Anyone exicited for Tropico 5 launching today?

[utahraptor]

I think there is still about 2 hours left to preorder for bonus on steam.

www.tropico5.com/us/

I played 3 and 4 and really enjoyed them so I am going to pick this one up as well.

 

[mmntech]

Thinking about picking it up. Probably during the Steam Summer Sale. It's been getting fairly decent reviews. Hopefully the changes are more substantial this time around. There's really not a lot that's different between 3 & 4.

 

[Nyati13]

I am! Got my preorder in a couple of weeks ago.

 

[BrightCandle]

I played 3 and 4 as well and after seeing reviews didn't say it totally sucked I went ahead and bought 5. Will see how it goes.

 

[brandonb]

I'm holding out for some reviews. Tropico 4 (the only one I ever played) was a neat game, but wasn't really deep enough for my tastes. Once you get over the hump (about 30 minutes into each game) it's an instant win. Get some mines going, farms, some tourist huts, boom, you win.

 

[JamesV]

I'm holding out for some reviews. Tropico 4 (the only one I ever played) was a neat game, but wasn't really deep enough for my tastes. Once you get over the hump (about 30 minutes into each game) it's an instant win. Get some mines going, farms, some tourist huts, boom, you win.

Tropico 4 was pretty darn easy, especially with some of the DLC, but I still put 80 hours into it. Wish it was harder, but bought 5 anyway.

Hoping the multiplayer is fun, but it looks kind of dumb from what I've seen so far.

 

[Maximilian]

I'm holding out for some reviews. Tropico 4 (the only one I ever played) was a neat game, but wasn't really deep enough for my tastes. Once you get over the hump (about 30 minutes into each game) it's an instant win. Get some mines going, farms, some tourist huts, boom, you win.

This.

Plus building a huge island with tons of people wasent possible because they put a population cap, think it was 1200 people you're allowed. And there was no way to deal with traffic.

Still interested in 5 though, depends whats changed tbh.

 

[toughtrasher]

Yeah it's too lopsided. When you get things going it's hard not to lose. And in my experience, if you don't get anything going, you can lose too easily so the balance is off.

I'll wait for reviews

 

[JamesV]

I put in 6 straight hours last night, but I'm undecided if I really like the direction they went with Tropico 5. While the base game is much the same, many of the mechanics have changed. Didn't try multiplayer yet.

You can't 'buy plans' for buildings anymore, but have to research buildings (and edicts, etc), and have to be in the right Era (colonial, cold war, etc). What this does, is highly restricts what you can build, so early game you have hardly any buildings at all to construct. Not liking that so much, except you end up using buildings you may have skipped over before like regular Houses. Many buildings now have secondary attributes, like the regular House increasing in quality the more houses you have around it.

Every production type building can now have a manager, and there are varieties like General that increases military buildings, and Environmentalist that decreases pollution in all buildings around. This I do like, as it adds new strategy. You also can have children now, and your children can be managers, or can be elected to your job.

Combat is almost RTS like, but with a Total War type of feel (units are a group). But, it's pretty much automatic, so don't get your hopes up for a true mix of RTS and Tropico.

Importing resources is gone as it was, and instead there are now trade routes. You assign ships to contracts like 10 years of shipping Corn to Allies at a set price. I like this better, as ships are limited, so you can't just import all raw materials and have an island of factories.

I'm on the sixth campaign mission, and have only seen two islands. Every other mission, you return to a previous island, along with everything you already built on it in previous missions. I really do not like this repeating island thing... rather have a new island for every mission, although I might like the carryover later on. Right now if the campaign is 15 missions, you are looking at a whole 5 maps total... hope that is not the case.

Overall pretty happy with it. Enough new mechanics that it changes the way you play (it isn't Tropico 3.5.5), but some things I don't like so far.

 

[BrightCandle]

I played about 2 hours and it does feel kind of like an expansion pack for Tropico 4. I don't really know if I like the new research and era limitations or the managers (really not sure what effect that actually has). It seems solid and it works which at least makes it a lot better than other games I have played this year. Will reserve further judgement until I put some more hours into it.

 

[ThinClient]

I liked Tropico and Tropico 2, but they're old and stale games now.

 

[Nebor]

I liked Tropico 1, 2 and 3. I have 4 but played maybe 15 minutes. I can't believe a 5th one is out already.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Playing it myself.

 

[sandorski]

Will pick it up during the Summer Sale. From what I have seen, Multiplayer can be good, except the Military aspect seems poorly implemented.

 

[JamesV]

Played 21 hours and I'm done with this game; without even getting past the 7th campaign mission.

Problem (to me) is the campaign missions carry over on the same map. You start mission #1 on one island, and then mission #3 is back on that island with whatever you built on it previously. A lot of people like this, but I absolutely hate it.

First playthrough in which I got to the 7th mission, I played like Tropico 4, just building to win without thinking about how well my island was setup. So I started again, and found out the best way was to delay winning and game the system to build up your city for the next mission.

Problem is, once I got to the 7th mission on the 2nd playthrough, all my mines started out with 500-700 resources (instead of 18,000+). Using only farms and production buildings like Rum cannot possibly get me out of the hole, because I have so many buildings that take money to run each month. Basically bankrupt with no possible way to get out.

Now, for all 21 of those hours, I've played a grand total of 2 maps. Boring. There is no way in hell I'm going to restart the campaign again, and play another 6x on those same two maps (and who knows how many more after that).

I like managers, trade ships, and other things, but the campaign is shit, and the campaign is why I bought it. /end rant

 

[utahraptor]

I like the game so far, but I can't stand the carried over maps. Also I don't really like the dynasty system even though it is more realistic.

 

[JumBie]

Everyone here provided me with all the information I needed to decide that I will not be purchasing this game.

 

[velillen]

Ive played through the first two islands so far. Its...different to say the least. Going into it i did the play it like you start over each mission. SO my islands werent really what i would have liked. But the nice thing about the missions is they do provide somewhat of a challenge for the level your island is progressed. IE a mission would be to build a nuclear program in 24 months. Not like export 1000 logs.

The research system is....interesting. I like it and hate it at the same time. If you dont keep upgrading to get more research points then you fall behind. So you have to dump money into that in order to research quickly.

Another annoyance has been how useless guard towers are. 1 rebel unit can destroy a guard tower. So you still are better off having barracks/forts than a bunch of towers.

Exploring can be annoying as well. If you send a unit out to explore the island and you get invaded the unit will just return to fight and you are out your 1k. It took me 3 or 4 tries in one mission to explore to a mine i wanted to see.

I have honestly ignored most of the dynasty crap. Its like a bonus thing you can use if you want or just ignore for the most part.

Overall im entertained by the game. The missions are a bit nicer than the "30 minute hump to win" in Tropico 4. I just wish you could play through one island at a time instead of going back and forth between two totally different islands

 

[JTsyo]

I'm holding out for some reviews. Tropico 4 (the only one I ever played) was a neat game, but wasn't really deep enough for my tastes. Once you get over the hump (about 30 minutes into each game) it's an instant win. Get some mines going, farms, some tourist huts, boom, you win.

Maybe you would enjoy Banished.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I liked Tropico 3 decently; I heard they barely changed anything from 1 and 2, but it was the first I played. Tropico 4 seemed WAY too much like Tropico 3. Tropico 5 seemed to have come out really fast... I'm not really inclined to just sink money into these games... Maybe when Tropico 25 comes out and it's noticeably different.

 

[Skott]

I played Tropico 3. I liked it. It was okay. Not really interested in 4, 5, or 6.

 

[mmntech]

I liked Tropico 3 decently; I heard they barely changed anything from 1 and 2, but it was the first I played. Tropico 4 seemed WAY too much like Tropico 3.

Tropico 4 didn't really change much. It uses the exact same engine. There were a small number of gameplay changes.
-More building variety. You can also unlock modern buildings, but that might have just been part of the Modern Times DLC pack. I bought the gold edition with all DLC included.
-Ministerial system, which lets you appoint citizens to serve in your cabinet. They don't really do anything other than unlock some buildings
-Advisor system, which replaces the radio host from the first game. You have advisors for military, environment, economy, etc letting you know about problems and making suggestions on how to fix them.
-You can pay extra to construct buildings instantly

Had it not been so cheap on Steam, I probably wouldn't have bought it. I mean, I enjoyed it but it's too similar to it's predecessor. An expansion pack could have added all that to Tropico 3.

I do really love the whole concept of the game. It's a great parody of Cuba and other corrupt Latin American regimes. Though I'm still on the fence about whether I'll buy 5. Somebody please tell me they fixed the construction workers' AI. It's super annoying having like 10 of them standing around doing nothing. Especially if you're trying to rebuild after a disaster.

 

[Revolution 11]

I have not played the campaign, the whole point of the Tropico games to me was the sandbox mode, so I won't comment on that part.

The sandbox mode is definitely improved from past Tropico games. I like the limitations in research because it gives you a additional mechanic to balance, money vs research generation.

The guard towers are indeed useless, you need like 10 of them next to your palace to have any real defensive value. The carrier is good for softening enemy hordes at the expense of collateral damage. But you still need like 8 barracks and several bases before you can stand a massive revolt.

Contracts is nice in theory but tend to be limited or lopsided. Even in a late-game Cold War island after 8 hours of gameplay, I still suffer economic booms and crashes, so the difficulty does remain throughout most of the eras. The transition from the colonial era to the World Wars era is the hardest, make sure you are prepared with lots of money and basic infrastructure.

Tropico 5 is a good Tropico game with all the characteristic humor and irony. If you want a serious simulation/city building game, go play Banished.