Tropico Reloaded

Dated, but still my favorite Tropico Game. Seems more like an actual political simulation rather than just a series of goofy jokes about dictatorships and absolute power.

Low res only, very few options in settings menu, keys not re-bindable, unable to disable edge-scrolling, 'Pirate Cove' crashes when you try to launch the tutorial.

And remember, a vote for El presidente is a vote for me!

Sim City 2000 if it were on a tropical island ruled by a dictator and everything in game was trying to overthrow you.

I'm a Sim City fan—I still remember the first time I played Sim City 2000 and everything from the graphics to the real-time city animations blew my mind. I got to a Megalopolis in the first Sim City on Super Nintendo as well. The idea of managing a variety of issues to build a thriving city was fun.

Recently, I decided to try the Tropico series. I own a bunch of them and, as usual, start with the first one to see how it was (so I don't play a new one and then feel like the old ones are a downgrade). I enjoyed the elements that were like Sim City, but it suffered from two issues: the scenarios in my version are not in order to help you learn the game (like RollerCoaster Tycoon), and the game has a strange combination of time restrictions along with all the game mechanics conspiring to overthrow you.

The Positives
-The graphics aren't half-bad. While I wish they had slightly higher resolutions for modern PCs, the various buildings and the people and everything are very cute. It is like Sim City 2000 meets RollerCoaster Tycoon, and I really liked them.

-The basic game mechanics are fun and a nice variation on the City simulation formula. You can funnel money into a slush fund for yourself, and there are a bunch of edicts that you can set to keep yourself in power or help your community survive.

-I did like the fact that there was so much variety in terms of things that drove happiness and things that you could build to help the island prosper. A little of everything makes for a lot to do in the ~50 years you have to play a scenario.


The Negatives
-This might be an issue with buying a digital version with all of the expansions vs. back in the day where you would buy this game with a manual, but the game isn't pick-up-and-play at all. The scenarios are listed in alphabetical order, not starting with the tutorial missions, so you have no idea what anything does and have no easy way of figuring out how the game works by playing it. I should've read the manual first because the internet is not designed to help you learn a game like this; it's more designed to explain things one by one through search (and, even then, not very well), which takes an eternity. Read the manual or start with the starter scenarios and then find out the right order to play them in to learn instead of jumping into a difficult one only to fail over and over again and get frustrated with your lack of progress after hours of attempts.

-The game is very much what they call in modern games an "endless mode" where you have to see how long you'll last before getting ousted. I prefer a Sim City-style game where the point is to build a thriving city and handle issues where even the worst cities can be salvaged. In this game, it's Sim City's "you need more industrial zones" game mechanic times 50; you'll be up $90,000 with a growing, thriving city one year and then be $50,000 in the hole the next, sitting and waiting to see if your Teamsters will deliver enough money to bring you back into the black to fix the problem before the scenario ends or you get overthrown.

-My biggest issue with the game is that you have to build the island in a very specific way that matches either the scenario's objectives or the way that the city has to be built, or you'll fail. I don't mind the former, as scenarios are meant for that exact thing—to show you've mastered the game mechanics (but that's where the alphabetical scenarios ruin that experience). However, for the latter, the game never helped me understand much about the relationship between certain decisions and their consequences. How many Teamsters do I need? How far away do construction buildings need to be from each other to be able to reach? How many homes of which type would be good at what point in the game? No idea. I found that I either tried to build the nicer things early and had no money or build the low-quality stuff and then couldn't raise happiness enough at the end of the tougher scenarios (for example). While I enjoyed the swings that caused me to have to build something else, most of my games ended up with a bunch of unbuilt-but-purchased buildings, negative funds due to lack of teamsters, then my citizens went hungry, and then I just sat for 2-3 years until it fixed itself and I could build something else again. And when I completed a scenario and continued, it often turned out that the whole island would go to hell shortly afterwards. The game is meant to be played in a certain way, and it never helped me figure it out so it was mostly frustrating.

-After playing the scenarios for a while, I assumed that maybe it was like Sim City or Civilization and I should just play the main game to get the whole experience. But unlike those games, the Random Map is just a create-your-own-scenario mode and not really a "play the whole game to get to build everything" mode. I never really used the Edicts and never built a prison. It's just really weird that a game has all of these options and yet the scenarios pigeonhole you into building a certain set of buildings. So it basically turned into a strategy of building farms, ranches, and mines along with cheap buildings -> clinic and church -> industry and tourism and more homes -> power plant -> advanced buildings -> hope and pray that you can balance money, housing, buildings that require electricity, and education to staff the advanced buildings or your citizens will be unhappy and you'll lose. Oh, and your environment seems to always get worse no matter how many gardens I plant everywhere.


Overall, it's just a game that is interesting for a while until it becomes either frustrating or depressing. If I wanted to feel existential dread that nothing I did mattered, I'd play a horror or survival (or survival horror) game. I never really played the Civilization or Sim City scenario packs; I always like just starting a random or custom map and going from beginning to end. This game doesn't really want you to do that; it wants you to play scenario-like play where you have 50 years to complete a goal. And my people were never happy on the harder modes, and you are constantly fighting time or immigration, which constantly makes everyone miserable. And the voice seems to mislead you sometimes, telling you to do things that you can let go for years and not have anything bad happen—in fact, you're better off ignoring him. So I have no idea what to make of this game. I played as long as I could stand, but without tips and tricks to help guide me toward good starter strategies that I could build off of (and no scenario order to help me get better through easier starting campaigns), I ended up playing the harder scenarios too early and lost a lot, taking away a lot of fun of the game. It's not bad, but I'm going to try to the newer ones in the series to see if they fix these issues and make the game more fun in later installments.

Abso-lutely.

Amazing game, lots of nostalgia. Very good and can be incredibly difficult to find out what issues are causing what, which is the fun part! Go onto forums online. For instance, I was so silly and didn't understand I needed sugar crop for my rum industry (I suppose?)! Best of luck! You can have hours go by and not even know.

A lot of fun to play. Lots of fun little things the people think. Cute and entertaining.

Game would load, but after setting the simulation up, the game resolution and graphics would freeze. Half of the screen wasnt visible, with no way to set video options.

A great start to the series! I had only played Tropico 4 and 5 before playing this, but I was impressed at how much was in the first entry. The only complaints I have is that clouds block large chunks of your view even when you aren't zoomed out that much, there are sometimes delays when rotating the camera, your population and overall happiness aren't on the main screen like they are in future games which was always nice to be able to see at a glance whenever you wanted, it's hard to see where you're putting things down if there are trees in the way (in future games they became translucent which made it way easier), and the game lets you put down buildings over uncompleted roads, so you gotta be careful about not having your road situation be messed up. But aside from those issues, everything else is great, money comes in easily, the soundtrack is great, even the graphics on some of the buildings are impressive given how old the game is. The later games are better, but this one is definitely still worth playing just to see how the franchise got started if nothing else.

Best Aura in the series !

Autocratic Oligarch Tycoon.

Especially relevant to 21st century Americans.

The first Tropico has the best music and a very complicated system. I like the old Caribbean music from 1950s to 1970s.

Personally I never really got too much into other Tropicos, but I absolutely love this one.
I played for the first time the demo version when I was just a kid, and it really hit me. The playability, the music... The MUSIC!!! It's do damn good... I still listen to it today during work/commute, and it brings that nostalgic feeling...

It's really a great strategy game that you can kind of play at your own pace, something that I enjoy a lot. And doing that while listening to a gorgeous soundtrack just makes my day!

True 2D classics, Tropico and Tropico 2.

Amazing game for its time but has not aged well at all :( it does have a lot of charm when it comes to the music. The second Tropico doesn't even work!

Good game

Old but gold.

old but good , try to beat 1237 high score on any %difficulty , one game is around 2-3 hours on max speed if you play 40-50 years

Old game but good old El Presidente simulator. Enjoying the soundtracks also !!

This is probably the closest review to a coin flip over whether to recommend it or not I've done. What puts it into positive is that in a sale it's under £2.00 so it's very, very cheap.

I'd actually played the game before acquiring it on Steam so my playtime is far, far longer than my Steam hours.

The game's idea is strong - manage a tropical island by balancing economic and social goals to keep your people happy. There are a variety of problems to resolve in the various scenarios.

The scenarios are better than the original game which just gave you a variety of real life South American and Caribbean leaders with which to play on randomised islands with no aim beyond a high score at the end of your reign What's the downside of this version ? It's very, very slow. There's no vehicular transport here so building cannot commence until your workers have walked from their homes to the construction depot and then onto the site. Sometimes months and even years of game time go by waiting for your builders to finish a building - and since buildings and edicts are your only actions in the game this is frustrating. Sometimes you'll get into real financial difficulty solely because your dock workers aren't around to put cargo on the freighters. And the game can get repetitive fairly quickly. You'll usually end up placing buildings and passing edicts in a similar order most games.

Tropico 2 is sometimes fun, but mainly janky. Some scenarios make it difficult to impossible to add to your slave pool which are required to expand your island. You have no control whatsoever over your captains during cruises and frequently they lose their ship with all crew and all booty which can be a devastating loss. Pursue if you have a high frustration.

In 2024 I'd be recommending Tropico 4 and Tropico 5 (in that order) rather than the earlier games (I haven't played 6). See my reviews for more detail. In a sale they're more expensive but not expensive per se and to be honest the gaming experience is better. This is a cheap bundle in the sale and it may be worth a few hours of play to get you into the feel of the game. But it's been deposed as the President of island management games.

Any Tropico games is far better than the Sim Cities - far more personality.

S.x.

VERY GREAT GAME MORE PEOPLE SHOULD TRY THIS GAME OUT

I might edit this at a later time.

At first sight, I just love the old charme it still offers.

I'm already happy it's not crashing, and aside from the used gaming keyboard on my SteamDeck, it looks like so much fun and I can't wait to play through all the scenarios the game offers <3

Crashes on Win11, I'm really sorry :(

Too dated to be enjoyable and with crashes.

A lovely old school management game that I can play on my weak Linux computer.

I like this game because you can play it differently every time.

Great old game!