Recent reviews by Vector Eagle

This is a love hate situation.

As the game currently stands, with broken economic systems, sporadic bugs related to logistical problems (i.e. tropicans moving from point A to B with the parking garage and getting stuck), and an absolutely atrocious tourism system. I can't recommend this game.

Let me go in-depth for those familiar with the Tropico formula:

Economy-(Broad by illusion, narrow in reality)
In previous installments you could build up an economy centralized around what resources/fertility/natural beauty was at your disposal. In this game nearly every single mission/map there is a means to deviate from this and go with about any economic path you wish to take (except the super scripted gimicky missions). And spoiler alert: it's almost going to be the same exact path every game. Why? Because half of the revenue generating systems are unviable long term by the time you hit the modern age to support a growing economy. You want to stay above board and strive to make your people happy with meticulous industrial planning? Okay, but you better also intergrate office buildings into the equation to take the some of the economic burden off every single entertainment building that refuses to generate a profit, despite them being at "waiting list" capacity. I went FROM not paying attention to offices, trying to build a strong logistic friendly economy, and struggling to get by while i micro managed several trade deals TO plopping down offices that generate money based on employed citizens and not focusing so much on a well oiled economy and making millions. So want a viable economy late game? Offices. No other work required. (maybe a bit of a stretch but it's pretty dumb how ineffective your previous age economies gradually gets)

Tourism- (Bug filled, extremely weird design)
You want to build a tourist mecca? Well good luck, HOTELS DON'T GENERATE INCOME. You have to pay to house tourists. Technically you subsidize them, but hotels operate in the red as a liability. I still haven't received a clear answer on if this is intended. In addition to that, every single economic "tourism growing building" (budget motels, low tier tourist entertainment buildings) don't actually generate profits and viable tourism is ONLY achievable when you get the top class economic tourists; otherwise the whole lower and mid tier buildings just bleed money; and that's simply because tourists only prefer very specific attractions and absolutely refuse to visit others, meanwhile anything else you build is wasted space and an economic drain in terms of generating cash. For some reason, tourists just simply refuse to use many of the facilities available in the game. And no, this isn't player oversight or lack of skill; they simply do not use them. Souvenir shops, tour offices, ethnic enclaves, tourist only casinos, and many other buildings simply never have visitors, despite other building queues being to a constantly full capacity, despite tourists in vicinity, despite service quality. So if you want to build that "organic" tourist economy, you better build some industry first to support it; because it will drain your economy otherwise. El Presidente must have a weird entertainment welfare scam going on for foreigners. Tourism in this game in its current state boils down to: 1. Build airport and dock. 2. Make sure only rich people come via airport (well-off tourists don't generate enough income to offset the hotel housing costs) and dock. 3. Only have attractions that said rich tourists will actually visit. Anything else is a waste. And trust me, the list is rather narrow.

Logisitics-(Semi okay and playable, just pretty buggy)
Want to set up an elaborate transport network to benefit efficiency and public services? Good luck. Tropicans like to get stuck in garages and metros and go missing forever. Tourists refuse to use parking garages. Dead people show up in your almanac as homeless. People get confused about where to live and don't show up for work. Etc. But hey, at least teamsters work pretty well.

Performance- (Decent, seen worse)
I wouldn't say it is quite optimized on my system for long play sessions on really large cities either (8700k -OC'd, GTX 1080). It still gets a little laggy (at max settings), but it is playable. Someone has said they believe it is the engine itself unable to keep up the demands of all the interactions. I'm starting to believe this is true.



Overall, there is a lot of really wonky balancing issues and systems that need to be fixed outright. Economy, which is central in these games, is a mess. Most of these positive reviews only have play times of 4 or 5 hours and haven't played the game very far to analyze the finer points and workings in my opinion. Tourism isn't even introduced as a main concept if you are doing the missions until mission #5 or so. (I have a running theory this is on purpose since they know it's a mess and hope people overlook it during initial sales week) Many early missions rely on the earlier historical ages. And for all intents and purposes, the earlier historic ages work pretty well, serious issues only start cropping up as complexity is increased and the island becomes more modernized.

I really want to love this game, I'm attached to Tropico as a franchise and concept. But this installment has left me frustrated and empty feeling. The first few hours were fun, but for the discerning player (someone who doesn't post a review in four hours of playtime) it is a bit of a mess. The game has heart in some areas, the voice acting and character presentation is A+. The flavor is really good. Just the systems themselves are sadly broken. But in an era of graphics>gameplay; i guess this is the new norm.

Save your money for now, wait until stuff gets fixed (we hope).

Loads of fun for 3 bucks. Tons or replayablitity. Good humor. A better turn based combat system than you see in some top tier titles.