Overview
Guide on most efficient way to beat the game on maximum difficulty. Designed for players who have never touched previous Tropico games, also can be applied to the campaign to breeze through every mission.
Colonel era
Be smart-Ignore mandatory Port task first; take it later after overspending to exceed the -10K value limit
Keep all roads straight but add mountain roads that trail the shape of the mountains leading up to the docks
Quick build one or two construction offices as first move
Mines are the most profitable of all colonel raw resources category
Therefore, research mines first
Make sure one of your dynasty members is an inventor-Making him a manager allows free research even without a library
Ranches degrade super quickly ~15% a year-Most ranches should be demolished eventually
Pigs are the most profitable of the ranches; build them first but demolish them quickly after a few years before they become unprofitable
Logs are useful only for early games
Lumber Mill is useless because it generates income only two years after investment
Cocoa and Cotton are the most effective plantation investments when it comes to profit Each island should be either 60% Cocoa or Cotton business
Have one of each later for the sake of food happiness
Make every plantation surround one sugar plantation for the upgrade special effect
Exploration team travels faster on roads and tends to follow roads
Don’t build any houses at the start; In fact you can jump to the next era without a single house
Something interesting about the relentless natural disaster difficulty is that it does not make the game harder, the edict Disaster Relief Fund actually returns more treasury than what is needed for the repairs, resulting in a net profit
Alternate key allows zooming in even while hovering over building
Max out construction office budget
More open jobs lead to higher immigration rate; too many open jobs lead to slip in economy
The ideal growth rate is maintained by keeping open jobs number at 40 forever
Always go for increased mandate time pre-independence for the quest rewards
Always go for more educated citizens for the revolutionary quest rewards
Iron mine earns much more than coal mine, obviously!
Taking profitable trade contracts even without the actual production helps to reserve it
If exportation value is lower than production value (Economy resources overview), it means you need more teamsters-Ideal teamster to dock ratio is 2-1
You can check income rate by clicking on docks
Surround teamsters with roads to prevent traffic jam bug
Keep just one cattle ranch for food variety
Revolutionaries are pro-independence, they improve your approval rating, easiest way to gain them is via default immigration
You don’t need groceries when spamming country houses which provide food
Job quality increases happiness of workers
Exploration squads may be selected to explore further while in action
Construction offices are the only buildings worth quick building
Introduce Urban Development edict when you receive the six new country house quest and have to take care of housing happiness
Setting high budgets increases worker wealth and mansions become more attractive to them
Catholic missions serve only 50 population each; to be replaced by churched eventually
Max out budget for service buildings-catholic churches and newspaper
You need not just one but several newspaper for each residential region
Entertainment area need be separate from housing region on at least yellow beauty square plots Beauty from parks make entertainment buildiungs more profitable and you can build multiple taverns next to one another
Opera house is more suited for the rich
You can advance to the next era without a single investment into military by simply paying debt
World Wars era
Cigar factory is a bad choice as tobacco plantations have no suitable upgrades and the factory itself isn’t profitable
Rum and Steel are much more profitable and should be built up to two to four, not just one
Get education first before truly getting factories for the workers needed; first factory probably needs foreign labor-At least two high schools and one college five minutes into this era
Get rid of useless industries (Pig farms, poorly placed corn planation at the start) to accommodate job vacancy relating to jump in era
For research, get Socialism right after the Compass for good edicts
Magic number for job vacancy is still 40!
The upgrade ‘Research Projects’ of colleges is important
Investment into healthcare and crime safety requires educated workers, not possible without education investment
Build police stations at red crime safety zones
Traffic jam can occur near ports, loosen up roads; make poor junctions into crosses
It is much much better to have a single cross junction than two nearby T-junctions
Replace Catholic missions with churches instead of having them coexist so that workers are recycled
Use tenements to handle poor people (15 per 500 population)
Army base decreases the liberty of nearby housing-Set army base far away from residential clusters
Custom office indirectly generates income because of the low import price which can be resold if material is unused
Education ratio should be two high schools to one college
Import food to deal with starvation as food is cheap, especially fish
Foreman as a manager affects happiness and approval negatively
Recognize that happiness and approval are separate things
Cannery is not worth it because it requires too many food input
This is an era that should be jumped through quickly (one hour playtime) so that you have enough natural resources for the next era
Cold war era
Always abuse industrialization and urbanization edicts to save money
World war era is worth rushing through, but cold war era is worth delaying as modern times is extremely difficult without a proper economy
Use resource overview to figure out if supply meets demand (Import + Production must exceed consumption slightly); then arrange trade routes accordingly to balance out
Raise budget to maximum again after upgrading mines to automated ones as the upgrade resets the budget to medium
All productions should be ran on maximum budget
Coal mine’s effectiveness upgrade is not worth it as you deplete resources faster
Spread out factories of the same type to prevent resource insufficiency
Approval rating will naturally drop over time due to insufficient effectiveness versus a growing population
Guard towers are better near the shore to delay enemy attacks, max out budgets on guard towers to get both shooters; Guard towers are useful only with the machine gun upgrade
Set power plant away from population for reduced pollution
The need for college workers drastically increase with the start of use of power plants-requires at least 2 colleges
Spam pharmaceuticals as they require no resources~3-4
Parking lots-Better if near factories and docks, households have their own parking space
Electric substations need not be in currently green area of power plants to work
Vehicle factories take a lot of resources
Ignore rebel attacks for the cold war era-They cost too much to deal with
It is okay to cluster entertainment buildings together, in fact better
Urbanization edict applies to housing upgrades as well!
Be careful with budget as they can shift the wealth class of workers
Excess imports get shipped back with a profit if they were traded in below market rate
Make sure hospital and supermart customer cap numbers match current population
Furniture factory sucks!
Entertainment buildings also decrease safety!
It is perfectly fine to delay the nuclear powerplant to modern age
Lack of resources could be more due to lack of teamsters than lack of supply
Factories should be next to ports; Residence cluster should be next to entertainment cluster
Modern era
Never forget to get uranium mines before nuclear power plants
Coal powerplants are needed even in modern times
Place metro stations near teamsters for worker access, do not be afraid to place metro stations not too far apart from one another, it does help that way
Metro stations may replace parking lots and should be used in large numbers
Separate your buildings into household regions and work regions to make metro stations meaningful
Not necessary to do all industrial upgrades at once, they can be left for later depending on relevance
Blackouts can occur even if electricity is well managed
Try to expand to a new seashore of the island each new era to prevent crowding
Beach resorts have extremely high tourism efficiency when placed next to the ocean
Tourism buildings should be ran at max budget
All the expensive edicts help a lot with approval
One hidden feature is that each edict has approval effects with each faction while only slightly disappointing the opposing faction This is especially important with Nationalists, the faction that is the hardest to please
Country houses provide food but not houses, be careful with upgrading one to the other
Not building the Nuclear Program helps with foreign relationships quite a bit
Upgrading apartments then decreasing their budget allows the poor to continue living in higher class buildings
Bribing has the least consequence of all the ways to deal with rebels; but the most expensive
Import prices lower with improved foreign relations
It is necessary to build an embassy with every nation
Social engineering helps a lot but you have to check your faction rating before using it
Pollution is actually not that important, can be looked after at the end after everything else has been taken care of
Smear campaign is very hard to pull off as it decreases the rating with a faction, not just the number of followers
Bribing faction leaders help a lot, CAN LEAD TO 100% APPROVAL RATING
Even the rich can be homeless if you have no luxury residence
Upgrade effects relating to helping buildings in the vicinity can have rather large area of effects~4-5 buildings across
Jobs are the hardest to get above 70% happiness of all happiness ratings
WARNING: Game has a dangerous population hard cap of 2035-Additional immigration boots out educated workers instead of illiterate ones
SOLUTION: Play through the game quick to avoid hitting this cap, introduce every single education upgrades plus the IT eddict to delay retirement of educated labor
Constitution and Edict
Voting rights-Switch from all citizens vote to wealthy citizens vote as you increase your budget and invest into higher end industries
Armed forces-This is a noob trap, only conscription works without crippling your economy
Labor policy-Stay with happy childhood to be on the safer side, however, if you accidentally mess up the economy or approval, the other two options can work miracles
Political rights-Anything but totalitarian, completely unplayable
Citizenship-Switch from immigrant nation to VISA program the moment you hit one thousand population and almost reaching cold war era, a population surge can easily end the game for you via a botched election
Economy structure-Free market, no debates, we are playing all production buildings on maximum budget in order to survive on the highest difficulty
The other constitution options in the later eras are really open ended with no significant advantage over one another
All recommended edicts have been selected in the following screenshots
