In Tropico 5 simply letting time pass will not unlock new buildings, edicts and constitution options.
You will have to advance through the era’s . You will be able to play in the Colonial era, World War era, Cold war era and Modern era. Getting from the colonial era to the world war era requires you to declare independence from the crown.

This guide is an in-game summary of the full guide: Tropico 5 guide: How to survive the colonial era and declare independence[www.gameplayinside.com]. The full guide contains screenshots and additional information.

Colonial Era Mandate
In the colonial era you are not a dictator, at least not yet. You are a governor from the Crown and you have been given an mandate of 5 years. Meaning that after this time has passed you will be evicted from the island and will have lost the game.

Checking your mandate
The remaining time of your current mandate can be checked in the bottom left corner of the game, above the mini map.

Extending your mandate
You can extend your mandate by keeping the Crown happy. In Tropico 5 you will receive quests from the Crown asking you to build certain buildings. Each time you listen to such a request you will get a quest reward.

After a while you will also receive demands. For example the Crown will ask you to pay $5000 dollar. It is highly recommended to do this because one of the rewards is to extend your mandate for 12 months.

During the Colonial era there are two conflicting factions; the loyalists and the revolutionaries.
The loyalists hate you and will always hate you. They want our island to stay under the influence of the Crown. The revolutionaries support you as El Presidente and want independence.

You can influence the power of these factions through the following measures:

• Change your demographics
  
• Revolutionary support quests

For more information please check the full guide: How to survive the colonial era and declare independence [www.gameplayinside.com]

Step 1 – Build your economy
The first step to independence is a strong economy. In order to complete all quests you will need a lot of money. The stronger your economy, the quicker you have the cash to complete these quests.

Following my guide; making money in the colonial era , I recommend constructing:

• 3 lumber mills
  
• a Cotton and/or Cocoa plantation
  
• 3 ranches
  
• a mine (after research is complete)
  
• additional dock (to get a beneficial export deal)

Step 2: Stay in power
Make sure you keep extending your mandate when possible.

Step 3: Get more revolutionaries
Create enough jobs so each ship will bring some immigrants. New immigrants tend to be revolutionaries so the bigger your population becomes, the lower the power of the loyalists. I recommend aiming for 120 inhabitants.
Don’t forget to complete the revolutionaries support quests mentioned earlier.

Step 4- Make your people happy*
When you are earning money you can start spending some to keep your inhabitants happy.
In the colonial era you need to keep in mind that the happiness graph is plotted on a scale of 0-100. However it is absolutely impossible to get to that 100 happiness in the colonial era. In fact healthcare is not even possible.

The figure that is important is the “average Caribbean happiness”. Beat this value by having sufficient catholic missionaries (Religion), food, employment (Job) and most importantly; housing!

Step 5: Army
The game keeps suggesting that you create a sufficiently sized army. For this purpose you will need to construct a military fort. Each military forts houses one infantry squad. So far I have not been able to find a direct relation between the number of forts and support. However, having 2 forts secures your island from future (pirate) invasions. Just keep in mind guard towers lower the “liberty” rating of the surrounding area. Making your inhabitants unhappy.

Step 6: Research!
You will have to research “Constitution”. Doing so will give a (huge) boost to your support level.

This guide is an in-game summary of the full guide: Tropico 5 guide: How to survive the colonial era and declare independence[www.gameplayinside.com]. Please checkout the provided url for more details.