Am I playing this wrong? :: Tropico 6 General Discussions

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rupsch

16 Nov, 2024 @ 9:02am

Am I playing this wrong?

Loved Tropico 4. The campy atmosphere, the tongue-in-cheek-humor. The comedic take on a serious topic like dictatorships and all. Tropico 6 is also very nice, but I feel like it differs in one very important aspect.
I do not feel in control at all, and the game plays like a democracy simulator more than a comedic didtator-sim. In T4, you played the leader of a banana republic who exploited his people for his own benefit while keeping them complacent and tricking the superpowers into giving him huge subsidies for small favors or just the hope that he might turn good.
In T6, I feel like I have to constantly juggle the frequent and often nonsensical demands of countless factions who all have the power to upend my entire island if I don't give in to their whims.
The people are not better. If I don't give them whatever they need from their long list of demands, they'll rebel frequently. Have a perfect support of food, healthcare, activities and security, and they'll still want to kill you (or not vote for you) because they don't have enough churches or do not feel free enough.
Only endgame gives you a bit of breathing room if you set all the policies right. But even then, I am constantly pestered by environmentalists who want me to build the third superfluous recycling center while the capitalists constantly want me to change the policies I put in place to suit my game strategy. Even if I somehow got rid of all those people (I mean, what are environmentalists and capitalists doing on Tropico anyway?), they still hold the power to completely obliterate me if I don't comply.
There always is the sandbox mode, but am I just really bad at this game or is being everyone's puppet really a deliberate choice in the game's design?

Last edited by rupsch; 16 Nov, 2024 @ 9:04am

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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments

longjr97

16 Nov, 2024 @ 2:44pm

You're not alone. There are a lot of sub-optimal design choices that people have been complaining about for years. You've mentioned a few here, like stupid faction demands, repeated demands, and people going criminal or rebel at the drop of a hat.

There's also walking across the entire island for services/jobs, random broker requests, guerrillas targeting dumb things (and coming halfway across the island to get there), troops that won't deploy because they're waiting for one more solider to ride in on the bus from across the island, etc.

And, at least for me, people saying "well, you can just do X" feels like workarounds rather than good gaming strategy, if you know what I mean. Sure, you can get the Brandenburg Gate or Hagia Sophia or Coliseum, but aren't you supposed to be dealing with these issues organically at the local level, not bringing in a god-level fix?

That's an interesting comment about the democracy simulator. I think I agree, While it's true that you don't *have* to rule as a Democratic Socialist (agricultural subsidies, social security, maybe free wheels, then keep the capitalists just happy enough not to escalate), if you're not you're just creating extra work for yourself.