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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #150 on: 04/22/05 at 08:46 AM » |
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freighter with citizen data
CafeDave: How it happened was that I bookmarked a teamster with Shift 1 since he had taken a job on the other side of the island and I wanted to see how long it took to get there. But he died of a heart attack half way there. I decided to check back a few months later to see if his body was gone and the freighter had taken his place. I'm curious to know if anyone else has seen this or can duplicate it.
Jorenne: I have managed to duplicate it a couple of times, if someone you have a hotkey on dies or leaves, the hot key transfers to the next thing generated, mostly this is usually new born babies; but I've had freighters a couple of times, a calf and once a small plane.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #151 on: 04/22/05 at 12:16 PM » |
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The rebels can be walking about in plain sight, and none of your Tropicans will act as if they see them - at least until they start to attack a building.
If you see them, you can click on them to learn about their family & other personal things; however, you can not apply any personal decrees to them. Well, not the Kill, Arrest, or Capture decrees. I never tried to Bribe a rebel.
They always appear in the Almanac, no hiding there. Of course, that allows you to look at their personal data and to use the Circle Window to look at where they are - even if they are unseen in the main window (or the Circle Window).
The point is, they "hide" in a different sense. Perhaps like a fish swimming amoung your citizen fish. In your wisdom, you sometimes see more than your citizens see. Since they can not see rebels, they can not enforce your decrees on them.
I suppose there are many more nits which may be picked about this "invisibility." It is likely that even if the Rebel is "unseen" by other citizens, his/her leadership and/or courage probably impact nearby fellow citizens. But that is an inference.
Brf: Rebels always show in the Almanac. You can click on them there and see their stats, whether you can see them on the map or not . If you select one that is visible, and he hides... the small window will continue to follow them on the map, even if they are invisible.
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Brf
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« Reply #152 on: 04/22/05 at 12:27 PM » |
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If you see them (you just can't find them from the almanac), you can click on them to learn about their family & other personal things. Rebels always show in the almanac. You can click on them there and see their stats, whether you can see them on the map or not . If you select one that is visible, and he hides... the small window will continue to follow them on the map, even if they are invisible. |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #153 on: 04/24/05 at 12:00 PM » |
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From flagator_:
Education
If you expect to make serious money, you're eventually going to need educated workers. All the industries, from the lowly lumber mill to the huge rum distillery, require high-school graduates; without them, your economy will be limited to farming, mining, fishing and tourism. Almost all the other important buildings in the game, such as the Immigration Office, Diplomatic Ministry, Clinic, Hospital, Powerplant, Armory, Marketplace and even your Palace, also require educated workers. It's possible to build an island that's a socialist paradise, but you won't get very far.
There are four ways to get educated workers on your island. First of all, unless you're playing a predesigned scenario that specifically leaves them out, every game should start with five educated workers: one each male and female high school graduates, plus one female and two males with college diplomas. This is enough to partially staff your palace, plus a few early buildings like a marketplace, a clinic and perhaps a newspaper. But after those workers are allocated, you will need more.
Hiring Educated Workers
The most reliable way to bring educated workers to your island is through an outside employment agency. A building that requires educated workers will indicate that with a small graduates' cap in the corner of the building's employees window. This cap is blue for buildings requiring high-school educated workers, green for college. Clicking the cap icon brings up a dossier explaining the requirement, and giving you an offer to hire an appropriately trained worker from overseas.
If you say yes, a boat icon appears next to the graduates' cap, reminding you that at least one foreign worker is scheduled to arrive on the next freighter to dock at your port. You can hire more than one at once, if you have the money; they will all arrive on the next freighter, even if that freighter is already in your harbor and maneuvering to dock.
The cost of hiring overseas workers goes up with each one you hire. Your first high school grad costs $500, and each subsequent one costs $100 more. College workers cost $1,500 for the first, and get $300 more expensive for each one afterward. Expensive as this is -- hiring six college-educated workers from overseas would more than pay for the cost of building a college -- this method does have its advantages, at least early on. First, educated workers hired from overseas come not just with an education, but also a basic skill level in their intended job; right off the bat they'll do a better job than a Tropican straight out of college. Second, assuming the building is complete and the job is waiting for them when they arrive, they'll go right to work; there's no finding and firing them from other jobs to try to get them into the one you want.
Skilled Workers Welcome
One of the most cost-effective ways of getting educated workers is through the Immigration Office. This building costs $2,500, can be built fairly quickly, and can be staffed by a single high-school educated woman -- perhaps one of your initial ones. If you set the Immigration Office to "Skilled Workers Welcome," with just one staffer with no skill as a Bureaucrat, 10 percent of your immigrants have high school educations, four percent have college. Though the "tooltip" hint at the bottom of the screen says that a full staff of average skill can raise those numbers to 30% and 10% (which is pretty darn good), it actually reaches those numbers with two bureaucrats of middling-low skill. At high levels of skill, two bureaucrats can make sure that more than half of your immigrants have an education.
Fast Times At Tropico High
When you're ready to staff several industries and other jobs requiring higher education, you can't rely on immigration, though; it's just not fast enough or reliable enough. That's when you build a high school. You should probably be ready to build one when your population first reaches 100.
In a chicken-and-egg thing, you need high school educated females to be the teachers at your school. If you haven't built an immigration office yet, you'll probably have to hire them from overseas. But those should be the last overseas high-school grads you have to hire. Get two to start with; each teacher can teach two students (now there's a small class size!), and at this early stage, it's unlikely you'll have more than four prospective students.
At this early stage, you'll want to X out three of the teacher positions. Reason: Tropicans choose jobs not just based on pay, but also on their political leanings and the job's proximity to home. Tropicans who tend to go for an education often favor the Intellectual faction already, and if they don't have a wage-earning spouse at home to pay for their housing, they probably moved into a shack near the school shortly after enrolling. These factors combine to make teaching at the high school a very attractive job for new female graduates, so if you don't X those positions out, you'll end up with six high school teachers before you get a single shopkeeper or diplomat out of it.
Building and staffing a high school is the easy part. For many people, the hard part is getting any Tropicans to attend. To a Tropican, being a high school student is just another job, and a poorly paying one at that. So unless there are other factors involved -- particularly, unemployment at the uneducated level, and jobs available for educated Tropicans -- most won't quit the paying job they have to go to school. If you have a staffed school and nobody is attending, you probably have no jobs available at the educated level. Build another factory, and students will flood your school.
Though you'll probably want to crank out graduates as fast as possible, there are other settings for your high school which serve special circumstances and may be worth looking at. General Education, the default, works the fastest at teaching your students; with two or three teachers providing an educational quality of 50-60, a student of average intelligence will graduate in a year, more or less. (Wish it worked that way in real life, eh? Well, you didn't have to move out on your own at age 13 either.) More teachers, more skilled teachers and more intelligent students lower this study time. The other settings, Parochial Education and Military Education, increase the time it takes for a student to graduate by about 30 percent, or four months. Parochial Education indoctrinates the students toward the Religious faction, which is good if you're having a hard time staffing your churches and cathedrals; Military Education does the same for the militarist faction, which is just the thing if you've got lots of Guard Posts to staff. Note that neither form of special education is much use to female students; they'll get the same boost to their Religious or Military faction support, but since they can't take jobs in either field, it's kind of pointless.
Tropico U., Home of the Fighting Flamingos
A college works the same as a high school, except that it costs more to build, maintain and staff, and instead of female high-school grads, you need male college grads to teach there. The other difference is that a college employs eight instructors who can teach 16 students, instead of a high school's six and 12. But there are similarities, including the time it takes a typical student to graduate. (Where were "El Cliffo's Notes" when I was in college?) Colleges can be set for General, Parochial or Military Education, also like the high school. And like a high school, you'll probably never need more than one.
You'll probably want to build it just before you plan to start building things that require electricity, like Luxury Hotels, Casinos, Nightclubs, Hospitals, TV/radio stations or powered industrial upgrades. That's because many of these buildings (not to mention the Power Plant to run them) require college-educated workers, and growing your own is in the long run cheaper than buying.
Like a high school, if students are staying away from your college in droves, it's likely because there are few or no college-requiring jobs available. But if you're building something that's going to require college-educated men, like a Hospital or Armory, and you want to have some staff ready the moment it goes up, here's a trick (which also works for females at the high school level): Temporarily unblock those Professor jobs you X'd out when you built the college. The available jobs will attract a few students to the school (especially if you "encourage" likely candidates by firing them), and when your new building is complete and ready to staff, fire the extra profs and they'll probably go right to work at the new building. Unless they're communists, in which case they'll probably go right back to work at the construction office, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Peron: Anyone who builds a college and then doesn't use the sensitivity edict should be put in front of a firing squad.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #154 on: 04/28/05 at 08:14 AM » |
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From Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel:
You can see all of the scripting commands as readable text if you load the Tropico.exe file into a hex editor.
For version 1.53 (dated July 18, 2002,) of the Tropico.exe file, the scripting commands begin at hex offset 18D960.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #155 on: 05/23/05 at 08:36 AM » |
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So when more than one Port is designated freighters only, do the ships arrive just randomly or do they tend to come to the Port with more goods to be picked-up?
CafeDave: In my experience it is just random, though I haven't watched closely enough for a definitive answer. I know that when ships do appear on the map, they already have which port they are going to dock at assigned. But I'm quite sure there is no intelligence for freighters to pick up at the dock with most freight, same as teamsters don't go to the building with most output.
I also believe that having more docks increases the number of freighters that will enter the map. When I was trying to sort out stray ships, I seem to recall a maximum of 4 ships of either kind (either total of 8 or total of 4) per dock, but I need to verify that. And there is a maximum on a map at any time, maybe 16?
Brf raises a point about employment of Dockworkers. Absence of any at a port may cause it to be ignored. However, beyond that takes further testing.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #156 on: 05/23/05 at 09:18 AM » |
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Blackrook:
In one game I was having trouble with the intellectuals, especially three professors, who had very low respect for me.
I threw the three professors in prison and "reeducated" them. Their respect went up to an acceptable level and I released them back into the community.
While they were in prison, I checked the college and noticed that the professors were still able to teach students from their prison cells.
PopTopDave:
As far as I know, and I can't actually say with certainty on this, I expect that when a unit is arrested, he/she stays "employed," just unable to get to work. That means that another citizen can't simply walk along and fill in his position at the farm, and thus the crops will rot. But I'm not sure, and if I find out differently I'll let you know.
Obiviously, if the job requires "outside" (vs inside) activity such as Farmer or Laborer, then one would want to follow up on the arrest by firing - if it is required to vacate the job. However, if only "inside" work is required, then why disturb things - unless some money from pay is to be saved?
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #157 on: 05/23/05 at 09:55 AM » |
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Coffeebean: I've had a quick go at testing this - I felt that a variety of food would help with the food satisfaction rating, but my tests so far do not prove this and the food satisfaction page appears to take no account of variety either in its scoring system.
I ran the same (as possible) Island 4 times for 10 years with the following results:
Four corn farms no market - the food satisfaction figures from 1950 to 1959 were respectively-
57,62,65,66,67,68,69,69,69,68.
One of each of corn, banana, fish, goat, paypaya and pineapple, no market-
57,62,65,66,66,68,68,68,69,69.
Four corn with market-
57,62,65,66,66,66,67,68,69,69.
One of each as before with market-
57,61,64,65,66,67,68,68,69,69.
The ending populations only varied from 81 to 88.
As you can see there is hardly any difference, none that you could reliably draw conclusions from. If I get time and the inclination I may continue the test Isalnds for another 10 years to see if any differences appear over time.
I now feel that variety actually makes no difference at all though. Plenty of food is what they like, when they need it. There are advantages of different types of farms though. Once crops like banana and papaya get going they produce large anounts of food for less work than corn. They also harvest at different times, evening out those lean periods. Also, obviously, other produce sells for more than corn. And the different types look nice.
There are advantages having markets as well. Placed in the centre of your "towns" mean your people have less distance to walk to get food. They definitely help by keeping a stock of food, thereby evening out lean times between harvests. If you place one too early in the game though, you find too much food going into "stock" in the market and none going to the docks for cash!
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #158 on: 06/18/05 at 08:26 AM » |
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From Poptop Brent: I'm not making this post as an attempt to provide excuses because I agree that rotatable buildings would be a huge improvement (though, personally, I would have removed to closest zoom level - which eats up well over half of all the graphics space - to provide them). I'm making this post to try and show you where we came from and other things that are involved in changing them.
First of all, don't forget, the engine for Tropico was not built from scratch - it is an enhanced version of Railroad Tycoon 2's engine - so a lot of choices that were made, were made long before anyone had ever heard of Tropico. The fact that the "sun" rotates along with the map is one of those decisions. Also, when I mentioned this and the problems involved in the online chat a few weeks ago, I simplified. There are a lot more lighting issues than just the shadows. We light the terrain and most of the objects dynamically as well. Notice how the sunny side of a hill is lighter than the back side? Or how some sides of a building are darker than others. A lot of that difference is done dynamically, not prerendered. Changing the engine such that the sun no longer rotated with the map (not trivial itself) would require a lot of other changes as well. The dynamic lighting I mentioned for one. The fact that we only have to calculate lighting from the "sun" once - since the relationship of the "sun" to the map doesn't change as you rotate, rotation is made much easier with regards to lighting - a simple transformation as opposed to recalculating lighting information. I could go on about other issues involved too, but I won't. Trust me, they're there.
Let me answer a few quotes directly...
I wonder if PopTop consisdered this during development. I seriously think they didn't. Heh, I think we thought of a lot more issue than you would ever believe, this one included. In game development, for scheduling, cost, technology, etc. reasons, the best answer is not always the best answer. There are things we would have loved to do differently, but for one reason or another, we didn't or couldn't. We also make mistakes. It's easy to look back and say "You shoulda done this...". No one does that more than we do. Looking back, as I mentioned above, I think we overestimated the impact of adding an extra zoom level (that RT2 didn't have) and could have used all the resources that that took up, both time and space wise, much more effectively. I also wondered why they didn't use the Shadow as an overlay that could be placed on ANY side. The "profile" of a building changes (and therefore its shadow) depending on how it is rotated. There is probably even a way to create the shadow in real-time Undoubtedly there is (though the buildings in the game are 2D sprites - they were originally created as 3D images and we could have extracted and stored the information we needed. We did basically this same sort of thing (saving 3D info) to allow units to interact with the buildings), but people are already complaining that the game is too choppy. Would it be worth slowing things down even more? I didn't even notice the shadows until yesterday. Why not get rid of them altogether? Because, if we did, you would notice immediately. It's one of those things that you don't notice until it's not there - like a persistent noise in the background. It would have made the game look like crap and everybody would have been yelling. If you got rid of the shadows, wouldn't you already have a drawn image of the building from each direction? Now, with that, all you would need to do is say "normally, this building faces west, but since I'm going to flip it 90 degrees, you could simply change the building rotation so that the building shown normally when the camera looks from the west would now be the building shown normally from when the camera looks from the south." This would mean that they would already have all the buildings drawn up, and would just have to add a few lines of code! (I think...) I addressed this above, but to reiterate... yes you are right, but getting to that point (shadows always pointing the same way) in the first place would certainly not be trivial by any means. I am gong to start a new post in which I ask that all those in favor of giving up shadows for more building rotation would post a reply of some kind there. Hopefully, Poptop will see it and possibly consider it. If we get enough people, that is. I'm all for rotatable buildings too. But you are wasting your time with this. It's not gonna happen unless there's a Tropico 2 (and no guarantees then). Basically, there is no way the 3 programmers and/or 6 artists here could expend the resources necessary (I hope you got the idea from what I said above that this is non-trivial) to fix this problem for a patch... a problem that is essentially cosmetic (i.e. has no effect on gameplay). We'd love to do it, but the economics of the situation ensure that it won't happen. Sorry, that's just the facts. Don't shoot the messenger. I have yet to play or develop a game that I didn't think I could improve upon, nor do I ever expect to. Tropico is no different. Given unlimited resources and unlimited time, we could do anything. But then we'd be out of business...[/i] |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #159 on: 08/20/05 at 12:40 PM » |
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So as to utilise the many thousands of hours of solid research and gameplay posted here at the Cafe, I would be interested in hearing from members who have read a post or posts that they feel may be worthy of inclusion. Please mention what area of the game guide you believe the post would be of most use for. Please note CafeDave has final editorial approval of any entries/amendments to the Cafe Tropico Game Guide. Since both Mr.P and CafeDave seem to be out of action due to time constraints, I would appreciate suggestions about how the material I have collected should be indexed to the Cafe Tropico Game Guide. Trying to understand the CTGG outline is a bit overwhelming to me. Sorry.    <sarcasm>The flood of suggestions is over my shoe-tops now.</sarcasm> I am going to try posting an index of links in the following format: [li] Hints About Nuts & Bolts[/li] [li] People/Units[/li][/list][/list] This is a project which will take a bit of time. I will be using the edit/modify feature a lot. So please cut me some slack.   |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #160 on: 09/17/05 at 06:14 AM » |
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From Captain Carrrghter:
At any time, provided you have met the conditions necessary to actually enact the "early elections" edict (Treasury of at least $2000, no elections in the previous two years), you can run a free pre-election poll!
When you select the "Early Elections" edict, a message appears describing its effects, and the election-time bar graph of your current support (or lack therof) appears in the round window at the bottom right. You take note of your support, then select the "cancel" option -- unless you actually WANT an early election.
A useful tool to give you a couple years' heads-up in figuring out how much support you have to buy how to invest in the happiness of your people prior to the next election call.
Capt. C. also suggests that this probably works only with the PI upgrade and not with the Original version.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #161 on: 10/23/05 at 08:17 AM » |
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Can you describe the basics behind Tropico?
PS: The player will decide when and where to build the physical infrastructure like housing, roads and industries to promote prosperity and fund further development. Equally important, the player needs to decide which laws to pass, buildings to build and issues to address in an effort to keep the islands population under his/her control. If you succeed, your island will prosper and your reign will continue. If you fail, the people will rise up and remove you from office, violently.
Unlike most builder styled games the inhabitants of the Tropico world are active, thinking elements of the game and respond to your rule immediately and individually. The people are not dumb 'grunts' that you tell what to do. You can't click and point a Tropican into a job or an opinion, they need to be coaxed and encouraged.
How have the dynamics of a country's economy, politics, people, and much more been implemented into Tropico?
PS: Tropico tracks a great number of individual characteristics for each Tropican on the island including: name, age, job skills, family, income, political interests (military, religious, socialism, capitalism & foreign relations), entertainment, hunger & courage to name a few. All these are influenced by your choices as ruler and determine the Tropican's overall happiness/anger towards you and your regime.
Environmentally, we track weather patterns and rainfall on the island as well as mineral deposits and elevation to determine crop viability and mineral composition. These then influence which industries and crops will be used to fuel your political machine. We have 8 crop types, each with distinct food and cash values and industries that can be built to improve export value and provide jobs i.e. sugar cane has low food value but good export value but if you supply the sugar cane to your rum distillery (which you must build and staff) you can export the rum for even more money. Industries will have upgrade paths to improve profitability or production as well as adjustable wage and staffing numbers. There is also an entire tourism industry set from which to choose to "harvest" yanqui dollars.
What has been done with the AI? Can you take us through some of their decision-making structures?
PS: The Tropican's make decisions much as a real person does. A Tropican will live in the best house that's available and that he or she can afford. He/she will probably find a spouse and raise a family at some point. Tropicans look for the best job that they're qualified for, preferably one that's fairly close to home. If another job opens nearby with significantly better pay, they may switch jobs (though the longer they've been at their current job, the less likely they are to switch).
Tropicans have deep seated political attitudes that affect their views of you, their ruler. Leftists will like socialist leaders, deeply religious Tropicans will look favorably on leaders who share their views, etc. Even if a Tropican is unhappy, most of them are unlikely to take any immediate action (who wants to risk jail or death?), but there are always a few gutsy individuals more likely to take a stand if they're upset with the government. These leaders can inspire action by more timid Tropicans. Throw the leaders in jail first!
What can you tell us about the aura's buildings give off? How does it change and add to gameplay?
PS: Buildings have areas of influence, auras. These act as modifiers to the inhabitants who are within the aura. Example would be a radio station playing marching music would help improve those inhabitants who are partial to the military and hurt those who oppose the military. The people of Tropico also have auras. Thus a particularly charismatic individual will have a larger aura than an un-charismatic individual. Depending on this persons interests and general attitude they will modify, at least momentarily, those individuals within his/her aura.
By laying out your city properly you can focus the type and amount of influence you project based on your needs. Placing a radio station out side of the range of the bulk of your people will have little to no impact; however proper placement can have enormous benefits.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #162 on: 11/27/05 at 09:11 AM » |
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From Olle_Petersson:
"Newspapers do not increase satisfaction, but add followers of the respective faction, creating increased needs.
"So "The Word of God" will make a larger portion of your population religious, which will create both a need for more churches/cathedrals and also an increase to the recruitment base for new priests and bishops.
"The newspapers are great for making the population follow the same beliefs as you. If you play capitalistic start the "Financial times" and the capitalistic faction, that supports you, will grow. If you're militaristic use the "Soldier of Fortune", etc.
"Do not start newspapers for factions that don't support you."
It sounds like your foreign policy should dictate some of your media's orientation. Remember, you can change what is published with a mere click.
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Brf
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« Reply #164 on: 05/09/06 at 08:12 PM » |
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I also have tutorials posted on Castledoom.One tutorial on scripting and another on the Map editor.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #167 on: 06/18/06 at 10:22 AM » |
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Updated link: http://tropico.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/cafe/index.php?topic=5679.0Tropicology: the scientific study of Tropico. I got interested in banks because "money makes the man" seems like a good way to get high scores. So I wanted to know what banks can actually do. Here's some results. Mucho macho edition, patched to 1.5.3. First, embezzlement by a single very highly skilled banker seemed to top out at $81/month, from the $500k treasury level that is found in sandbox mode. This suggests that yearly rates max out at 0.2%/year per banker. (If this is in true, in theory one might see up to $83 embezzled by a single banker in a month. I did not test that long.) I have not tested multiple embezzlers carefully, though I have used them in play and it seems to scale up. However, there is a big problem with embezzlement: it is an attendance-based job. So in reality you will never get near .2% per year, since a banker is unlikely to work more than 4-6 months/year. If you plan to embezzle, make sure there is a house for each embezzler near their bank. Micromanage him into it. Strategy wise, it does seem that in a longer scenario "money makes the man" is a good idea. If you can get 15 bankers working 1/3 of the year, you will be moving 1%/year to Switzerland. With a treasury of size N, you get 10x as many points for swiss money as you do for "Economic Powerhouse" cash/buildings of that value. Therefore you need to move 10% of your treasury to Switzerland for the same score. Of course, the total value of the buildings + treasury will be many times N for a typical game, especially early on. So in practice more than 10 years will be needed for this strategy to pay off, and it will only pay off when you are no longer growing the economy. But it does seem that on an island large enough to fill up with stuff, within about 15 years after filling it MMTM will be superior to EP. This is probably the way to go with longer games and/or smaller islands. (Special building permit will also go a long way towards making MMTM superior to EP.) More results: When you switch banks between uses, there is always a lag of several years while the bankers get up to speed on the new use. So don't expect to quickly switch on "urban development" for a building spree, and then back to embezzlement, at least not without a penalty. (I still think it may be a good idea.) On urban development: first off, it is not attendance based. The rate does max out at 60%, but this does not seem to be by bank, but rather the number and skill of individual bankers doing it. I found that 9 highly skilled bankers can get the full 60% after a few years. It does not seem to matter how many banks are doing it, just how many bankers, their skill levels, and for how long. I did not do much research on offshore banking, but it does not appear to be attendance based. Also, it appears to be pretty profitable, at least when all the tourists are high class. More research is needed. Special Banking Permit is a fairly effective way to move money to Switzerland. It can be extremely effective, depending on how you use it. I have read reports that if you undo a building, the money does not come back from Switzerland. I don't know if the "wasted" 8% comes back or not. If it does, then you can move essentially all of your treasury to Switzerland at no cost (other than time spent endlessly clicking to build and unbuild things). If not, then you can still move roughly 50% of your treasury. I regard fake building and unbuilding as a cheat/exploit. Why? Because using it completely removes the reason for an important game feature (using bankers to move your money), and the scoring system clearly rewards the difficulty of getting money to Switzerland. If you want to use it, fine; clearly in that case you should never use bankers to move money. It is also clear that if you use that cheat/exploit, then if you want high scores you should never play anything except MMTM. And if you do, your high scores should be about 5x or 10x as high as other people's high scores. I view the fake building spree, transferring "only" 8% of your treasury as a borderline cheat/exploit. It does not break the scoring system like the fake build/unbuild use of SBP. Or at least, it does not break the system badly. It does seem to make MMTM a superior strategy for most presidentes. Consider the difference between economic powerhouse (EP) and MMTM. In EP, you get points for the value of buildings and cash. In MMTM, you get 10x the value of money, but only in Switzerland. But with SPB in place, you get 8.125% of all money spent on buildings, as Swiss cash; so scorewise you get 81.25% of a building's value. Treasury cash you get nothing for; that's what bankers are supposed to be for. If you do a fake building spree at the end to pump your account, then you will also get 81.25% as the EP score for treasury from your Swiss account. So to do better with MMTM versus EP, you need only find a way to move 1.9% of your building value and treasury to Switzerland. That's not hard to do. By my calculation above, 5 bankers embezzling for 6 years should get on the order of 2% of your treasury moved. That's not hard to afford. Copper Maniac replies: |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #168 on: 06/18/06 at 10:27 AM » |
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Copper Maniac replies: It does not turn out that you can move 1% or some other fixed percentage per year of your treasury to Switzerland. I set up an island on Hard/Hard. Built two banks, hired workers from abroad to make sure they would start at a consistent known skill. Bankers arrived about mid-year, and were settled into housing. The experiments began at the beginning of the next year. ABC edict was on; there were no other bonuses for education. The average skill of the bankers (originally at one notch) reached two notches typically during the fourth year. Due to replacements, in some runs the average skill reached three notches eventually and in others it did not (within 10 years). Set wages to 10/15/20, and 25 for bankers. Immigration set to skilled so as to have replacements available for the bankers who keel over or whatever. Population was close to 200. Happiness was in the upper 50's and drifting into the lower 50's over the time period. The economy was not set to be big, just reliable. Let the game run on auto-pilot for 10 years. There was an election in the third year that was always won cleanly. An election in the tenth year was always fixed, whether or not it was necessary. Mardi Gras was on at the beginning. It was reenacted upon announcement of the second election. A bunch of fountains were scheduled to keep the construction crews busy. I used Exacto to set the treasury to 10 million at the beginning of each year and performed four 10-year runs. Accumulations into the Swiss account were: 1st 5 years 15647 15683 15645 14605 avg 15395 2nd 5 years 17806 18057 18884 16973 avg 17930 total 33453 33740 34529 31578 avg 33325 From these ten bankers, average annual Swiss accumulation was 3332.5. Experience is growing, and consecutive years are not independent, but, to get a feel for the variability, if the 40 annual Swiss accumulations were considered independently drawn from the same population, then the sample's observed standard deviation was 892.9 for year-to-year accumulation. Banker skill made very little difference, as can be seen by comparing the results for the first 5 years versus those for the second. The difference due to skill is probably more than illustrated, because overall happiness was gradually declining. To see whether the treasury amount impacts the Swiss accumulation, the same experiment was conducted with the treasury set to 1 million at the beginning of each year. Again, four 10-year trials were conducted. Swiss accumulations were: 1st 5 years 14968 15674 14948 16457 avg 15512 2nd 5 years 16527 17193 15491 15193 avg 16101 total 31495 32867 30439 31650 avg 31613 From this and the following experiment we see that the treasury amount seems to have negligible impact on the amount moved into the Swiss account. It is possible that it has a minor indirect benefit (makes capitalists happy?). The same experiment was run with the treasury set to 200 thousand. Exacto was applied whenever it deviated from this by more than 10 thousand. Only one trial was run. Swiss accumulation was: 1st 5 years 15093 2nd 5 years 15179 total 30272 It is possible that using Exacto upsets some formula that is used when determining how much is moved into the Swiss account. I ran one trial where the treasury was initialized to 200 thousand and left untouched. Swiss accumulation was: 1st 5 years 16394 2nd 5 years 17417 total 33811 ending treasury: 330,008 No conclusion drawn about whether Exacto is disturbing the results. It is possible that the wage of the bankers factors into the amount moved. One trial was run with banker wage set to 50. This means a total of (50-25)*12*10*10 = 30 thousand additional wages over the course of the experiment. The treasury was maintained at 10 million, so compare with those results. Swiss accumulation was: 1st 5 years 15711 2nd 5 years 16595 total 32306 There is no reason to believe that the banker wage is an important factor. Two trials were run, one for each of the banks. The other bank was set to tourism (but there was no tourist population), so it was innocuous. This was again with 10 million treasury. Swiss accumulations were: 1st 5 2nd 5 total left bank only 6821 7463 14284 right bank only 7744 8391 16135 As expected, the effect of multiple banks is cumulative. Someone conjectured that the Swiss funds have something to do with how much building is going on. Continuing the experiments past 10 years with no building showed similar additional accumulations. Some factors were left unexplored. For example, the Swiss accumulation might be proportional to the population. Similarly, it might be proportional to the amount of money flowing around in the economy (no convenient statistic provided within the game). If we assume the rates above are typical (for all populations and economies), then we can see how effective the slush fund setting is: Building maintenance on a bank is 64 per banker per year. If banker wages were 20, then that is 240 per year. So there are 304 expenses per banker per year. A profit can be made off the housing and entertainment for the bankers, but other overhead exceeds this, so the expenses are greater than 304 per banker per year. In the 10 million treasury experiment, the bankers were skimming 333 each per year, which comes out of the treasury. So the effect of the slush fund is very similar to the special building permit (half the extra costs (minus 500 edict cost) going into the Swiss account). The building permit has to be turned off and on to not hurt respect with the intellectuals. I usually schedule 20 to 50 thousand in building at a time, however, once the economy is rolling. You can also do better if you can keep the bankers on the job longer somehow. I never (clearly) saw more than 6 of 10 bankers on the job. If you can drive banker wages well below 20 without incurring a big military overhead, then the slush fund could be much more effective than the special building permit. However, since the treasury amount seems to have no effect on the effectiveness of the bankers, you want to be using both Swiss banking and the special building permit as much as possible if you have a thriving economy and are playing MMTM. More from Senor Ruina: |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #169 on: 06/18/06 at 10:32 AM » |
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More from Senor Ruina: Nice work CM. I replicated your result. In my case, 4 banks embezzling with the treasury exacto'ed to 50000 once per year. The total embezzled after 17 years: 110000. So, 6500/year from 20 bankers, a result per-banker practically identical to what you saw. Your analysis is also good. The total amount spent for salaries and maintenance at the banks in the 17 years was about 125000. That was with wage = 24. Obviously the idea of MMTM is not as good as I thought. As it stands it will be very hard to beat EP with it. And given that EP is so much easier to do, it seems rather silly to try. Maybe, as you say, if you can mash salaries way down using a nasty strategy. It is worth remembering that 1/3 of salaries can be recaptured in rent (ideally). I am curious why you assert that other expenses of people outweigh this. My own feeling is that other expenses don't add up to that much, but I could be wrong about that. On my test island, I had a clinic and a cathedral, a restaurant and a cabaret, and some farms for food. There were about 80-90 people most of the time, 20 of them bankers. The total profits at all of the "service" buildings (excepting farms) was about $-40k, or about $29/resident-year. Corn costs $13.3/meal in lost exports, so that's another $20/year (people seem to average 1.5 meals/year). All in all the support costs were on the order of $4/resident-month, and that was for some fairly premium support. (Happiness was much higher than necessary to win elections.) I am sure it could be lower. CM: For housing, I have +5 to +10 per annum per resident For entertainment, I have +0 to +5 per annum per resident For all other general overhead (excluding media and banks) I have (going by the general overhead page of the almanac) -50 to -90 per annum per resident It tends to be a bigger negative as the game progresses. So, it's -35 to -90 per resident per annum, more if counting per worker. I was only stating that the +5 to +15 that you can get from rent and entertainment is outweighed by the other overhead. So the cost of operating a bank is something more than the wages and building maintenance. SR: Banker salaries get counted on the overhead expenses page as Infrastructure Wages. So in these tests General Overhead is inflated. My General Overhead for the 1950 year of my bank test, purged of bank costs, is 1730 for 64 people (27/pop), and that is overbuilt happiness-wise. When the pop goes up to 80-85, which it will before too long, the same overhead will cover it. That will be more like 20/pop. With bank costs included, it's 8770 (137/pop). With a larger island, the cost/pop will decline somewhat, because part of it is paying for things with island-wide effects (the palace and the immigration office). And part of it is paying maintenance on non-fully staffed buildings, in particular the cathedral. CM: |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #170 on: 06/18/06 at 10:40 AM » |
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CM: Since we're talking about a point in the game where bankers are skimming money, I'm assuming that we have electricity and such. Expensive. With wages at 8/12/20. 120 MW of gas power + substation => 3420 per year two clinics for 300 pop => 1200 per year church and half cathedral for 300 pop => 1700 per year two police stations => 1890 per year two docks => 1120 per year four construction offices => 3230 per year three teamster's offices => 2540 per year two marketplaces => 330 per year unmanned palace => 200 per year diplomatic ministry => 630 per year immigration office => 390 per year one bank set to urban development => 1580 per year college with 2 profs => 960 per year HS with 3 school marms => 750 per year literacy edict with 300 pop => 1200 per year social security with 300 pop => 670 per year food for mothers/children/students/elderly => PRICELESS The stuff that mostly doesn't scale with population (palace, diplomatic ministry, immigration office, urban development bank (with MMTM), college, and HS) amounts to 4510 per year for 300 population. SR: Well the issue is how much it costs to skim money. In which case, what you want to know is the marginal cost of a banker. Banks don't use electricity, so that cost should not be charged to bankers. Similarly for several of the other pricey things on your list. Teamsters aren't needed for banks (except possibly a very small fraction that are moving food from farms to markets which bankers eat). Banks don't use docks for anything. Charging these things to bankers doesn't make sense. With your numbers, there are about $13500 costs I would count as marginal costs of bankers, or $45/pop-year. About $4 per month, which admittedly is a fair amount, but still less than rent. If you are paying bankers $24, then you can collect $6-$8 from each of 'em in rent, which makes the net cost of having them $20-$22. CM: To some extent the cost of infrastructure for bankers is restricted. As you say, what are the teamster's for? But really, you do need the teamsters to move the food to the marketplace so the bankers can eat it. Maybe they are not as reliant on teamsters as workers providing other Tropico functions. The shop girl at the marketplace needs food, religion, health, and entertainment services -- as do the people providing these services. Everyone needs police and such as well. Maybe the shop girl visits a casino for entertainment. The casino needs electricity. Maybe the engineer at the power plant needs lots of large fountains to be happy. It is not simple to divorce the bankers from segments of the infrastructure. The bankers are more finicky than the uneducated workers, so they actually pressure you to provide the more expensive versions of services for them. And the bankers either need to be bought from overseas or they need to be fed/etc while they are children (and their mother supported while out of the work force), plus provided for while going to banker school. You can turn a profit on entertainment, but the worker providing the entertainment induces infrastructure. Likewise, you can turn a profit on the banker's housing. But maybe the banker needs a blue house (not space efficient). In the space just for the banker's house perhaps you could have built some small fraction of the space for a profit-making business (plus all space for its supporting infrastructure). To put it another way, is it right to say that a construction worker should not have the cost of a college credited to their supporting infrastructure? But the construction worker needs health care. Where do doctors come from? And everyone needs to support all those little children, who consume all that expensive health care, religion, etc. Don't you wish there was a way to stop all conception late in a game? Anyway, the net result is $64 per year for building maintenance, something around $240 per year for banker pay, and some additional amount for the infrastructure induced by a banker. Banks are certainly not cheap. SR: To me, there are two helpful ways to think about the issue of support costs, and who to charge them to. One way is: is some particular support thing necessary for some supported thing? Push to the limit the supposed supporting thing - remove it. Can the supported thing still function? If so, is it more costly? In this case, we are talking about adding a bunch of bankers to an island, for the purpose of embezzling. Can you add bankers if you removed all the teamsters from the island? Yes, you can. Even if the markets shut down, the bankers can still walk to farms to get food. The bankers themselves are fine with no teamsters at all. This is easy enough to prove. Just create an island for yourself, with no teamsters allowed. You can do this just fine. In fact you can run a teamsterless island and make money in tourism, just fine. Teamsters are unnecessary for bankers, and should not be charged to them. Of course, the cost in walking time of bankers to farms may be higher than hiring teamsters to move food to marketplaces. This will depend on the exact layout of the island. On some islands, you could not remove all the teamsters without the economy collapsing, which would obviate the point of embezzlers. In a sense, then, teamsters are necessary for bankers - but that's different than what I am talking about. Here the necessity is mediated by money. I want to talk about things directly necessary. A second helpful way to think about the issue of who to charge what to, is to consider pushing the addition to the limit. What would happen if you added 1000 bankers to your island? You'd need to build a lot more stuff for them - houses, churches, farms, etc. And even some new markets, and teamsters to move the corn to the farms. But you would find that the number of new teamsters added would be a much smaller proportion of the new population than they are in your current island. Or similarly, consider adding 1000 bankers again: do you need another power plant? No, you don't. Electricity is not necessary for bankers. It may be, though, that it is cheaper to maintain people using electricity. But the point here one of cost, which is where we got here in the first place: how much does it cost to embezzle? Assume that $20 is the breakeven point. If it costs $20/banker-month without electricity, but less with, then clearly embezzling is a good deal. How much, you don't know without quantifying. |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #171 on: 06/18/06 at 10:59 AM » |
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Updated link: http://tropico.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/cafe/index.php?topic=750.0
Lachrymologist: Elections Every 5-10 years on Tropico, your people will call for an election. One year before the election, Ricardo will give you a warning of what's to come. A year after that you get to decide whether or not to hold an election. Refusing to hold an election will result in decreased respect, liberty and happiness for your people. Without the option of expressing their opinions through the ballot box, your people will be more likely to become rebels, stage an uprising or an even open rebellion. With all the negative effects of not holding an election, it is generally a good idea to hold them when called and concentrate on winning. Skipping one won't bury you completely, especially if you are the kind of dictator that doesn't concern himself with his peoples libery. But, continuously denying elections will undoubtably lead to a revolt. Obviously if you've selected the Free Elections Special Circumstance, you won't have a choice in this matter. Once you've agreed to an election, your opponent will be announced. You'll have 12 months to try to right the perceived wrongs of your administration and garner enough support to ensure your illustrious rule will continue. In order to win the elction, you'll need to secure 51% of the popular vote. All citizens Age 13 or higher, including foreign born immigrants, will have a vote in the election. Should you lose, you'll be expelled to a rowboat without a trip to the scoring page. With this in mind, you'll want to be we aware of what you can do to tilt the scales in your favor. During an election year, a small graph in the circle window will appear showing election support. (Hit escape if you don't see this) Votes for El Presidente are represented in green while votes for your opponent are show in red. The further away from the center of the graph, the stronger the support for the candidate. The bars in the middle of the graph represent voters that only have slight support one way or the other. These are the 'swing' votes and your most likely converts. How Tropicans Decide? A Tropicans support is based on a several factors. Respect and Happiness are the most important. What faction your opponent belongs to (or even leads) will also influence voters. Those with like views will be inclined to vote against you, inspite of high respect and happiness ratings. Pre-Election Tactics: If you are concerned with your position, the warning from Ricardo 2 years in advance, should serve as your signal to switch into election mode. Find out what your people are lacking and try to correct it. Housing and Human Services can normally be up and running by the time the election rolls around if you position them near construction offices and set them to high priority. Since Happiness is a large factor, a few points gained by new buildings can really help. Media Propaganda: The media can be used to help influence the vote. Radio Stations can be set to All Presidente, All Day or Radio Free Tropico to increase Respect or Liberty ratings. TV Studios can run Your Government, Your Friend or BBC for similar effects. Newspaper offices increase respect in a faction and also increase a factions members. If your opponent is the head of the Religious Faction and the faction respect for you is low, do not print The Word Of God. Printing the news of a faction you are well respected in will help sway peoples opinions. Likewise, changing from Coupons to any faction other than the one your opponent believes strongly in will help as well. Election Time Edicts: Edicts are your best tool for increasing your election support. If you've got the money and the right infrastructure, you should be able to win despite a poor inital showing. Issuing the Food for the People Edict will cost you $500 and double the amount of food your citizens consume. If you have enough food to cover the year, you can expect Food Quality to increase 6-10 pts. The increase in Food Quality can result in a 1-2 point Happiness gain. As long as your people aren't starving, this is a good edict to issue. Be warned that if your economy is strongly based on exporting edible foods, this edict could slow down your income stream. If you've constructed a pub and have $3,000, Mardis Gras is an excellent edict to increase your election support. Unlike the Food for the People edict, which requires a few years to mature, the full effects of a Mardi Gras will be realized during the first year. Your citizens Entertainment Rating will increase by 9-12 pts, increasing overall happiness and respect. If you are fortunate enough to have a nightclub, you can spend $5,000 on The Headliner edict. The result is a modest gain in entertainment of 4-6 pts. For a cost of $200 ($100 each year of the edict) per voting age citizen, you can buy respect temporarily. A Tax Cut will raise your Overall Respect by 7-10 pts. If you have built a Sports Arena, you can issue the Pan-Carribean Games edict. For a price of $7,500 your entertainment rating will increase 8-10 ponts. Unfortunately this edict can only be used once. Finally, the one time only Papal Visit will increase your citizens Religion Rating 15-20 pts. Use of this edict is an extreme measure and is best saved for end game use in games where Happiness affects score. You'll need a Cathedral and Cordial or better respect in the religious faction to issue this edict. Edict: Result: Cost: Happiness Gain: Food for the People: Food Raiting up 6-10 $500 + food 1-2 Mardi Gras: Entertainment Rating up 9-12 $3,000 1-2 The Headliner: Entertainment Rating up 4-6 $5,000 0-1 Tax Cut: Increased Respect 7-10 pts $200/VC 1-2 PC Games (1) Entertainment Raiting up 8-10 $7,500 1-2 Papal Visit: (1) Religion Rating up 15-20 pts $10,000 2-3 Money Talks: If you've got the cash, you can give workers a raise to help buy their vote. Use <Cntrl> in the worker screen to change the pay of all workers in that education class (Uneducated, High School, College). A good strategy is to time your normal raises with election years. Job quality will increase and you will gain a small amount of respect as a result. If you have a bank, you can issue a bribe for $1,000. This costly method can radically shift the individual voters position. Due to the high price tag and low return, this method is largely ineffective. The Dark Side: Sadly there is only 1 under handed tactic that can be used to help keep you in power. A month before the election, you'll be given the choice to have the votes counted ethically, or to have the odds shifted in your favor. You'll be able to sway up to 20% of the votes ,30% if you Bought The Election to rise to power. This unfortunately will result in a loss of liberty and respect among your people. Another unfavorable side effect is a reduction in Democratic Satisfaction. Other tactics are not effective and overall decrease your chance of winning the election. If you arrest your opponent, they will continue to run against you from the jail with increased support. Branding them a heretic will not stop the election and will also increase support for your opponent. Should you decide to Eliminate the opposing candidate, someone will immediately replace them with increased support. But What Does It Mean, Basil? If you can't win the election honestly, it's not really worth it to spend money trying to increase support. You'll need the money to worry about the ramifications of the "Florida Syndrome". As long as you can carry 31% on the vote, you'll be able to buy the other 20% (21% if you Bought the Election). If the Election doesn't look like a landslide loss or you don't have a commanding lead, you should take action to improve your position. Mardis Gras, The Headliner and a Tax Cut all take effect immediately and can be "saved" till 6 months or so into the election. To receive the full effect of the Food For The People Edict, you should issue it when Ricardo first tells you "some of your people are calling for an election next year". If you've got the food, by election time, Food Quality will have risen 12-24 pts. If you don't have massive food reserves, you can still issue it as soon as your opponent is announced for a modest gain. The Papal Visit and Pan-American Games Edicts should be used as weapons of last resort. Since you can only use them once, it's best to save them for near end game use. Periodic raises are a good idea and you should time them to coincide with election years. With all that can be done, to influence elections, a savvy President will never lose one. |
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #172 on: 06/18/06 at 11:33 AM » |
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Lachrymologist: People in jail cannot run for elections. I suppose if you were running an extremely oppressive regime, you could jail all those individuals that had high leadership and low respect scores when election time rolls around.
flagator_: Your election opponent is always the adult Tropican with the lowest respect for you. When your opponent dies by whatever means, they're replaced by the person with the next lowest respect.
Of course, any Tropican who sees someone else assassinated on the street is going to lose a ton of respect for the president. The closest person to the assassinated often does end up your opponent, but it's more complicated than that. If the person closest to the assassination happens to be your biggest fan, he may lose a lot of respect for you, but he may not end up your opponent.
Note that the immediate family of eliminated Tropicans also lose a lot of respect for you, whether they see the assassination or not, meaning that if nobody sees it, you may end up facing the son or wife of the dead candidate -- a situation with long precedent in repressive regimes.
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #173 on: 06/18/06 at 11:58 AM » |
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Regular elections: Ricardo's initial notice of Elections is randomly timed, but the choice to go ahead with elections is exactly 1 year later, and the actual elections are exactly 1 year after that.
Edict elections: Edict is instant; actual election is exactly one year later. May not be repeated until after a two year wait.
flagator_: My first election test indicates a positive bonus to calling early elections. In a game where I had the Free Elections condition and El Presidente was overwhelmingly popular, I waited for Ricardo to tell me that some of my people would be calling for elections next year, and saved the game.
I then waited for elections to be demanded and noted the initial Liberty and Respect ratings: 69 and 58. After overwhelmingly winning the election they were at 70 and 59, a one-point gain in each.
I then exited without saving, loaded the last save, and a month before elections would have been demanded, noted the initial ratings (68 and 57 -- lower 'cause it was a month earlier than the previous run-through), and called early elections. Immediately after calling elections they were at 69 and 57, which may not be significant because in the previous run they went up that month as well. But after another landslide victory, my ratings were at 70 and 60, an increase of two points and three points respectively.
So at least in this test, calling early elections is worth one more Liberty point and two more Respect points than waiting for elections to be demanded. More tests are called for, in games without the Free Elections condition, both to confirm these numbers and to observe the unmodified effect on Democracy Satisfaction.
I have not run any formal tests, but I suspect that the edict has even stronger effects if it is used before Ricardo's warning. For example a strategy might be to "preplan" your election schedule to set the elections well in advance of the programmed 'demand' for elections. It might be especially effective if the game has 'low expectations.'
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Coconut Kid
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« Reply #174 on: 06/18/06 at 12:28 PM » |
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Peron: I have found it easier in many ways to hold NO elections. I'm not convinced at the suggestion that elections are a better way to go than not having them at all, presuming that your selected character has a low or nil democracy expectation. Your biggest problem early game will be keeping the U.S. off your back.
The keys to true dictatorship I find are:
Get a diplomatic ministry PRONTO. If you don't start with the diplomat option (giving you a free diplomatic ministry), buy one soon, or the US will harrass you and possibly invade before you ever have the chance to rule opressively. You may or may not have to ally with the Soviets to keep the US gunboats from coming to your island. Naturally, not allying with either side is optimal. Setting the ministry to Neutral Policies (or pro US if you are really in trouble) option can help from having to ally with the Soviets. If you do ally with them, you will have a Soviet gunboat late in the game as your island will have become rich enough to be more appealing to capitalism.
Compared to getting past US aggression and gunboat policy, staying in power while never holding elections is a piece of cake!
> Keep your population relatively happy with housing and pay. The latter can't be stressed enough. Consistently paying your populace over and above the Caribbean average will make them very tolerant of you and your regime!
> Build a big economy as fast as possible, while keeping your people as happy as possible without going out on a limb too much financially.
> Always be on the lookout for troublemakers in your military and keep them large and happy. Keeping your military purged is always a good idea anyway.
> If your population begins to become unruly, as soon as you can afford it build an armory so you can issue the martial law edict. You can issue the edict without ever hiring the first general.
> Police and Prison can help with keeping the rabble in line, but their presence alone can actually make your situation worse instead of better.
INCREASING LIBERTY
When you get a college, enact the sensitivity edict. Build at least two newspapers and you will have "free pess" which will increase liberty scores. This seems to be an error since there is NO such an option. Naturally this can also be increased later with radio and television, etc. Radio Free Tropico and BBC will give your citizenry a high enough liberty rating you may never need to hold an election again. Watch the placement of your radio and TV stations though. You want them placed where they can affect the most Tropicans!
PLEASING THE CAPITALISTS
When you are big enough you can start factories and tourism. When you can afford and have built a bank or two, the capitalists (and therefore the US stance) will begin to change towards you.
Usually by this time in the game, even if you decided to change courses and have free elections, you would win by a landslide because your population will love you. You don't have to though.
It's worth mentioning that I try to keep the environmentalist and religious factions as happy as possible.
I have used this successfully, never having had an election.
Mr.P: I agree with you almost entirely, regarding elections.
If you are running an oppressive regime, perhaps by starting off with low expectations of free/fair elections, for the love of God don't start holding elections to please the people. In fact I am strong believer in denying or rigging an election whenever possible. The reason?
Well if you look in the Almanac you will see that people have both democratic expectation and satisfaction scores. If a player starts holding too many free elections then their expectations (and of course satisfaction) rises, thus meaning they will demand and expect a free election next time. When this is cancelled or rigged they will even more furious than if you had just bumped them along on a low score such as satisfactory (by denying and rigging most elections).
Give em' your hand and they'll take your arm off! Therefore feel free to hold the first election or even the second, but rig it if need be. By the mid 60's you'd be a fool not to have at least a few TV and Radio Stations up. After that, as Peron points out, you'll never need to show your peons a ballot box again, as they'll fall for your propoganda every time.
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