4.1 - Housing

By: animeguru    Read Original Post: Cafe Tropico
Game Guide: Housing

Housing: The Never Ending Battle

Aside from ruling your peasants with an iron fist, housing is probably one of the most important aspects of Tropico.  Providing your citizens with adequate housing can be one of the most difficult tasks that you will need to undertake.  It is certainly a never ending battle, in the sense that as soon as you have completed enough homes for your people, more people are born or immigrate to your island.  However, this guide will help you to familiarize yourself with the various aspects of homes.

There are six different types of homes available for you to build.  Each home has different qualities that may or may not make it more appealing to you.  And each home has factors that you must take into account before you build it.  "Is this the right home for my people given my current position?"  This is the question you will certainly ask yourself the first few times that you play.  You must remember, that (assuming Tropicans are human) most people tend to sleep for about eight hours a day.  If you translate this into the Tropican world, your people will spend roughly 1/3 of their lives at home.  Thus housing can have a great impact upon the way that your people see you.

Below, you will find a breakdown of the various types of housing available to you.

Housing Types Housing Type Base Cost Maintenance (Normal/Roach) Quality (Normal/Roach) Capacity (Families) Tenement $4,000 $160 / $80 35 / 24 12 Apartment $5,000 $200 / $100 60 / 40 6 Bunkhouse $350 $14 / $7 25 / 17 2 Country Home $500 $20 / $10 50 / 33 1 House $1,000 $40 / $20 70 / 47 1 Luxury Home $2,000 $80 / $40 95 / 63 1 Shack $0 $0 5 1

Tenements:  Tenements can be a great way to start off your game, they are relatively cheap to build and can house a great deal of families.  They are almost perfect for the beginning builder.  Their biggest downfall is the low quality and the fact that they are crime magnets.  That's right, just like in the real world, lower quality housing can attract a not so friendly crowd.  Tenements are best for housing large quantities of your population at a low cost, especially single people.

Apartments:  Well, Apartments are a little more expensive to build than Tenements, but at an added benefit.  There is a significant increase in quality, almost twice that of regular Tenements.  However, just like Tenements, they tend to attract an unruly crowd, but not nearly as much, about 75% less.  Apartments are best utilized for housing families.  If you price them appropriately, they will only be affordable by two income families, thus filling them to capacity, rather than wasting their higher cost on single people.

Country House:  The Country House can be a great way to house citizens immediately, it doesn't take as long to build as the larger homes, and it has a decent quality rating too.  However, there is no perfect home, and the cost to build a lot of Country Homes can add up very quickly, plus they only hold one family.  Country Homes are best utilized for housing citizens in out of the way places.  A few of these next to a dock or logging camp can help to keep your necessary workers close to where you need them most.

House (commonly know as the blue ones):  Houses are just like the suburbs.  You see row after row of identical homes lining the roads, each with a perfectly manicured lawn.  Well, maybe not.  Anyway, Houses are a little on the expensive side, $1000 each for housing only one family!! But the high quality rating will certainly keep your citizens happy.  Most people find that the best use of the house is for your middle/upper class citizens.  It certainly provides a good reason for your people to get an education if they see that they can live in one of these beauties.  Just like the real world, Tropicans are possessive and they want the best… this is one way of giving it to them.

Luxury Home:  These homes are for the cream of the crop, your most elite citizens.  Luxury Homes provide every amenity that your people could ever want, all in style.  They even detract from crime!!  But all of this comes at a high cost… $2000 per family, plus they require electricity.  With a quality rating of 95, everyone wants to live in one of these, but you will quickly find that it is just not a cost effective way of housing your people.  They are best used for housing those that you want to stay within your control.  A few of these priced so that only your Generals can afford them will certainly go a long way towards reducing a military coup.

Bunkhouse:  Don't even bother.  If you want to keep your people happy, this is not the way.  Bunkhouses, like the Country Home, can be great for housing people in out of the way places.  They are very quick to build and house two families each, but the extremely low quality of living will make your people unhappy… and quickly.  Bunkhouses do serve a purpose though.  A few of them next to a school can provide for student dorms (students don't make any money) or you could make a little retirement community for you elderly.  Make sure that you keep an eye on your free housing though, frequently there are freeloaders… make sure to evict them.  Mostly, though, Bunkhouses are just a quick way of getting people out of shacks.

Shack:  This is the absolute lowest quality housing in the game.  They are ramshackle little dwellings that your people construct for themselves.  If you leave the Tropicans in these homes for too long, you may find that you are no longer President!!

As you can see, there is no perfect type of housing available.  Each home has its own values and drawbacks.  Lets explore each category further.

Housing Cost

At first glance, it would seem that the cheaper types of housing would be the easiest to manage.  But, when you break down the housing costs on a per family basis, you would find the following:

Housing Costs per Family Housing Type Base Cost Families Cost per Family Tenement $4,000 12 $333 Tenement with Russian Aid $2,000 12 $167 Apartment $5,000 6 $833 Apartment with Russian Aid $2,500 6 $417 Bunkhouse $350 2 $175 Country Home $500 1 $500 House $1,000 1 $1,000 Luxury Home $2,000 1 $2,000

Thus it is easy to see at a glance just how much it costs you to house just one Tropican family.  Bunkhouses are certainly the least expensive, but at a cost of low quality housing.  Tenements and Country Homes are probably the best way to get started, they are cheap and provide semi-decent homes for your people, at least until you can build them something nicer.  Apartments and Houses are great for keeping your people in a good mood.  They have fairly high quality ratings and your people will be happy living in them.

Russian Aid:  No discussion of housing cost would be complete without looking at the immense effect of Russian Aid on the cost of housing.  By building a Diplomatic Ministry and enacting the Russian Development Aid edict, tenements and apartments can be built at half the normal price.  This price is reflected in the above chart and will be included in all further charts on the cost of housing.  If you are going to build apartments or tenements, you really should enact Russian Aid as soon as possible.  The only exception is that if you're playing with the option of "Money Makes the Man", this will give less money to pad your Swiss account from Special Building Permits.

Maintenance

Maintaining your homes is an unfortunate cost, as it can build up very quickly.  However, it is a necessary evil.  Each type of home has two types of upkeep, Normal and Roach Patrol.  One is obviously better than the other.  Normal cost is just that, what it will cost you to upkeep this building in good condition for the whole year whereas the "Roach Patrol" will cut your maintenance costs in half, but reduce the quality rating by about 1/3.  In terms of percentages, normal maintenance costs 4% of the normal building cost, Roach Patrol costs 2%.  Russian Aid has no effect on maintenance cost.

Maintenance costs can quickly cut into your budget.  Government subsidized housing is a blessing for your people, but it is murder on your economy.  The only way to recoup some of your costs is to charge rent, but keep in mind that each family will only pay 1/3 of their monthly income in rent.  

Rent

What to charge your people in rent is definitely one of the aspects of Tropico that you may need to micro manage.  Tropicans will only pay 1/3 of their monthly salary in rent.  This is computed by the joint income of married workers.  Charging different amounts of rent for each type of housing can help you to force certain classes of citizens into certain types of housing.  For instance, if you charge $2 for apartments, then your farmers making $6 can move right in, however, they won't be able to afford the $4 for a House.  But, if that farmer marries another farmer, then the two of them together will be making $12, just enough to pay the mortgage on that House.  So, as we can clearly see, by setting rent and peoples salaries at just the right amount, we can determine what type of housing each class of citizen lives in.  If you charge $10 a month for a luxury home, then no body but your General making $30 can afford to move in.  This frees up the apartment that the General was living in for a farmer, plus it pleases the General to be able to live in such comfort.

So, how much should you charge?  Take a look at this chart for what you would need to bill your homeowners to break even on maintenance.

Maintenance Cost versus Break-Even Rent Housing Type Normal Maintenance Rent Roach Patrol Rent Tenement $160 $1.11 $80 $0.56 Apartment $200 $2.78 $100 $1.39 Bunkhouse $14 $0.58 $7 $0.29 Country Home $20 $1.67 $10 $0.83 House $40 $3.33 $20 $1.67 Luxury Home $80 $6.67 $40 $3.33

Though charging rent is no cash cow, if you pay your people appropriately, you can easily come out ahead on your maintenance costs, you just have to pay everyone's salaries instead.  However, those high salaries will boost job happiness as well.

Another matter that is of importance is how much you pay your people.  For instance, Farmer Brown makes $5 a month and pays $1 in rent, thus we are recouping 20% of the salary that we have to pay him.  However, Barmaid Bertha makes $6 a month and pays $2 in rent, thus we are recouping 33% of her salary.  Now, 13% may not seem like much, but when you are squeezing the country for all it is worth, that 13% adds up quickly… especially if you have hundreds of people.  Try keeping salaries at exactly three times the monthly rent you are charging for that citizen class.  If you have to pay them a little more or less, that's just fine because you will still be recouping a lot of their salary, but it is definitely something to keep in mind.  

Oh, by the way, if you hold down the <SHIFT> key when you set rent, it will set all buildings of that type to the same amount.  Excellent for making rent hikes right after that election you just bought!!

Quality and Cost

Quality of life is something on everyone's mind.  No one wants to live in a cardboard box, and people expect a lot.  Your Tropicans aren't much different.  In the beginning, they expect to live in lower quality housing, but after your economy gets rolling, they want to know why they still live in a shack while you gamble away the toils of their labor.  Keeping housing quality high can really affect your people's mood.  Unfortunately, they are much quicker to complain about the lack of quality than they are to praise you for your effort.  "What is the best quality for its cost," you ask?  Well, check out the handy dandy little chart below for a quick breakdown.

Housing Cost versus Quality Housing Type Base Cost Families Quality Cost/QP/Family Weighted Cost Tenement $4,000 12 35 $9.52 $27.20 Tenement w/Aid $2,000 12 35 $4.76 $13.60 Apartment $5,000 6 60 $13.88 $23.13 Apartment w/Aid $2,500 6 60 $6.94 $11.57 Bunkhouse $350 2 25 $7 $28.00 Country Home $500 1 50 $10 $20.00 House $1,000 1 70 $14.29 $20.41 Luxury Home $2,000 1 95 $21.05 $22.16

Some simple conclusions from this are that without Russian Aid, tenements are slightly less in Cost per Quality Point per Family than a country house and apartments slightly less than a regular house. With Russian Aid, both tenements and apartments are far cheaper than anything else with equivalent ratings and shows why Russian Aid is so valuable.  Obviously, since it costs you the same amount to build a Normal home as a Roach Patrol home, these costs get higher when you decide to quit paying maintenance costs, so just watch out.  One other factor that these costs do not take into account is the overall quality rating that can be achieved with a certain type of housing.  The last column is an attempt to equalize the ratings with a weighting factor compared to the theoretical maximum of 100, i.e. a multiplier of 100 divided by the quality rating for the housing type.  This rating shows a fairly close grouping without Russian Aid, with the country house, normal house and luxury house all being better than apartments and tenements and bunkhouse the worst.  With Russian Aid, the apartment comes out on top, followed by the tenement, then the others as for without aid.  So what's the final conclusion?  Get Russian Aid and build lots of apartments!

One final consideration is the maintenance cost of a housing unit over the life of the building. This can amount to 2.5 to 5 times the original cost over 50 years and is not influenced by Russian Aid. Since maintenance also affects the housing quality, here are charts of maintenance costs versus quality for normal maintenance and roach patrol maintenance.

Normal Maintenance Cost versus Quality Housing Type Maintenance Cost Families Base Quality Cost/QP/Family Weighted Cost Tenement $160 12 35 $0.38 $1.09 Apartment $200 6 60 $0.56 $0.93 Bunkhouse $14 2 25 $0.28 $1.12 Country Home $20 1 50 $0.40 $0.80 House $40 1 70 $0.57 $0.82 Luxury Home $80 1 95 $0.84 $0.89

Roach Patrol Maintenance Cost versus Quality Housing Type Maintenance Cost Families Base Quality Cost/QP/Family Weighted Cost Tenement $80 12 23 $0.29 $1.26 Apartment $100 6 40 $0.42 $1.04 Bunkhouse $7 2 17 $0.21 $1.21 Country Home $10 1 33 $0.30 $0.92 House $20 1 47 $0.43 $0.91 Luxury Home $40 1 63 $0.63 $1.01

Two conclusions from these charts are that if housing quality is not a consideration, bunkhouses and tenements are by far the best option (or shacks!). But if quality is important, they are the worst. So make your decision on what is important to the game you're playing.

Now that your head is spinning with figures, there is one more factor to consider in choosing your housing, the footprint used by the dwelling. Below is a chart of the weighted numbers from above charts times the number of cells per family to give a rating of cost versus quality versus space efficiency. Lower numbers are better.

Quality Cost Rating versus Footprint Size Housing Type Footprint (Cells) Cells per Family Initial Cost Rating x Cells Normal Maint. Rating x Cells Roach Maint. Rating x Cells Tenement 4 x 6 2 $54.40 $2.18 $2.52 Tenement w/Aid 4 x 6 2 $27.20 $2.18 $2.52 Apartment 4 x 5 3.33 $77.00 $3.10 $3.46 Apartment w/Aid 4 x 5 3.33 $38.50 $3.10 $3.46 Bunkhouse 1 x 2 1 $28.00 $1.12 $1.21 Country Home 2 x 2 4 $80.00 $3.20 $3.68 House 2 x 2 4 $81.60 $3.28 $3.64 Luxury Home 2 x 4 8 $177.28 $7.12 $8.08

These numbers are so convoluted by now that they are probably meaningless, but if space is a consideration, bunkhouses are number one, with tenements a close second. But for quality housing, apartments, country houses and regular houses are all good options, all things considered. Whew!  

Quality Factors

Well, the last section showed you how to get the most bang for your buck, but notice that the quality rating is the base quality.  That means that there are other factors within your control.  Here are some tips to keep in mind when building homes.

Location, location, location.  Where you place your homes is everything.  A house next to a factory can significantly lower its quality rating, in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 points.  This effect is due to the pollution output at the factory.  It's even worse downwind of the factory than upwind.  Also, keep in mind that pollution in Tropico is compounded each year… it doesn't go way, it just keeps building up.  After a decade, those Luxury Homes might not be so luxurious at all.  This also stands true for shacks, guard posts, prisons, and other less than beautiful structures… almost everything in the game.

Beauty.  Placing a nice villa right on the beach can raise its quality rating by up to 4 points!  Also, dumb as they are, Tropicans also like to live near your archaeological site.  Maybe they like the way it looks, or maybe their robbing your ancestor's graves.  Whatever the reason, a home nearby will have its rating boosted by about 3 or 4 points

Space.  Tropicans don't like to be crammed together in tight spaces.  A little distance (two or three grid squares) can help to keep them from feeling too congested.  This can also help you out by leaving space for roads and landscaping.

Speaking of which…

Landscaping, while not directly increasing your housing rating, can help out a lot.  Since the outside of their home is the first thing Tropicans see when they leave for work and the last thing they see when they get home, landscaping directly around your communities can really help their overall mood.  Placing some fountains or ornamental trees directly around a house can make everyone feel better.

Crime.  Crime can really drag a neighborhood down.  A police station nearby will help keep everyone at bay.  This holds especially true for areas with a lot of Tenements or Apartments.  Note that tenements also adversely affect Pollution and Aesthetic Beauty ratings of your island, so anything you can do to counteract this is a good thing.

Placement

Now, I mentioned location above, but that was in relation to other buildings.  What about a buildings proximity to people's jobs, the local church, medical attention, or even some form of entertainment?  These are all factors that come into play when you plan your island.  Confused yet??  It gets worse.  People don't want to travel across your island to get to work.  They are even more annoyed when they have to walk too far to get to something that they need, like religion, health care, food, entertainment, etc.  When your citizens don't have easy access to what they need, they become angry, they also become less productive, and that means less money for you.

Laying out your housing so your citizens have access to everything can be quite a challenge, especially when they put a shack up right where you want to build.  Keeping workers close to their jobs can make them more productive.  Everyone will have more stamina when on the job.  Farmers can grow larger fields, miners will carry in more loads, loggers will chop down more trees, factory workers… well, you get the point.

Try placing homes with amenities on the way to work.  Peasants can stop off at the pub for a pint on their way home from the fields.  Teachers can pick up groceries for their families.  Police might even be able to get that bullet removed and be home in time to watch some sumo wrestling.  Also, placing peoples homes with amenities between them and the factories could go a long way towards increasing their quality rating.  Another method would be to make everyone's home the center of town.  Sort of like the hub of a wheel, with everything surrounding it.

Summary

So, what have we learned today??  Well, keep in mind that there is no perfect method to anything in Tropico, though there are certainly some preferred methods.  There is no one best method for placing homes… only the method that works best for you.  A little experimentation could land you some much needed experience in what your people need.  Plus, you become more and more familiar with how the individual feels, and how you can best meet their needs.  Hopefully, some of the things that I have outlined above will help you to make an educated decision on where begin.  There is a lot to remember, but once you learn it, it becomes second nature.  Take everything one step at a time, not all at once.  If you first experiment with the different home types, then move on to placement, following with beauty, you will only have to look over what you have implemented most recently to discover where your problems may be.  If you take on too much at once, you may find yourself out of cash with an angry mob throwing you on a rowboat.