving onto my island with regular Immigration.  Biggest problem with Immigrants Out is that you can build no immigration office, which means people are can move away at any time.  This can be a big problem early in the game if you have a low starting population.  Especially when the guy who is leaving is married and takes his wife and kids with him to the U.S.  I have finally figured out a way to keep people from leaving the island.  Prison!

I usually never build a prison as early in the game as I did this time, but my military wasn't really thrilled at having me alive, so I figured a prison was the best way to deal with a coup if one occured.  Anyway, I was bored and just was looking through the thoughts of random people and Came across one fellow who said something about being bored on my island and he was leaving.  "hmm... I thought to myself... Can't have this guy move away.  He's married with 4 kids.  I'll need them 4 kids to grow up and work."  I had my police ambush him on the way to the dock and throw him in prison.  It worked pretty well.  He stayed, his family stayed, and when the kids grew up I had a few more farmers.  Sure they were pissed off farmers cause daddy was in jail, but oh well.  Now obviously, this probably isn't the most practical of things to do because checking on everyone's thoughts constantly to ensure they aren't planning on moving away would take a lot of time, but it does work.  Just thought I would share.  

[DonaMaria]

LOL!  Now you have me wondering - if you were making sufficient income from tourism (with that dock set to yachts only or just an airport)....and had no exports at all (no other docks).....would anyone be able to leave?  

[Slacker]

hmmm..... now thats a thought.  Settng the dock to yachts only wouldn't make a difference, because i've noticed that people go to any dock to move away.  As far as having no dock goes, I'm pretty sure that is impossible.  Maybe by using "rapido"  you can get rid of the starting dock, but I don't think you can get rid of it through honest means.  I could be wrong, but it's late and I don't feel like trying to test it out right now.

[bhar]

I wonder....


If you could start an island with a high population, build a lot of prisons, and throw everybody on the island in prison except for the cops and military.  Of course, set the prisons to "convict labor..."

I wonder if you would make enough money to support the island?

Well, let's see... Lets say you have 100 people...
a prison has 8 prisoners who produce $40 of goods a month.
plus (i don't know the maintenance cost of prisons, and i'm lazy) plus 2 cops paid, say, $10 a month per cop.  Let's just make up an arbitrary number for prison maintenance=$5 a month...that leaves the prison with a +$15 a month balance.

let's say you have 9 prisons with 72 people in them...

the other 28 people probably will be:
18=prison guards
6=cops
4=military (palace guards)

lets say that the 10 non-prison workers earn $10 a month per person.(plus, let's say, oh, $10 maintenance for police and palace)  that's a balance of -$110 a month...so add this up.

BALANCE PER MONTH
15x9= +$135 a month
        -$110 a month
---------------------
You earn $25 per month!  Now I'm probably forgetting something, but foreign aid should cover all extra hidden expenses.  But then again, remember that this is in a perfect world, and without figuring the cost of constructing these buildings.  (the people probably might not like it either)

But it is theroretically possible to build a profitable "prison island."

[Kaiser Sose]

Do the prisoners need to eat, and what about the guards? I would imagine that cannibalism would not be smiled upon, as it would hurt the labor market. But any food that is not being sold is an expense. And food costs more to produce than the profit of a license plate made in a prison. Plus, cops and prison guards sure won't want to farm their own food!! Lazy high-school educated primadonnas!!  

[Slacker]

one farm with maybe 2 farmers should be more than enough to feed the "free" population of the island.  And It would probably allow something to be exported just for a little bit of extra flow.  If anyone actually tries this out, be sure to post about it.  I sure wanna hear how it works out.

[Chris]

I found a hole in your theory Lach:

You can't jail kids.

Maybe we should talk to Mr. P

[Slacker]

I found a hole in your theory Lach:

You can't jail kids.

Maybe we should talk to Mr. P

Let the brats starve in shacks.  When they grow up either they join the prison guards or the prison inmates!

[EmperorWoadie]

The quickest and easiest way (though evil and twisted) withough having to build expensive prisons or hire police would be just to execute the head of the household if he thinks about leaving.  Sure his spouse and kids will be pissed off but they probably wont leave the island.  Same concept of the prison except much cheaper; 1 bullet instead of a prison, prison guards, and police.  You'd just be enforcing the "nobody gets out alive" policy without having the immigration office.

[bhar]

2 things:

a) I'm not Lach.  Even though I have the same icon as him, and soon I am going to upload my own, I'm not him.

b) A small enough percentage of the island's population would be kids (plus kids are relatively low maintenance, you are just going to jail them anyway, why worry about happiness?) that it would still work.  I'll post the results when I get around to trying it.

[Chris]

Oops, sorry bhar, I just get so used to looking at the avatars.

[stupid_yanqui]

How stupid can you get? just dont piss off the people god da**   idiots. just make everyone happy and there you go. nobody leaves..duh

[Slacker]

I found a hole in your theory Lach:

You can't jail kids.

Maybe we should talk to Mr. P

Here's the plug for the hole in the theory.  Who's going to be having kids?  If everyone is in prison, they can't be having.... uhm... Kids.  yeah, they wont be having kids cause they are behind bars.  You won't have any women on the outside to be producing children either.  Guards are men.  Cops are men.  Soldiers are men.  Okay, if you have a farm, then there could be women.... Just throw them in prison and get some guys working there.  

[bhar]

Really?  I always thought that people can still have kids when they are in prison.  I guess not.  Anyway, if some of the farmer girls have kids, you can just eliminate them when they are babies.  There, problem solved.  It may be Chinese/Orwellian, but it will work.

[Railnut]

I don't think you can eliminate children. And I seem to recall a thread about prisoners having babies. I could be wrong.

Oh, and Chris, ignore my avatar. I'm not you.
I'll get around to changing it sooner or later.

[Mr.P]

In the unfortunate incident where I had a kid in jail, it had been caused by my arresting a women.

As the test undertaken by Primus at ftp://http://www.cafetropico.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=strategy&action=display&num=994779189 shows the married couples do not need to be in contact to have kids.

Sadly the women gave birth to her baby in prison just before her automatic release and I just...erm..never got round to releasing him. Under board pressure I did put his parents back in prison to keep him company however!

So, as long as you keep the women in prison it seems as if some of their kids will be born there too. However, I have not tested it out enough to be sure this happens every birth, but with the rather unusual things noted by Primus you just never know.

[2ninga]

Wait a minute.  Married couples don't have to come in contact with each other to breed?  Even cows have to get together to breed (see the thread http://www.cafetropico.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=basic& action=display&num=992797802).  I'm generally not one to take the low road, but don't you think the divorce rate on Tropico should go up a bit if women are having babies and they haven't been in contact with their husbands for the last year?  Well, then again, maybe it's just technology

[Peron]

 Test tube cows in tropico?

 

[bhar]

Who ever said those babies were their huband's?

Between the inbreeding, divorces, 2-mile away marriages, I think there is some room for adultery in Tropico.

[Revolucionario]

Yanqui,
They wanna test out different scenarios just to spice up there games, don't be so hard on them. Just relax amigo.

[2ninga]

A freighter just arrived with numerous bolts of red cloth.  I'll have some of the retired women in my community use their sewing talents to make large A's and give them to the authorities in the church for distribution to worthy recipients

[bhar]

The one... The only... The tropican ZipperLock^r

Now that pesky little zipper won't come down when you don't want it to, causing unwanted havoc and screwiness in the game!  From the makers of "Showgirl Retirer^r", and "InbreedStopper^r" comes the revolucionary new product ZipperLock^r!  Stop illegitimate children in their tracks!  Get yours today and don't leave your island without it!  


ZipperLock^r has been approved by the tropican ministry of Pancake Syrup, Gerbils, and Duct Tape.  Needless to say, you should not believe jack squat what they say, cuz they are the same ones who made this wonderful product.

[Revolucionario]

How about the new Tropican cologne "Rebel" for men?
Now you too can smell like a swarthy Rebel man! No woman will resist you.

And for the women you can buy the Tropican perfume "Rebella" which makes you smell fresh like the jungle morning! The Muchachos will go ga ga for you.

I endorse these products so unleash ur wild side order "Rebel" and "Rebella" today!


Paid for by the TRM.

[Coconut Kid]

In the unfortunate incident where I had a kid in jail, it had been caused by my arresting a women.

As the test undertaken by Primus [long lost link] shows the married couples do not need to be in contact to have kids.

Sadly the women gave birth to her baby in prison just before her automatic release and I just - erm - never got around to releasing him. Under board pressure I did put his parents back in prison to keep him company however!

So, as long as you keep the women in prison it seems as if some of their kids will be born there too. However, I have not tested it out enough to be sure this happens every birth, but with the rather unusual things noted by Primus you just never know.

You should have had an infant\baby in the cell for three years. Then the Child should have joined the family where ever they were living.

The "Pregancy Algorithm" may prohibit females in Prison from becoming pregnant -- contact or not. There's a list of conditions that are "no-go" for pregancies.

BTW, Primus got deleted from the roster of members, so finding that post is a tough search.