Tropico 5 has been released. Being a big fan of the third and fourth installments of the series, I dove into the fifth game on day one. Is anyone else playing?
My first impressions are really quite positive.
The game runs very smoothly. I haven’t encountered any meaningful post-launch bugs or stability issues are are practically the norm for new releases these days.
The aesthetics are very good. Pretty graphics, cheery music. The only step down is that Penultimo is voiced by a different actor, who IMO isn’t as entertaining. The map grid is much chunkier, and I like it. A small building is 1x2 tiles, rather than the 4x8 it was in the last two games (in which even roads were 4 tiles wide). This makes placing groups of buildings without wasted space, and building roads around buildings, a lot easier. Also, when you go to place a plantation, it will show your where the fields will be.
The new eras, and how they factor into the campaign, are intriguing. I’m on the third mission right now, and it started on the same island as the first mission (i.e. with the city I built in the first mission, as I had left it). The Colonial era has you rather hamstrung; you can’t educate your own citizens or build advanced industry. The calendar doesn’t track the year, but how much time is left on your term as governor. Missions can extend your term, up to a point. The World Wars era feels more like previous Tropico games, except that the major foreign powers are the Allies and the Axis rather than the U.S. and the Soviets. I expect that the Cold War and Modern Times eras will be familiar as well. I got attacked by pirates once, so a standing army is useful for more than just oppressing your own citizens.
Oh, and Swiss bank account money is actually useful, for once. Instead of having one Presidente with multiple traits, you have a dynasty of family members, each with one trait. You spend money from your Swiss bank account to level them up.
I didn’t know about the Swiss banks thing. Thanks. I got through the tutorial last night, and some of the first mission. I’m not sure.
I think I like it. It is a lot more in depth.
There’s a lot of folks complaining that it’s been dumbed down…I’m not really sure I agree.
The islands do start out a lot more limited than before - the first two missions give you a choice of the same two islands (choose one, then the other) then the third and fourth missions return you to those same islands (hope you planned them out decently!) Returning to your previously-built islands is, IIRC, new to the series. There are eventually at least two more islands.
While you don’t control the exact payroll for each building, you do control its “budget,” which determines the wealth of the employees and the effectiveness of the building. And the new manager system & the era/research-required upgrades mix things up nicely.
The eras have a strong affect on gameplay - no more booze baron making $30K/ship one year in when you have to declare independence before you can build a distillery. Needing to explore the island to utilize resources is new as well (though you get the whole map when you research drydock for some reason.)
The military aspect is quite different from previous games. Instead of having your guard towers spread all over for a quick response, you really, REALLY want them clustered for maximum protection. The third mission is likely to immediately kick your butt unless you had decent, but unnecessary, defenses up from the previous playthrough of the island.
edit: I do miss the old Penultimo, though.
I’ve been playing the game a lot in the past few days, and figured I’d share a few more thoughts on the game.
I like how some buildings can be modernized in later eras, particularly housing (tenements can be modernized to apartments, which can later be modernized to modern apartments). I really like how you can demolish buildings without builders. The various upgrades for buildings are fun, too.
I’m still trying to get the hang of manipulating the budgets of buildings. On the first two islands I would max out the budget of nearly everything for the additional effectiveness. This led to a problem where my high schools and colleges would be perpetually half-staffed, as recent graduates would opt to get jobs as factory workers rather than teachers. As a result, my factories would take a long time to become fully staffed. On my second pair of islands I’m leaving most buildings at the default budget (only schools and power plants have higher budgets now), and it’s working okay so far.
Tropicans are kind of dumb when it comes to choosing where to live. I see lots of shacks popping up, full of employed people, not too far from available housing they can afford. It’s much harder or impossible to make a central residential district like I could in Tropico 4, and I’m skeptical that this is by design. I really hope that this gets patched.
Teamster shortages are a bitch. It’s very frustrating to have my nuclear power plant stop working because nobody bothered to transport the uranium from my mines to the plant. When a building’s output storage is full, the workers apparently just stop working; in Tropico 4 they would transport the goods to the docks/factories, but they apparently don’t in Tropico 5.
The reworked almanac still feels clumsy, but I like that it keeps track of things like the amount of resources consumed by industry. Pages for selected buildings are clumsy too; I wish I could see and do more without sifting through tabs.
I still miss the old Penultimo, but the new one is growing on me. Lord Oaksworth is very amusing.