Tropico

Tropico is another older game that is tons of fun. The player takes the role of "El Presidente," the ruler of an island in the Carribean during the Cold War era from 1950's onward. The game is a humorous take on Banana Republics.

You can select your "character" from real life people ranging from Fidel Castro, Che Guevara to Augusto Pinochet and Eva Perón. There are also a few fictional characters. Each has positive and negative character traits that give you bonuses or penalties. These choices affect the attitudes of factions and superpowers towards the player, and can also change costs or other in game events.

The general gameplay involves you controlling an island somewhere in the Carribean. You normally start with tiny population, your palace and a few municipal buildings to get you on your way. You have to build up your tiny community into a thriving island with industry and tourism - all while surpressing the coup, rigging elections and taking bribes.

The interface is simple and easy to understand, with useful overlays and options to make the whole gaming expierence more fun. You can view all the information you could possible want in your Almanac which contains figures, facts and lists to help run your "democracy." This may sound complicated, but the well animated Alamanac is sectioned off and gives you most important things you need to know. It easy to see what exactly is going on in with the helpful lists that show people's needs and feelings and other aspects like pay, age, and job.

The building system is easy and quick to pick up: you have a construction office to start with (you can build more for faster construction) that employs 8 workers each. You select the building you want to build from your interface (which is split into sections like industry, goverment, entertainment etc.) and place it down in a valid location. This creates an transparent image of the bulding and then your workers will come along and level the ground around the building and start construction. You can also set the priority of each building under construction to allow some buildings to be built before others.

The buildings function in such a way to minimize micromanagement. All your characters will perform their jobs without you needing to command them to. All you need to worry about is how much you pay them and what working conditions they should have. You also need to provide housing for your people or they will just build shacks which have negative effect on them and their enviroment (espicially near places of tourism). The game has loads of buildings to choose from, these include apartment blocks, cathedrals, farms that grow food and produce (like coffee and tobacco), cigar factories and sports stadiums and airports.

There is also an extensive amount of tourist buildings that can generate huge sums of cash to rival your industry. You not only gain money from the hotels, and their services (like pools, spa's) and entertainment, but you can also build a bank that allows tourists to setup off-shore bank accounts! All this generates lots of money you can use to invest in your island.

The island has the usual factions like Communists, Capitalists, Militarists, Regilious, Enviromentalists and Intellectuals - all of whom you want to please if you want their vote. Your population belongs to one or more of these factions and this influences their respect for you (and if they'll vote for you). On the subject of democracy - your island can either be a true democracy or you can use some dirty tricks to stay in power. From the subtle tax cut right before an election, to bribing or imprisoning the opposition candidate! You can also "tweak" the votes to sway in your favour - but only by so much. If you're not one for democracy you can always refure elections and hope that no coup will spring up! Also, don't forget to put away something in your Swiss bank account if it does all go wrong!

The player can issue a number of goverment edicts that help you run your country - some require money or a particular building or faction rating. You can better your relations with the USSR or USA by issuing diplomatic statements or even sending a delegation by plane once you have an airport. These can all bring money and other benefits from the two superpowers (or you can even allow them to build bases on your island). You can invite the Pope, organise a book BBQ, increase your people's rations and much more.