Cafe Tropico Competition June / July 2004

[Che_Miguel]

Che Miguel Productions Proudly Presents:

The rainy summer day's alternative - COMING HOME, a Cafe Tropico scenario of the most wonderful game of TROPICO / PARADISE ISLAND
Proof your skills and beat the competing Presidents!
Hey - ho, step inside and take a chance!

Hi friends!
Now that the official part of the post has ended, I'd like to invite you all to join the June / July competition. I must say, I had a lot of fun creating *Isla Juventa* and testing it over and over. There is more than one strategy leading to a good result, and the basic idea of the scenario is quite different from others (I hope).

Please, do not cheat in any way, nor use the hotel income trick changing the hotel prices manually. Be fair, it's just a game and there is no need to manipulate your results.

And last not least: HAVE FUN!

Good luck,
Che

[belbincolne]

It's downloaded - now into action.

Of course I had a problem - the Zip is Juventas and (as you say) the scenario is COMING HOME so I had trouble finding it - so everyone else be warned!!!

[PeeWee]

No problems here: I copied it into the maps folder and it shows in the list as usual.

Perhaps you were looking for "juventas" as the zip is called? The name of the szenario is "coming home"  

[TeamStar]

Wow, the starting condition are so ... different! To play this scenario I'll have to ... think different.  

[Che_Miguel]

Oki, maybe there might be a problem, so this is the text that appears at the game description:

Coming Home
You, the son of El Presidente Martinez, have been away from home for a long time. After your father's death you return to Isla Juventa and find - a theme park for tourists. The few residents live in poverty. Help your friends and make them happy.
a CAFE TROPICO Competition Scenario
by Che Miguel

The zip is juventas.zip, the map is juventas.mp2, but I didn't think that this might lead to a misunderstanding.
I always move the maps I already played into another folder, so that I only have the recent maps on my game screen. I understand that you get into trouble if you have to look through 50 or so maps...

So, finding the scenario is part of winning the scenario!  

[Coffeebean]

Yay! Downloaded, playing and enjoying!

[belbincolne]

Well I'm not enjoying - so far my ungrateful peasants have ejected me twice

[TeamStar]

Boy, I AM enjoying this!
I had this "great idea" to build bungalows on top of the demolished hotels Who said something about NOt building bungalows?  

Those fool Tropicans kicked me out on a row  boat, with a white shark behind!

[Che_Miguel]

my ungrateful peasants have ejected me twice

That happened to me, too. I told my people that I am only testing the game, but they didn't want to listen. They are so ungrateful... these pixel-idiots...  

I set the political difficulty to *normal*, so there is a good chance to stay Presidente until the end.

To Coffeebean and PeeWee:
There are free elections... I think that's no problem for The Queens of Happiness, right?

To TeamStar:
(...) not to build any kind of hotel (...)  

[Brf]

Well....I didnt find this one very difficult to win...although I am sure I would have had a better score if my economy wasnt in crash-mode for the entire 1980s

[belbincolne]

Well I finally made it - no cash from 1960 to 1976 but then my coffee plantations finally started to pay off and I got a score (altho not a very good one). Another 6 months and I'd have added perhaps 50 points - I was 6 plus only that few days later as per Brf's post.
Now to see if I can do better!

[Brf]

I did some coffee too, but the cigar factory was the biggest winner. I will have to try again and see if I can use my Tourist cash a little better. I had 47K in the bank when I took down the hotels.

[belbincolne]

Hey you're giving away secrets and with the sorta competition we had from all these "Newbies" on Dragon we can't afford that - they're outplaying us poor old geezers (or possibly even geysers the way I play)  

Actually it's real nice - just like old times getting about 20 emails a day instead of the one or two a week it had dropped off to.

[Che_Miguel]

Explanation:
The decisive score is the score at December, 1st. That's the score on the dossier page:
I prepared a document for you. It is designed to be published at CAFE TROPICO. (...)
You may rule until Dec., 31st, but the score is that of Dec., 1st.
Please do not post the very last message here, because it reveales your strategy, showing the time when you demolished the hotels.
Besides, it says that you're OUT of the competition that moment.

Thanks, Che

[Brf]

Are you forcing us to make a save-game? I never make save-games...

[Che_Miguel]

Well... I'm not a dictator, I don't want to force anybody to anything.
It's just that many players want to see the savegame of the winner's game, to study it and understand what they maybe did wrong.
I would like to keep this tradition of the first competitions. Personally, I'm not much interested in savegames, but I respect the wishes of other players.

[Brf]

Personally, I have never loaded another person's save-game, so I never bother with them. None of the competitions I have been in here have asked for a save-game, just the scorepage.

[Che_Miguel]

Coffeebean: I can't wait to see screen shots or saves of the winning Islands
PeeWee: But I' m very interested in the savegames
ZTeuer: Yes, I need savegames

These are just from the Dragon. This is my fourth competition to host, and in the first three competitions all players emailed me all their savegames. In addition, the winning games were posted as zips. But let the players decide - the Cafe is a democratic place to be.  

I don't want to make problems, I just wanted the members to have a good time. As said above, this is a game and it should be fun.

[Brf]

Those competitions were before my time.

[PeeWee]

It is not important to have savegames, but I really like it to figure out how other people play this game. You can always learn something new. Screenshots are often too small and you can't zoom in.  

I normally do save my games just in case my PC crashes while playing.

Perhaps we can leave this decision to the individual player? Savegames are not necessary for a competition but as I wrote: I like them...

So here is my first score. This szenario is a lot of fun! I'm happy to make my people happy.  

[Coffeebean]

I agree with PeeWee about the savegames - it's just interesting to get the chance to study high scoring games in detail.

576! For your first try! Brilliant. I thought I'd done well on my first run through, 472, but I obviously have a bit of catching up to do.
The options you get near the start intrigue me and I plan to try out all of them.

[Brf]

 

[Che_Miguel]

WOW! What a score! And we're just at the beginning of the competition.
Okay, I will not join. You convinced me!  

[TeamStar]

I'm only posting because so far I'm third.

This was made in my very first attempt. In my subsequent 3 attempts I never managed to do any better.

[Zteuer]

696 points