Tropico

Mon, 11 Mar 13 22:47:06 +0000

With the recent SimCity debacle, and Valve's not so subtle decision to put Tropico 4 on sale for a week, you might be wondering if Tropico is any good. It looks fairly good, but it doesn't seem to have the marketing that AAA titles do, so maybe it's rubbish, yes?

The answer is a resounding no. Tropico is great. All your suspicions demonstrate is how vulnerable you are to exploitation by marketers in an industry saturated with misleading advertising. Which, ironically enough, is a property that would make El Presidente value you as an co-inhabitant of his little spot of paradise.

Tropico is a real gem of a game.

Tropico has character. Not just your character, El Presidente, a strangely lovable Banana Republic dictator, the magnitude of whose ambitions are matched only by the magnitude of his facial hair. No. There are many other characters too. Like Penultimo - your hapless second in command, Sunny Flowers - the resident hippy radio host, and Antonio Lopez - a man so serious about capitalism that he made extra space under his chart to show you how quickly the markets were collapsing.

But that's not really what I meant by character...

It's not really a sandbox city simulator, although town planning certainly plays a big part, it's much more a story driven game. The plot unfolds throughout each mission in comically ridiculous ways with comically ridiculous racially stereotyped characters with silly accents. "El Presidente, the mighty Chinese dragon is hungry for your goods". It's all very very tongue in cheek and adds a wholly different and entertaining view onto a solid management game. And the well made and fairly long story campaign adds much more focus over a more sandbox oriented game.

It's rare that I'm entirely positive about a game, but there's not a lot you can criticise Tropcio for; it's well made, it's stable, it's original, and it's really enjoyable. Oh yes, and the music is top notch.

Possible downsides are that it's a bit complicated to start off with (although the campaign eases you in, if you pay attention, and there are tutorials, and a PDF manual on Steam).You also need a (free) Kalypso account, but once done it's unintrusive and there's no additional DRM beyond Steam.

To put it in perspective, I bought Tropico 4 in a Steam sale over the summer, and 9 months later I still boot it up sometimes. Now that all the DLC are on sale too, I've bought them also. You get a lot of value for money with Tropico. As an extra bonus, it's graphically unintensive while not being ugly, and should therefore run on most non-ancient PCs.

I can't recommend Tropico 4 enough. It's great.

By the way, if you missed the Steam sale and don't want to pay full price, wait a bit. It seems to go on sale every few months.

Tropico 4 quotes (political, loading screen)

Wed, 10 Oct 12 18:06:53 +0000

Here is a complete (I think) extraction of all the political/dictator quotes from Tropico 4's loading screens. There are some gems in here. Enjoy!

Lord Acton — "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."

Franklin P. Adams — "Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody."

John Adams — "Fear is the foundation of most governments."
John Adams — "The happiness of society is the end of government."

Ernest Benn — "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."

Ambrose Bierce — "Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment."

Napoleon Bonaparte — "In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte — "A leader is a dealer in hope."
Napoleon Bonaparte — "History is a set of lies agreed upon."

Chester Bowles — "Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians."

Charles Bukowski — "The difference between a Democracy and a dictatorship is that in a Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."

Julius Caesar — "If you must break the law, do it to seize power. In all other cases observe it."

Simon Cameron — "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought."

Dalton Camp — "Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies."

Fidel Castro — "The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government."
Fidel Castro — "... If Mr. Kennedy does not like Socialism, we do not like imperialism. We do not like Capitalism."
Fidel Castro — "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."

Hugo Chavez — "The day before yesterday I thought I was going to have to go to the extreme of decreeing a national emergency, but today I don't think I will have to."
Hugo Chavez — "I have said it already; I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not Capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell."

Sir Winston Churchill — "I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents."

Winston Churchill — "The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Winston Churchill — "It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Mark B. Cohen — "Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate."

Charles Caleb Colton — "Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase."

Nicolas Gomez Davila — "Revolutions are frightening, but election campaigns are disgusting."
Nicolas Gomez Davila — "History clearly demonstrates that governing is a task that exceeds man's ability."

Benjamin Disraeli — "The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."
Benjamin Disraeli — "My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."

Bob Edwards — "Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen."

Anatole France — "If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

Milton Friedman — "Governments never learn. Only people learn."
Milton Friedman — "The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."

John Kenneth Galbraith — "If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."

Indira Gandhi — "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."

Che Guevara — "Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy."

Cullen Hightower — "We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can."

Victor Hugo — "There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher."

Mogens Jallberg — "In Democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes."

Thomas Jefferson — "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Soren Kierkegaard — "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

Henry A. Kissinger — "Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."

Nguyen Cao Ky — "I never staged a coup. They picked me up. Like I say, they forced me to become premier, maybe hoping that by that way, they send me to the electric chair."

John Lehman — "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."

Vladimir Lenin — "One man with a gun can control 100 without one."

Jay Leno — "If politicians all told the truth, we'd be out of business."

Abraham Lincoln — "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

Niccolo Machiavelli — "Politics have no relation to morals."

Imelda Marcos — "I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty."

Eugene McCarthy — "It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember."

John Stuart Mill — "If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."

Richard Nixon — "The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep."
Richard Nixon — "Any nation that decides the only way to achieve peace is through peaceful means is a nation that will soon be a piece of another nation."

P. J. O'Rourke — "A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them."

David M. Ogilvy — "Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left."

George Orwell — "Liberal: a power worshipper without power."

Dorothy Parker — "Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."

Plato — "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
Plato — "The measure of a man is what he does with power."

Dan Quayle — "The future will be better tomorrow."

Ronald Reagan — "The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

Tom Robbins — "Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."

Donald H. Rumsfeld — "If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much."

Arthur Schopenhauer — "Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."

Edith Sitwell — "The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth."

Margaret Thatcher — "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

Henry David Thoreau — "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

Harry S. Truman — "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."

Unknown — "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Voltaire — "An ideal form of government is Democracy tempered with assassination."
Voltaire — "Clever tyrants are never punished."

Peter de Vries — "Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked."

E. B. White — "Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time."

Oscar Wilde — "The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived."

Woodrow Wilson — "The seed of revolution is repression."

Frank Zappa — "Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."

asgaard

Tropico

Tropico is a real gem of a game.

Tropico 4 quotes (political, loading screen)