In Part 1, Governor Rico "Ryan" Davis managed to overthrow the stifling rule of the Crown and declare independence, moving the tyranny closer to home. As we rejoin El Presidente, the world is on the verge of a World War... a situation I plan to exploit for all it's worth.

First, though, let's take a moment to enjoy Tropico's loading screen tips:

Laugh at the absurdity of it! Frown as the realization these people actually ruled entire countries sinks in! Drink heavily!

Look, Patrick! I found one about the country you're visiting!

We finally load up our fledgling nation:

Here you can see the skeleton of a soon-to-be bustling city, a few plantations on its borders, and my trio of gold mines in the distance. It doesn't look like much now, but it will be grand soon enough.

Okay, time to check out the changes caused by advancing to a new era as an independent country. First, we now have a Constitution:

The Constitution dictates how various aspects of your island is run, which in turn affects your country's efficiency, happiness, and opinion of you. Sadly, we can't change it whenever we want. I've stuck with the default Constitution for now. I could let everyone vote, but at this time that would probably just anger everyone...

...because we don't have a liberal Intellectuals faction yet. Now that we've gained independence, the old Royalists vs Revolutionaries factions have been replaced with Militarists vs Religious, and Communists vs Capitalists. Most Tropico citizens choose one faction of each category to support (such as being a Militarist Capitalist); their happiness is influenced by how well you support their factions' ideals. Here, you can see the Religious faction is happy I finally built a Church on the island (and stuck with good old-fashioned chauvanism), but they're not happy I'm tolerating atheists on the island. Constitutional laws, edicts, buildings, and requests can all influence a faction's opinion of you.

Here, building a Lighthouse (in addition to unlocking more trade routes for me) is a cheap way of gaining the Capitalists' favor. Foreign Relations has also changed, too; instead of just dealing with the Crown, now we have to deal with the Allies and the Axis. We can improve our standing with one (while usually lowering our standing with the other) through diplomacy, trade, and (you guessed it) more requests.

Hey, if fruit baskets will increase my foreign aid from the Allies, I'm all for it. I was planning to build massive tobacco plantations, but it's simple to change a few of them to bananas or pineapples instead, at least until this request is filled.

I've set up the tobacco banana fields in a diagonal formation like this to follow the curves of the beach. Note the green/red grid overlay over the fields; that indicates how good the soil in that area is for that particular crop.

Once the plantations are up and churning out crops, I start focusing on building up my infrastructure: a Church for the religious, taverns & restaurants for entertainment, a Clinic to treat diseases & injuries, and a Cigar Factory to fund it all by turning my loads of tobacco into (more profitable) cigars. The problem with the Clinic and the Factory is they require educated workers; it's relatively cheap to build a High School to start educating children into future factory workers, but being a Clinic doctor requires a College degree. I'll have to hire them from abroad for now; the cost of doing so increases with each hire, though, so eventually it'll be cheaper to just build a College and train them at home. (Plus it's easier to indoctrinate homegrown college students.)

During this time, the game kind of slows down. Now that I'm no longer under constant pressure to extend my mandate, requests come in slower and I have more time to just build up my island over the years. It's a relaxing change of pace, but it hampers my enjoyment of Tropico. Justifying running a tyrannical banana republic requires stressful circumstances, whether it's revolts or debts or-

-well, I suppose fire-causing droughts is close enough. I spend a decent chunk of my savings hiring foreign agencies to put out the fires (Firefighting helicopters! In 1919!) with minimal damage, and quickly recover from the droughts. It cost too much money, though; I should build a Police Department with a Firefighter's Branch soon. I continue building up my infrastructure and finish exploring the island:

Mwahahahahahaha! *rubs hands gleefully* The Cold War era's going to be fun...

Meanwhile, things are still chugging away across the sea:

I send Rico's son Flavio to kickstart the worst war in human history. Go go, Tropico!

Soon I get another request from the Allies:

I was planning on building an Army Base for the tanks anyway; this is just icing on the cake. Once I finally build it, I get my first look at the newest member of my Dynasty:

...Apparently General Bile (a name that would make anyone cranky) is so rowdy he time-traveled into the future, beat up an astronaut, and stole his suit. We have an Astronaut General named Bile Davis in the 1920s. Also, look at his facial hair! This is a man's Man! I've put the Man in charge of my tanks.

At first, I thought Tropico's random generator was stupid for making anachronistic choices. But this is gloriously stupid. I approve of Rowdy Bile Davis leading my space tanks into the future.

Continued in Part 3: Peace for our Time!