• from the Tropico Bonus CD.
• Edited for grammar and formatting.

Here’s a hidden little gem. The market place is the one building that can really cut down travel times and thus time away from work. Since it only employs ONE worker it is often a good idea to build a Market Place close to where MANY people work. This way they have the opportunity to get food while they are going to or from work and keeping them on the right track. All good Tropican’s should work. Working is good for Tropico. Make it easier on their shoes.

Building a high school within the first 10 years of your island is a must for a variety of reasons.

First, you’ll always have some intellectuals on your island and a high school will make them reasonably happy for quite some time.

Second, educated Tropican’s learn their jobs faster than uneducated ones. While high school educated Tropicans will want better jobs they will still take manual jobs without a huge hit on their happiness. This is not true for most college educated Tropicans however.

Third, you’ll need a fair number of high school educated workers if you are skewed towards a tourist economy. You’ll need a large number of high school educated workers if you are going to do a lot of heavy industry. Hiring one to three high school workers for your island isn’t too expensive but by the time you are hiring your fourth you’ll be spending way too much cash.

Finally, High schools employ a large number of people and this can be a useful buffer for educated workers without a job at least temporarily.

Colleges. A college will provide you with the college educated people you need for the more powerful and useful buildings in the game. However, hiring college educated workers is VERY expensive right away; so once you’ve hired your first one you should really consider having a college before you start trying to make more work for college grads. Building a college just to make the intellectuals happy would be a mistake since it will NOT make them that happy, might as well bribe them instead. This is as long as your island has a normal make up of faction types. If the island had a majority of intellectuals then building a College would be a necessity.

When do you need entertainment for your people? Well that varies; however generally you should have a least a pub within the first 5 years of your administration.

A Pub gives you one of the cheapest and most effective overall methods of upping the happiness of your entire island. I’m not talking about it’s normal function, which ONLY addresses entertainment. I’m talking about the Mardi Gras Edict that the Pub allows you to enact. This will up your people’s happiness for about 2 years. The amount varies but it can make a huge difference if you are in an election year… hint, hint. The location of a pub is not all that important but you’ll want it where people don’t have to travel too far to enjoy it.

At around a 100 person population you should add a Restaurant. You don’t need more than one unless you decide to make one restaurant exclusive for the tourists. This adds enough variety to your peoples entertainment happiness to keep it healthy for quite a while.

As your population hits about 200 people, entertainment happiness tends to start dropping as your people all start to want more variety and casinos and gourmet restaurants don’t cater to your native population as well as tourists. Remember, pools, spas, beaches and souvenir shops NEVER attract the natives. Now is the time to looking into the stadium. It’s a good place for the masses and is generally well received.

What can you say about the Cabaret? Well, a little I guess. This is very popular with your soldiers and oddly, your priests. Generally speaking, it is a reasonably attractive destination for most of your male population and tourists. However, you should only build this to make (certain) people happy since it rarely makes much if any money for your treasury. Remember, soldiers are difficult to make happy, all soldiers are MALE. Get it?

When you can afford it, a News Paper will provide you with a very powerful tool with which to manipulate your people’s will. It is the single fastest and most direct way to affect Liberty in a POSITIVE manner, just be sure you select the right news paper to print. You’ll have a lot of options here so read them carefully and tailor your journalism to your needs. Radio’s and TV’s are also VERY powerful but because of the electrical requirement they are difficult to get up and operational in a timely manner.

Though Tropican’s are not Australian by birth, they seem to have adopted the walk-about. Tropican’s are frequently hit with the need to wander the lands in search of happiness. They look to the beauty of their island paradise for insight and contentment. When they walk through landscaped areas or areas with little human disturbance, a Tropican will begin to achieve Nirvana. Ok, they won’t, but they’ll get a bit happier. The opposite is also true. If the island is a pig pen with air as polluted as the streets, then the Tropican’s happiness will suffer, daily. Better to improve their environment with an edict and some well placed landscaping in heavily trafficked areas than feel the backlash of the environmental faction AND the general unhappiness of the entire island.

Tending to the soul of the Tropican is a touchy subject. At first glance the Religious faction looks very powerful. Then as you look at it again, it’s strength seems to diminish. Now, look once more when you understand the overall workings of religion on Tropico and you’ll finally see it’s a very powerful tool in SOME instances but in NO instance can it be completely ignored.

It can’t be ignored because it is a very common faction for your people to be active within. So simple numbers say you MUST provide at LEAST a church. No problem. Well, as people go to church they become more interested in religion. The more interested in religion they become, the more frequently they need to visit, and so on and so on. This isn’t immediately apparent but on islands where religion is a game parameter you’ll notice it even more. The point is that religion can’t be ignored, get that church built early enough to keep the religious faction out of your hair.

There are a few other things to consider about religion. It has a few VERY, VERY powerful edicts that can affect ALL Tropicans, not just the religious. However, these require that you have good standing with the religious faction. Getting the Pope to visit your island has LONG lasting positive impact with your people and even more with those that are strong in the religious faction. Enacting a contraception ban can boost the lagging work force without having to rely on stinking foreigners, and non-stinky ones too. Religion requires a bit more thought and manipulation than most factions to get what you want. Steer clear of it if you don’t want what it can offer and just do what little they need.