Part I: The Colonial Era

Part II: Cigars, Depression Fruit, and Space Tanks

Now that we have SPACE TANKS, it's time to close out this era of war and advance to a time peaceful enough to allow tourists onto our island. Until we advance to that era, we can't build tourist buildings and thus have to rely on exports & industry to finance Tropico. That will make building a healthy tourist industry later tougher (apparently they don't like sightseeing factories), so the sooner we can end the World Wars the better.

We start with another nice tidbit about Patrick's vacation spot:

And then leap right into even more requests to fulfill. The number of requests has picked up as the World Wars have progressed, giving us more opportunities to exploit, such as this:

I couldn't pass it up. "Unknown Consequences" is the Tropico version of "DO NOT PRESS". Puny Americans, ha! We have to put up with Penultimo every day!

Like this- look at the stress he's giving me!

I will never understand why we wrote elections into the Constitution... I must have been drunk that day. Yet another annoyance obstructing my dream of a tyrannical tourist trap. At least enough of the people love me I won't have to put too much effort into winning.

...Unless a tsunami wipes out a good chunk of my buildings and floods most of the rest 3 months before reelection. This is what I get for wanting a beachtown...

Winning this election might require a bit of help.

What could possibly go wrong?

...Inciting a bunch of citizens into rebelling, destroying my SPACE TANKS!, and burning a llama ranch to the ground before assaulting my palace, apparently. Fortunately the rebels get exhausted walking to my palace and call off the attack before they can reach it, citing victory as they slip back into the populace. (This is a prime example of the battle AI for Tropico 5 being dumb as rocks. Attackers target buildings at random, ignoring vulnerable buildings nearby to assault a building halfway across the island.)

This is a problem. Not only do I have to worry about foreign powers, but now my own populace is turning against me! Luckily, my policemen and agents have identified several key figures amidst the populace that I can... deal with.

Sometimes it's worth a bit of civil unrest to cut the head off the snake. Banish & Discredit are new options for dealing with troublemakers; I'll try to Banish an annoying Rebel Leader and see what happens.

...I like this. I like this a lot.

Now that I no longer have to worry about elections, and a good chunk of my land has been cleared off by the tsunami, it's time to start modernizing. The old, cheap country houses I've relied on are ugly and poor; I'd rather have houses & parks surrounding my palace.

I also build more mansions for my wealthy soldiers (I pay the people with guns extra) and a college so I no longer have to pay for expensive educated foreigners.

In retrospect, it might not have been a smart idea to build all this on the low ground again. ...Eh, what are the odds of another tsunami hitting us?

Meanwhile, one of my gold mines has been depleted. The other 2 gold mines are nearly depleted as well, which will take a big chunk out of my export profits. Hopefully I can get to the Cold War era and build a tourist industry before that happens.

Of course, exploiting US Prohibition for all it's worth doesn't hurt. I build a rum factory and a few more sugar fields and start raking in the dough; the Allies might not like it, but I've mooched up to them so much they want an alliance with me even though I'm single-handedly undermining their Prohibition. There's a slight catch, however...

Luckily, my SPACE TANKS! fare better against the Axis than they did the rebels, probably because they hit the main town (protected by numerous infantry squads) rather than the mines (protected only by a squad of tanks). After my military victory, the Allies strike an alliance with me and ask for more help...

It takes a year or two, but my army returns successfully with Flavio Davis gaining a level from his experience. This makes the army he manages better at fighting and reduces the damage all my troops take.

Finally, after years of fighting and waiting, the wars begin drawing to a close...

The Allies gladly sign a treaty with me. The Axis, on the other hand...

Luckily this invasion isn't any stronger than the last one and I manage to send them fleeing. Suddenly it doesn't seem like such a bad idea that 1/6th of my population is in the military. There's been 4 different skirmishes and I'm not even halfway through the game!

And with that, the next era is available...

Along with my chance to finally make a Tourist Trap.

As this game progresses, I like the Era system more and more. It slowly grows the number of options you have available, each Era has a different emphasis (Colonial Era is about farming & raw resources, the World Wars are about industrialization, and the Cold War looks like it'll be about tech, research and tourism), and the way your island grows and changes priorities feels organic. I can no longer start a Tourism-centered island from scratch; now I need to build the industry necessary to sustain it for several decades and then figure out how to cut out most of that industry to emphasize tourism. It's an interesting problem, and one that I'll tackle in the next installment.

Continued Here!