~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STRATEGY GUIDE FOR Tropico 4 Game by Kalypso This guide written by SOLDYNE Version 1.00 March 6, 2013 VERSION HISTORY: 1.00 - First creation March 6, 2013. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS (TO GO TO ANY SECTION USE THE FIND COMMAND AND COPY/PASTE THE ENTIRE LINE OF THE SECTION YOU ARE LOOKING FOR) (DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200) I. INTRODUCTION II. OVERVIEW III. BUILD ORDER [A] EARLY GAME [B] MID GAME [C] LATE GAME [D] NOTES ON HOUSING [E] NOTES ON FOOD [F] NOTES ON THE MILITARY IV. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY [A] FOOD [B] RESOURCES [C] MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY [D] TOURISM [E] INFRASTRUCTURE [1] ENTERTAINMENT [2] HOUSING [3] MEDIA V. SKILLS AND EDUCATION [A] SKILLS [B] EDUCATION VI. TRANSPORTATION VII. HAPPINESS, FACTIONS AND SUPER POWERS VIII. YOUR AVATAR IX. THE SWISS BANK ACCOUNT X. ELECTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I. INTRODUCTION Welcome to my guide on Tropico 4. I would first like to give Kalypso a grand "Thank You" for creating such a fun game with detailed graphics and great sound and music. I would like to say that this is my 5th STRATEGY guide. I purchased the Bundle Pack from Steam which included all the DLC and Modern Times which were available as of February 2013. So I write this guide from that perspective. If anyone finds that any info in this guide is erroneous, my explainations are difficult to understand, or you just have some new info to add then drop me a line at Soldyne@Yahoo.com and have the subject read: ABOUT YOUR TROPICO GUIDE! This is because I have many filters on my email account and this will let me know that your email is worth opening. I should not have to say this but, PLEASE make sure you computer is clean of viruses and such before sending me any messages. Thank You! Now for some legal stuff: This guide is Copyrighted under law and cannot be reproduced by others without express writen permission from me. You may not link directly to this document or display a copy of it on any website. I worked long and hard to get this information and I would like to be credited for my work. A Note About Pronouns: I will tend to use masculine pronouns throughout my document. This is not intended to disrespect or in any way ostrisize the female population. It is just how I write. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. OK, now onto the good stuff! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ II. OVERVIEW This guide is meant to be a strategy guide which will give you advice and analysis on how to develop a stable society and economy on any map including the main scenarios, the Downloaded Content scenarios (Modern Times) and sandbox. I will be talking about build order, economic strategies and general tips and advice. My advice is based on my own experiences with the game. I have completed all 20 of the main scenarios, 12 of the Modern Times scenarios and a few sandbox scenarios. I have also accomplished all 70 of the achievements. A few of my personal records (accomplished during the campaign, not sandbox) include having a population over 1000 with overall happiness of 70% and all factions and nations at 100%. I have exported over $500,000 worth of goods on a single cargo ship with multiple active ports. I have made more profit from my infrastructure alone than my entire island had in overall expenses, in addition to profit from industry and tourism. This guide contains my opinion based on my experiences. I know that the advice in this guide works because it is how I finished the game. Could my advice be improved on? Sure! The beauty of a game like this is that there are many ways to build a Tropican society and thus many ways to play. This guide is not a walk-through. For the most part, as long as you follow a decent build order, each scenario map is easy to complete. Most objectives you are given are to either spend some amount of cash from the treasury or build a certain number of buildings. A few other objectives have you enact an edict, destroy a few buildings or hire a certain number of specialists. All of these things can be easily accomplished if you have a stable society and economy. Very rarely do these objectives have time limits, so, the best advice is just follow the build order, and complete the objectives when you are ready. This guide is not a reprint. I will not make lists of buildings, statistics or anything that you can just as easily find in a tool tip or by reading the manual. When I do make a list it is in order of preference or priority. I will also not reprint the entire script which goes hand in hand with this not being a walk-through. If you want the script, go through the campaign yourself and write it all down. I may on occasion quote the game for various reasons, so, don't be snarky! This guide will not specifically cover achievements. Most achievements can be accomplished simply by playing through the campaign maps or by grinding sandbox maps. By the time I got done with the main campaign and the Modern Times campaign I only had 9 achievements left and they were all easily done in a few sandbox maps. I may from time to time mention an achievement or two, but, not in a consistent manner. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ III. BUILD ORDER This section will be focused on the overall build order I use. It can be tweaked to your desires as you prefer. I conceptualize the game in three stages; early, mid and late game. Early game is all about getting started and is characterized by getting your base industry, food and basic services set up so people don't rebel or die of starvation and so you don't go completely bankrupt. This part of the game is usually pretty quick and can be completed within 2-5 game years depending on your starting treasury amount. Mid game begins when you have a high school and is characterized by having industry and other buildings that require high school workers. This is the most turbulent time of the game when workers have low skill, you may have a worker shortage, you may encounter a faction disaster or even a natural disaster which can set you back a bit. You will also be operating in the red quite often and will be relying on foreign aid to keep you afloat until your industry gets up to speed. The late game begins when you have an operational power plant and a college. It is characterized by buildings that require college graduates. This is the time when your city and economy are mostly stable and the focus of the game becomes completing scenario objects rather than building your society. If you built well, you should be rolling in the money and enjoying the humor of the Tropico campaign and even attempting some achievements. [A] EARLY GAME When the game begins you should automatically be given a palace, construction office, teamster's office, one or two garages and an industrial port. Others buildings which may or may not be present could be one or two farms, ranches or fishing ports, a marketplace, and 1 or 2 tenements, shanty’s or houses. If you start a new game with any other buildings I would question them. There are a few scenarios that start you off with all kinds of extra buildings and then take them away through scripted rebel attacks, or ask you to destroy them as part of an objective. Rarely, they might give you an advanced late game building like a power plant which at first seems like a free building. This is just a lure to make things more difficult for you. You will not be able to pay the upkeep or staff the building in the early stages and it just becomes a burden. Before building do the following: Destroy anything that is not an early game building. You can't afford the upkeep yet. Destroy any farms or ranches that are near the planned city center. Farms and ranches should be moved to the outskirts of town if possible, they have lots of pollution and take up lots of space. Don't worry about interrupting production, farms take a while to get up to speed anyway. This may cost a little extra cash, but, will be worth it later on. Scan the island for potential resources to exploit. In order of preference: Gold Bauxite Iron Salt Cash Crop fertility (Tobacco, Sugar, Coffee) Logging Oil is not an early game resource. It will require college educated citizens to exploit. Pick one or two of these items dependent on availability and proximity to the port (the closer to the port the faster it can be transferred). In the absence of any good choices, use food as an early export (cattle, fish, bananas, papaya, pineapple, corn; in that order). Then start building (analysis will follow): Ministry – Hire a Minister of Foreign affairs. This can be done before the building is erected and they will arrive on the next ship after the building is built. Market Place (unless you already have one) Starting resource – up to 3 buildings used for exports (any combination of mines, crops and logging) Ensure you have at least 2 buildings dedicated to food production in addition to export buildings (cattle is best, corn is second) At this point you will be low on cash. You can spend in the red up to -10,000. You will get foreign aid in January which should help keep you afloat until your industry starts exporting. When the Foreign minister arrives: Enact the USSR Development Aid edict even if you are in the red. This gives you a permanent 50% discount on Tenements! If you wait too long, the minster may die (starvation, old age, poor health) and then it was all for nothing. Build 1-2 new Tenements (especially now that they are half price) Build a Church – if you need a priest you can fire one or two palace guards. Enact general edict Humanitarian Aid. This will give free medical care for 5 years as well as free food. This prevents the need for a clinic and gives your food industry a chance to get started. Build a High School. [B] MID GAME When the High School is built you will be in Mid game. Once Mid Game starts you want to concentrate on stabilizing your economy and bringing overall happiness up to 50-55%. Save up money and invest in 1 new industry by buying the blueprint for it. The new industry should match the exploited resources you chose in early game. Build an immigration office and set it to Open Doors policy. This will help prevent or reduce the effects of a worker shortage. If you find you are getting too many immigrants then set it to Tropico first as a sort of shut off switch. Grade school – set to Spelling Bees Childhood Museum – this will help entertainment and make the Loyalists happy. Clinic – (only after Humanitarian Aid building is gone) Fire Station – Set to Cat-in-Tree Police Station – Set to Special Training Pub or Restaurant – If you want secret police later, then build both and use one of them for the Secret police HQ. Customs Office – set to export bonus Garbage Dumps (if you have Modern Times installed you will have to wait until late game to build the water treatment plant; they require power) – there should be 1 near your town center, 1 near your industry and 1 near your mine or crop areas. Two more food buildings - different foods from what you already have to help increase food satisfaction Hire Other ministers – Economy, Education, Defense, Interior. Hire them from your population when your people have the proper experience. When ministers are hired enact the following edicts: General – Social Security Education – Literacy (wait for High School Teachers to become skilled) Economy – Pollution Standards, Building Permit (only if you care about the Swiss Bank Account) (Wait for your marketplace workers to become skilled) Interior – Litter Control (wait for your Policemen to become skilled) - Secret Police (use the Pub or Restaurant you built earlier); a lot of scenarios will ask you to have 3 secret agents at some point and they can help with random events, so its good to be prepared Defense - no 'must have' edicts but its a good thing to have ministers for random events. You should already have some skilled soldiers working at the palace. Enact other edicts at your leisure. (OPTIONAL BRANCH) you can either begin your tourism industry or stay with manufacturing industry. To begin tourism: build a dock Build three Hotels build 3 attractions/entertainment venues OR build a second industry Allow imports for all industries Set port to infinite imports Upgrade industries when you have the money. At this point you will need to let your society stabilize. Your workers will be unskilled and slow. Buildings may take a while to get up to speed and your high school will take some time to graduate students to fill all the open positions and you may have a worker shortage (opposite of unemployment). Just set the speed to level 3, deal with random events as they occur and wait. As time progresses, you workers will become more skilled and more efficient and you will have more immigrants to fill all the empty slots. It may take a few years and you will go into the red a few times, but, it will get better. [C] LATE GAME When your treasury has a minimum of 50,000 dollars in it and you are making regular exports on the cargo ships (for 35,000 – 50,000 each), you are ready for the Late Game. One problem you may still have is that the upkeep for all your buildings is nearly equal to the export value you are getting which means that 50,000 export is all gone by the time the next ship comes in. just keep following the guide and you will be ok. DO NOT enact the Print Money edict. Everything becomes more expensive when you do, its just not worth it. Late Game buildings: College Science Academy – set to Research Grants Bank – set to Urban Development (if you want to invest the money for a foreign expert you can build this in Mid Game to save more on construction costs) Newspaper – set to Coupons 'N More – placed near housing Power Plant – set to Natural Gas (or Nuclear Plant if you are making lots of money, or Solar Plant if you have Modern Times after 1975) use Electrical Substation to extend the power radius if needed Buy all Upgrades for all industries Radio Station – set to Opera; place this near the residential district TV Station – set to Lucha Libre; place this near the residential district Hospital Cathedral Add entertainment buildings as desired (suggestions are Night Club and Movie Theater) expand industry (tourism or manufacturing) as needed or desired. At this point, you should have a stable economy, happy citizens and everyone loves you. You can do as you please. You can finish the scenario objectives or try for some of the achievements. You should have more money than you know what to do with and the map belongs to you. As far as I know, in scenario maps there is no time limit. Sandbox maps last at most to the year 2000. [D] NOTES ON HOUSING Housing – 1 Tenement can hold about 25 people (I think its 12 couples technically). So the rule of thumb I always follow is to have 1 tenement for every 25 people plus 2. this will allow your population to expand without having a lot of shacks and will account for some people not being married, thus causing empty spaces. There is also some debate about whether to use Tenements or Apartments. Tenements have lower living satisfaction but offer more space and are cheaper to build (made even cheaper with the USSR development aid edict). The apartment offers much better quality of living but it has less capacity for the cost and size. When you get to mid game you can build the fire station set to Cat-in-Tree which will raise the living conditions of all surrounding housing by 10 points (in addition to responding to fires). In late game you can provide air conditioning to each tenement which raises the living conditions even more. With these two effects going on your tenements will have a rating of 60 for living conditions which is more than enough to make people happy. Sure the apartments can go as high as 80, but 60 is enough for most scenarios and you will need to build more apartments to accommodate the same population size which means more construction costs and more land area. Tenements also make the early game easier, so keep that in mind. My suggestion is to build tenements in early and mid game and then switch to apartments or modern apartments in late game. Keep at least 4 of your old tenements and set their rent to 0 which will give your students, elderly and unemployed a place to live which reduces the number of shacks on the island. Ultimately, its up to you. I spent the first half of the main campaign building apartments and the second half building tenements and I had no real issues with either one. All the other housing options are pretty much worthless unless you have a specific objective or are going for an aesthetic look in a sandbox game. If you have Modern Times you will have access to the Modern Apartment Building which is superior to the Apartment Complex. It does cost a little more and requires power to start with, but, it holds the same amount of people as a tenement and has extra features which makes it a superior building for late game residential growth. There is also the Ziggurat in MT which is a ginormously huge building that requires a ton of power but it houses 50 families (100 people) and has the highest housing quality to start with (better than a mansion I believe). The footprint actually makes this a bad choice because you can fit more Modern Apartments in the same space which will actually house more people. There is an achievement for filling a Ziggurat however, so its worth building at least one. [E] NOTES ON FOOD After building your initial two food industries in the early game, you can, when you have the money, workforce and space add 2 more food buildings in mid game. Try to make them different foods as that will increase food happiness. There is no magic formula to say that 1 food building will feed X people as it is very dependent on the type of food, the fertility of the ground, the experience of the workforce and many other factors. I find that 2-4 food buildings is enough and can sustain about 500 people easily with an experienced workforce. Also, Corn is automatically set to import. If you are running low on food you will import corn and it will go to your marketplace. Corn is cheap and you probably don't even know you are importing it. If you are worried about food, click on the marketplace and check its output. If it is below 500 then you may want to build another food building, otherwise, don't worry about it. Of course if you over produce food, the excess is automatically exported for profit, so its a win-win situation either way you go. [F] NOTES ON THE MILITARY You have probably noticed that my build order does not include any military buildings. this is because the military is essentially a late game mechanic, as generals require college education, and the military does nothing for your economy or your tropican's satisfaction levels. I never really put much effort into the military and only built most buildings when the militarist faction asked me to. Your army starts at a size of 5 (4 palace guards and 1 avatar) and can be extended by 2 guards with the Mausoleum (which is also needed for an achievement). Generals are needed to expand the army further and can be acquired with an army base or armory. If you have Modern Times then the armory will be replaced with a SWAT HQ. SWAT members count toward your total army size, do need generals and will respond along with your soldiers and generals when needed. If you get your palace renovated your 4 palace guards will be replaced with 6 SWAT team members. The missions to renovate your palace require Modern Times and begin when you have a population of about 200. there are 4 optional missions that pop up in sequence. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IV. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY There are 5 categories for earning income which I personally recognize. Food Resources Manufacturing Industry Tourism Infrastructure some people might lump Food, Resources and Industry into the same lot, but, I think they deserve individual attention. [A] FOOD Without a marketplace, your people will walk or drive to the nearest food producing building which has available output in order to get fed. They will actually take enough food to feed their spouse and children for a couple of days or a week which reduces the amount of traveling they have to do. If a marketplace exists your teamster's will deliver excess food from the food producer to the marketplace, up to about 1000-2000 units. If a marketplace with food is closer than a farm or ranch, then people will go there for meals instead. This is one advantage of a marketplace. It makes feeding your people more efficient and provides a place to store extra food. Your teamster's will deliver excess food to the port for export (after the marketplace is full). Without a marketplace, you will not have that 'blanket' of extra food stored up . This extra food storage in the market place is what allows larger populations to survive on fewer food producing buildings and can help weather disasters, unless of course the marketplace is destroyed and then so is all the stored food. The marketplace also allows you to import corn if you are running low. Like other industry buildings, if your marketplace has less than 1000 units you will import corn and it will be delivered to the marketplace. You can make money by exporting food, but, food has a very low profit margin as farms tend to hire a lot of workers. Also, you can't rely on food as a stable source of income because your people keep eating your profits. It can be useful in the early game if you have an ore poor map, but, it is not a viable long term strategy. The best foods are cattle and fish. Cattle ranches only need 2 workers compared to farms which need 6. Farms also take up a lot more room with all the fields they plant, whereas the cattle roam around randomly in different spots while they graze. If you delete or build over a field, the farmers have to replant it and wait for it to regrow slowing production. If you build over a grazing area, the cattle herd just moves to another area and the production is not interrupted. Cattle can also be upgraded to Smoked Beef for a fee. This will not affect the quality of the food, but, will get you more money if exported. I never bothered with goats or llamas except for scenario objectives, so I have no comments on those. Fish only use 4 people and has a very small footprint on the ground, however, it obviously needs access to the sea and you can't put many fish docks next to each other or you will over fish the area. I would only suggest at most 2 fish docks per beach, spread widely apart. Corn, Pineapple, Papaya and Banana are only suggested if you have plenty of fertile land available and lots of extra workforce to spare. Coffee, Tobacco, and Sugar are not food crops and are treated as resources. If you have Modern Times and you are playing a MT scenario or sandbox, then the Bio Farm, Bio Ranch and Fish Farm are upgrades to the standard farms and ranches. They cost more to build, but are well worth the investment. The Bio Farm can be set to Corn, Food or Cash crops. On food it will grow all three of the fruit crops at the same time. On Cash, it will grow all three of the cash crops at the same time. They also employ fewer people and produce food faster. The Bio Ranch is similar in that it will produce all three animal products at the same time at a faster rate. The fish farm is also an improvement, will produce more fish and has extra settings which you can play around with if you choose. I also think these building make the Environmentalists happier, but, that is not verified. [B] RESOURCES include the following: Gold Iron Bauxite Salt Logging Oil Coffee Tobacco Sugar Resources are not used directly by your population and so all output is initially exported. Ore is worth quite a bit and in the early game will make up the bulk of your income. Oil is a late game resource as all the buildings require college educated workers. I rarely used oil. Oil (on land) and Ore are limited resources and will run out eventually. This is OK since they are mostly used to get your economy started. After you have manufacturing industry up you can import the ore you need. Oil out at sea is unlimited as far I know. Mines work by being near a deposit. They do not need to be directly on a deposit. If multiple deposits are near a mine and the mine is set to the proper work mode, the workers will extract from all the deposits. Unfortunately, I don't know what 'near' means in the game, so, use your best judgment. Land oil must be directly on top of the deposit to work properly. Salt is mined just like ore and oil, but, its unlimited. It also has a decent profit margin. The salt mine is relatively cheap and only needs 4 workers. I always get excited when I see salt near my port because I know it will make decent money. Unlike other mines, salt mines must be directly on top of the deposit in order to work, but, it is unlimited. Salt is also interesting because salt mines will increase productivity of nearby fish and cattle ranches without using any of the salt! The cash crops are decent on profit but require a lot of room, workers, and fertile ground just like the food crops. If you have the Plantador DLC then you can use the Plantation building which uses the same number of workers but has a much higher production rate. If you have lots of fertile land I suggest 1-2 cash crops, even if all you do is export them raw. Coffee is the best. Logging is the worst of the resources as it has very low profit margins. Logging camps also use lots of workers which can cause an early game worker shortage very quickly if you try to spam them. They also chop down trees quickly which means they have to go further and further to gather resources. In order for logging to be viable you also need to have a lumber mill followed by a furniture factory as well as a horticulture station set to reforestation. All these buildings combined makes anything dealing with wood very low on the total profit scale. Also, environmentalists hate logging camps. My suggestion is to avoid logging unless you have no other choice or it is part of an objective. [C] MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY This is your mid to late game income generation machine. All Manufacturing Industry has high profit potential, but, they all require high school graduates in order to function which is why they are mid game buildings. All industry buildings (except the cement factory) will also require an initial investment by buying a blueprint in addition to the high construction cost which makes starting industry very expensive. A suggestion would be to buy the blueprint and then wait for another export before building the building. If you have the Quick Dry Cement DLC the first industry building you should construct after the high school is the Cement Factory. This will increase the speed of all construction projects on the island and you can export cement. Also, it requires no inports so the cement export is almost pure profit. If you don't have the cement factory then the first industry to invest in would be one that matches to your current resource production. Gold –> Jewelry (Electronics with MT) Iron –> Weapons (Cars with MT) Fish, Coffee, Pineapple –> Cannery Sugar –> Rum Distillery Tobacco –> Cigar Factory Logs –> Lumber –> Furniture (the only industry with 2 prerequisites which makes it less desirable) Bauxite has no industry match unless you have Modern Times installed and you will have to wait for Electronics and Cars to become available. Bauxite ore is still a profitable export however. Each industry is quite profitable so I am not going into too much detail on them. Jewelry has a high value, but, gold is an expensive import. Weapons are good, except that they can cause foreign relations problems. Rum is profitable, but, requires more workers than other industries. So, each one has positives and negatives. Furniture is the only industry to require a 2 part resource chain. Technically, lumber is an industry to itself and the mill requires high school workers to function. Personally, if I use furniture, I just import the lumber which makes it easier. If you have Modern Times then you will have access to the electronics factory and the car factory. Electronics requires bauxite or gold which makes it flexible. The output is not worth much but, the upgrades can greatly increase production so the profit comes from volume. Many people, including myself seem to have trouble getting cars to get delivered from the factory to the port (which could be a bug). While cars are worth the most per lot, the fact that they don't export regularly makes them just as profitable as all the other industries. They also come late in the game and are just not a very popular choice. When you have the money you should purchase all upgrades for all industries. Concentrate on upgrades that increase production and skill level before job quality (jewelry factory has an upgrade to increase worker skill by 50%!). Some upgrades will require power which is a late game mechanic. There industries that have no imports, but, they require power or college educated workers which make them good late game industries. This includes the Oil refinery and chemical plant. To Import or Not to Import? This is a question many people have. Importing will cut into your exporting profits, this is true. But, consider that to produce the resources locally will cost you in other ways such as taking up space, angering the environmentalists, paying for upkeep and wages and increasing traffic as the teamster's have to deliver the extra product to the manufacturing plants. Overall, when all aspects are considered, importing your resources if far more cost effective than to produce them locally. This is especially true of the Furniture factory. My suggestion for all manufacturing industries is to allow imports even if you are producing locally and (when you are making decent money) set your port to No Limit. This will allow each ship that docks to import up to 500 units of each resource per industry. Imports will stop when you have no money (in the red) or when the industry has more than 1000 units of input resources. Even if you are producing locally, if your industry has 1000 units you can export the excess resource and make your money back. The biggest benefit of importing is that your industry will always have plenty of input work with. If you industry runs out of input, it just sits idle and burns money in the form of wages and upkeep. Keep in mind that when a ship is docked, it will export first which could give a huge boost to your income but, then it will calculate imports based on your new treasury amount. If you have a new industry available the imports could equal your exports. Don't worry about it. The imports will get less and less as your industries fill up on input resources. Just think of it as an investment. The answer to the question then is “Import, Import, Import!” My personal favorites for manufacturing are: Cement (only 1) Jewelry Weapons Electronics Cannery (mostly for fish) Furniture Cars I have a personal distaste for tobacco and alcohol in real life so I never build the other two unless it is called for in an objective. The customs office is a building that does not directly make money through exports, but, it can enhance your exports. The customs office has 4 settings. It can increase export revenue, decrease import cost, increase tourist spending or siphon money to your swiss account based on export profits. The best setting is to Stimulate Exports. Mathematically, the 20% boost to exports is far more profitable than the 30% discount on imports. In a generic example, you might be exporting 100,000 and importing 30,000 for a total of 70,000 average profit on each ship. if you reduce import cost by 30% this would be make the total profit 79,000. but if you increase exports by 20% your total profit is now 90,000. There is also an economy edict which requires a TV station which will increase profits on exports for 3 years. Its worth the investment, but, by the time you have a TV station, it may not be needed. [D] TOURISM Many people will say that industry is superior to tourism. I say it is equal when you set it up right. Manufacturing and Tourism are fundamentally different kinds of industries but have the same profit potential. Lets compare them: Industry brings in money in large chunks with a pop up message that informs you when it occurs and how much. The large chunks could take anywhere from 4-8 months to occur. Tourism brings in money continuously in small increments and there is no message about how much you are making unless you look at the charts which makes it seem like it is doing nothing. Industry requires few buildings, but, those buildings require lots of high school educated workers and are very expensive to build. Tourism requires more buildings, but, those buildings only require a few uneducated workers and they are usually inexpensive to construct. Industry has a bottleneck; the port. If the port has no dock workers, the dock workers are stuck in traffic or they are on strike (which seems to happen more often than other buildings) you can't import or export. Tourism can make money from your tropicans as well as tourists, can make tropicans happy with increased entertainment options, and has multiple routes of getting more tourists (dock and airport) and they can spend money in multiple venues at the same time. Industrial products have uncontrollable values set by system generated events. (commodity prices going up and down). The customs office can help. Tourist income is set manually at each attraction and is determined by tourism rating and tourist spending limits. The more tourists are willing to spend, they higher you can set the entry fee. A Customs office can also help with tourism. Industry buildings are often very expensive to replace after a disaster or rebel attack and when destroyed they also destroy all the input and output resources stored there. Tourism buildings are cheap to replace when destroyed, are targeted less often by rebels and have no stored resources to lose. I believe that most people prefer industry because it is simpler to construct and operate and there is that very satisfying message every few months that says how much you exported. Seeing that message that says you just exported 200,000 is quite fun. Tourism has no such visual queue and so seems much less satisfying. So, how does one build a tourism industry that can rival manufacturing? The key is to build hotels and attractions in a 1:1 ratio. Understand that each hotel can only hold so many tourists. Each attraction can only hold so many tourists. While the capacity of each building is slightly different, the overall average is that hotels and attractions can accommodate about the same number people. When you build a hotel lets say you attract 10 tourists. When you build a restaurant, those 10 tourists can all go to the restaurant at the same time and they are all spending money. If you then build a pub, the tourists have more options and they are more happy, but you still only have 10 tourists spending the same amount of money. The difference now is that you spending more money in upkeep. Your tourist rating is slightly higher, but, you income is less. The other way is just as bad. If you have two hotels with 20 tourists and only 1 attraction, then that attraction will most always be full but you will have tourists walking around with nothing to do and they go home unhappy, your tourism rating falls and you have fewer tourists which means you have an empty hotel later on. The key is to build hotels and attractions on a 1:1 ratio which will ensure that you always have enough space for all the tourists to be doing something all the time. Why Hotels? Hotels are inexpensive and have the highest capacity other than the skyscraper hotel. You can only have 1 skyscraper and it requires power. I suggest building it when you can because its cool. Motels are just ugly and low quality and the other options are just too low capacity to be worth the space the take up (and it throws our 1:1 ratio off). The luxury hotel is a nice option if you want to add a little color to your tourism, but, usually, only wealthy tourists can afford it. You can place you hotels and your attractions in any configuration you wish. I usually put all my attractions together and all my hotels together. That is mostly an aesthetic choice though. I don't know if there is any advantage to mixing the two. When I start my tourism industry I build one dock and 3 hotels followed by 3 attractions. I usually choose different attractions each time just to keep things fresh. Its important to build different kinds of attractions because that is what increases your tourism rating and thus the spending limit of each tourist. My suggestions for early tourism would be: Beach Site Spa Restaurant Pub Souvenir Shop When these buildings are erected and operational you will have to wait for the first tourists to arrive. When all the hotels are full and the tourists are spending money build 1 -3 hotels and the same number of attractions at a time and wait for those to fill up. Remember that you can enact edicts which will attract certain types of tourists to the island and increase tourism and entertainment. You will need specific kinds of attractions and a minister of economy for different edicts. In late game when you have power, you can build all the tourism buildings and I suggest you do. Diversity is key to a high tourism rating. Just remember to build a hotel for each attraction. The sky scrapper hotel can probably accommodate 2-3 attractions on its own. If you have Modern Times installed the 7-Star Hotel can definitely attract enough tourists for 3-4 attractions. Most of your tourism buildings will be located in Entertainment, Attractions and Luxury Attractions. Some less obvious tourist buildings are in the economy and welfare section; the bank and the shopping mall. The bank requires college educated workers and must be set to off shore banking in order for tourists to use it (the National Back in Modern Times automatically allows tourist use regardless of work mode). The shopping mall will begin to import luxury goods which are very expensive and could cause a large drop in your treasury for the next few export cycles. Shopping and Banking are two of the categories that affect tourist rating. Crime can also have an effect on tourism rating and I suggest building a police station near you tourist area. One question you might have at this point is if you should try to attract a certain kind of tourist. There 4 different kinds: Wealthy, Eco, Slob, and Spring Break. Children can also be a category for specific buildings but I think that only applies to Tropican children. I have never seen a tourist child, but, I could be wrong. I don't bother specializing in tourist types, its too restricting. The times that I have, I specialized in Wealthy. Early on the Spa, Marina and Luxury Liner are great Wealthy attractions that don't require power. Also, many of the regular attractions have a work mode called Dress Code which only allows wealthy tourists to use the establishment. Wealth tourists obviously spend the most money, but, they also are the hardest to please. As always, my suggestion is to diversify. For the most part, you can just build your tourist trap and let it work for you. Every building for tourists can be profitable except the dock (which is free for people to use). The Customs Office on the right work mode can make the dock profitable as well. The Tourism industry does not really require any tweaking in order to make money, but, if you want to then you can manually adjust the fee for each attraction based on the spending limit for the average tourist. The spending limit is determined by the tourist type and the tourism rating, as well as any other modifiers your Presidente or the scenario may have in effect. I usually don't bother tweaking and my tourism industry often rivals my manufacturing industry in yearly profits. [E] INFRASTRUCTURE I define infrastructure is all the buildings we have not discussed yet. It includes housing, media, the palace, government buildings, garages, construction offices and anything that is not related to the other categories. So how can infrastructure make you money? While all buildings will incur expense in the way of wages and upkeep, some buildings will charge visitors a fee for its use. Other buildings have special settings which will generate income based on certain conditions. There are three main building types to focus on: Entertainment Housing Media [1] ENTERTAINMENT Entertainment buildings are technically part of your infrastructure even though they can be used for your tourism industry. I believe that if a tropican spends money at an entertainment building it is classified as infrastructure income, if a tourist spends money it is classified as tourism income. Generally, in the early and mid game you want to use pubs and restaurants. But, in late game these buildings are overshadowed by Night clubs and gourmet restaurants and your pubs and restaurants actually become a burden on the economy because no one visits them anymore. When you get power added to your city, you might want to destroy the old entertainment buildings and replace them with more sophisticated counter parts. Or pick one of the older ones and turn it into a Secret Police HQ. Unless you have a large tourism industry, your tropicans only need 2 or 3 entertainment buildings to keep them happy. [2] HOUSING Housing can be a burden or it can be a source of profit. It all depends on how much you are paying your people, how much you are charging for rent, how many people live in specific buildings and if you have free housing edict active. Assuming that housing isn't free, people will live in a location that has the highest living conditions and a rent that is 1/3 their pay or less. So if you pay a citizen 9 dollars a month, he will live in a tenement that costs 3 dollars a month. A strategy I use starting in early game is to pay all uneducated workers 9, high school workers, 12 and college 20 (default for college). I then set all my Tenements to 3. At this level, a full tenement will essentially pay for its own upkeep (no profit yet). In mid to late game when I have decent income I give everyone on the island a raise to a minimum of 21. then I can raise the rent on all tenements and apartments to 7. At this level, all residential buildings will generate about 500 a month in profit. With 10 of these buildings that is 5000 a month generated by my housing alone. If you have Modern Times you should set the maximum rent to 6. there are two buildings in Modern times that set the wage to 20 and can't be changed. If you keep rent at 7, then all those people will have to live in shacks! [3] MEDIA If 5000 extra dollars per month does not get you excited, well, it shouldn't, its not much in late game, but, its better than breaking even. The real money in your infrastructure is from media; newspapers, radio, TV. All of these buildings require college workers and two of them require power, so they are late game buildings. Each of these buildings has multiple work modes. One or two work modes will increase liberty or increase respect from certain factions. Some of the work modes will generate income based on the surrounding population! At first these incomes seem horrid and won't even cover the cost of the building itself. However, the incomes are highly dependent on the population density in the nearby area and the workers skill level. Until you see it for yourself you will just have to trust me. First build your media buildings in the very center of your residential district and make sure to surround these buildings with tenements and apartments when you expand later. Set the Newspaper to Coupons N' More. Set the Radio to Opera. Set the TV station to Lucha Libre. At first the income will be 100-300 (depending on surrounding population). After a few years the income will jump to 1000-3000. the more skilled the journalists the more income you can make. The largest income I have seen from these buildings is about 50,000 (on a long sandbox map). On a scenario map I routinely see 20,000 income from each. with 3 of them running I was gaining 60,000 income per year just from three media buildings. Combined with the income from entertainment and housing, my infrastructure was generating more income then all of my island expenses combined! And you can have multiple TV and Radio stations set to different work modes. I find that to be overkill and I get along just fine with 1 of each. Yes, you read that correctly, with media buildings set to right work mode, your infrastructure will actually pay for all the upkeep and wages for your ENTIRE ISLAND including all the expenses from tourism and manufacturing industries. This means that in late game, it is entirely possible to run your island purely off your infrastructure. You just need to give it time. Radio Dishes can generate a small amount cash when set to Sell Spy Information, but, it is quite abysmal and does not cover the upkeep of the building itself. The Museum of Modern Art can generate entry fees like other entertainment buildings, but, when set to Sell Tropican Art, it will randomly sell a piece of art work for 1000-6000 dollars depending on who visits (wealthy tourists will pay more for artwork). If you have Modern Times this becomes even more ridiculous. The National Bank has a setting that will generate income for all employees in the area that have a salary above 20. since I set all salaries on my island to 21, this means my National Bank will generate 2000-3000 income per month, and I can have multiple banks. The Business Center also has three work modes that generate income based on the surrounding population, its not as good as the national bank, but, its more money and employs a lot of people which is good for late game employment options. Something you have to watch for with MT is that the Business Center and Babel tower have a preset wage of 20 which cannot be changed. This was done intentionally so you can't spam the National Bank with wages over 21. This also means that you have to set your rent on all housing to 6, because at 7 no workers in the towers can afford to pay rent. The sanatorium is a MT building that can be used in place of a clinic or hospital. It has a higher service quality than a clinic and it charges an entry fee. At the base fee of 5 it will still incur a cost, but, if you raise the rate to 10 or so, it can start making a profit while providing health care to the masses. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ V. SKILLS AND EDUCATION This is a very important aspect of the game which can make or break your city. They are explained to a degree in the tutorial scenarios but they are worth discussing again here (thats how important they are). [A] SKILLS Every tropican that works for a time in a job will gain skill in that job. The skill they gain will remain with them until they die. So a tropican could be a fisherman for a year, then become a teamster for a year and then graduate high school and become a factory worker until they retire. This tropican will have three skills listed for fisherman, teamster and factory worker. You can even use this as an indicator to see how stable your workforce is. If tropicans seem to have lots of low level skills then this is a bad sign of instability and it slowing down your progress. Skills are transferable. A tropican who gains skill in a jewelry factory can use the same skill in a weapons factory. A doctor can gain the same skill in a clinic then use that skill in the hospital. Skills are used by buildings to determine how effective the building is at what it does. It affects production levels of industry, satisfaction levels for entertainment, tourism, and services, and effects of special work modes (like the media buildings or power plants). The longer a worker stays employed in that building the more skill they get and the better that building becomes. In early game, a church may have a satisfaction level of 60, but, 
in late game, that same church may have a satisfaction level of 90 because the 
priests are more skilled.

Any trait, ability, bonus, edict or upgrade that can increase the speed of 
skill gains is probably the most important investment you can make in the 
game.  The jewelry factory has a upgrade that increases factory skill gain 
by 50%.  the TV station has a work mode that doubles the skill gains for all 
workers near by.  The literacy edict increases skill gains.  There are a few 
avatar traits that increase skills as well.

The grade school is paramount to skill gains.  When set to Spelling Bees, 
all the children in the grade school will graduate with higher overall 
intelligence.  Intelligence is a tropican statistic that affects the rate 
at which the tropican will learn skills.  Higher intelligence means faster 
skill gains.

Skill levels of teachers and professors also affects the speed at which new 
students graduate.  Grade School graduates are based on age.  The skill level 
of the grade school teacher affects the intelligence bonus applied at 
graduation.  The key to a fast and more stable mid game is getting your 
tropicans educated and working in the industry as quickly as possible.

	[B]  EDUCATION

New students will arrive at the high school or college if proper conditions 
are met.  First they have to have enough intelligence to become a student 
(Grade School helps with this but is not required).  Second there has to be 
enough open positions available for high school or college workers.  If you 
build a high school and no one shows up to learn, its probably because you 
have no open high school positions on the island.  If you build an industry 
or high school level building, students will start to arrive in order to fill 
those new positions.  Another condition is that you must not have a worker 
shortage.  If you have more open employment positions than tropicans, then 
this will affect high school and college attendance as well.

Also, keep in mind, that 'student' is a job which has no pay.  With no pay, 
the student is taking a risk and if you have rent on all housing they will 
be forced to live in shacks, even if there is space available.  The Social 
Security Edict will give all students and retired tropicans a base wage of 
2/3 of the average island wage which encourages new students to take the 
risk.

Finally, the Literacy edict will help speed up skill gains and graduation 
rates across the board and should be enacted as soon as you have a high school 
and education minister.

It should also be noted that tropicans can die for various reasons; old age, 
starvation, bad health, rebel attack, natural disaster.  This means that your 
trained and skilled workforce will need to be renewed.  So, even if you have 
all your buildings fully staffed, you will still need your high school and 
college in order to train replacements when the others die (or leave, become 
rebels, criminals, etc).  I have never needed more than 1 of each education 
building.  Some people like to have two grade schools when the population 
gets large (over 500) but it isn't required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VI.   TRANSPORTATION

Your transportation network is essential for your economy to function.   
If your network is clogged or poorly designed then the goods simply won't 
be delivered on time, people will be late for work and reduce productivity 
or the docks won't have dock workers and your ships will leave without any 
exports on board.

There are really only two buildings that affect transportation within the 
city:
the Garage
the Metro Station (only available in Modern Times).

Technically, your individual tropicans do not need roads in order to get to 
the buildings they want to get to.  They will walk through the jungle if they 
have to in order to get a meal, go to church or just go home to sleep.  
Walking is very slow and can take a tropican all month long just to get to 
work.  Even teamster's don't need a road in order to make deliveries, but, 
without a delivery truck they will have to cart the goods with a wheelbarrow!

The garage is a building that allows everyone to have a free ride to any 
place on the map so long as a road goes there.  If a road does not go directly 
to a building then the tropican will drive to the closest point on a road 
and walk the rest of the way.  Many buildings have built in garages but they 
are only for people who work in that building and for teamster's to make 
pickups and deliveries.  For a tropican who works in a mine for example, he 
will need to find a garage to drive to the mine to go to work or he will need 
to walk because housing does not come with a built in garage.  But, when he is 
done working he can use the mines garage in order to drive home later.

Buildings with built in garages can still function if they are not connected 
to a road but the garage becomes unusable until a road is connected.

The best way to set up a good network is to ensure that there is at least 1 
garage in every residential area (if you have multiple residential areas) and 
at least 1 garage at all possible destination areas such as the entertainment 
district, farms and ranches, the industry, the port and the tourism area.  I 
usually build my industry next to my port to make deliveries faster.  Remember 
that people need a garage to get to their destination and then another garage 
to get home.  Otherwise they have walk back.

When I build in a new area that is sufficiently far from my construction 
office or residential area I always build a garage and set the garage to high 
priority build.  When construction workers finish working for the day, they 
will be forced to walk all the way back to the office from the site, unless 
there is a working garage nearby, including the one they just finished 
building.  This will increase your construction efficiency by letting your 
workers return to the office faster.

When you have resources spread all over the island or if the port is on the 
other side of the island, you should try to build a road that bypasses the 
city center so that the teamsters do not have to drive through the downtown 
section.  In mid to late game your city center will become jam packed with 
people trying to drive everywhere and this can really slow down teamster 
deliveries.

Some people have noticed that building a garage right at or near an 
intersection can cause more traffic with all the cars pulling in and out 
all the time.  Try to put garages on dead ends or far from intersections 
if it can be avoided.  Also, try to design your city with fewer intersections.
Remember that tropicans can walk between buildings to get to their destination 
so not every building needs perfect road access.

In mid to late game, try to add more teamster offices.  I like to put one 
near the port and one near my farms and ranches (if they are bunched together).
Once you've done that, you can demolish the one in your city center which 
should improve traffic and increase delivery efficiency.

If you have Modern Times installed, you can eventually build the Metro 
Station.  This is essentially a subway system which works without you needing 
to build the actual subway rail lines.  All you do is build the access points 
above ground.  Tropicans can then enter one access point and “magically” 
teleport to any other access point on the island instantaneously.  When 
coupled with a garage, this can really reduce the amount of traffic in a 
city by a substantial amount.  The same rules for placement apply to metro 
stations as they do to garages and are highly recommended.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VII.  HAPPINESS, FACTIONS AND SUPER POWERS

Most of what you need to know about these things you will learn in the first 
few tutorial scenarios.  If you follow my build order you should have no 
problem attaining 70% happiness, 100% faction support and 100% foreign power 
respect by the end of any scenario.

In the early game you will have some issues but that is only because you are 
still starting out.  Mid game you may find that some factions have been 
ignored.  If they are ignored for too long then you might have a faction 
disaster.  For me, the environmentalists have always been the worst, probably 
because of all the mines I like to build.  When they get angry they will 
blockade one of your mines or industries for a year, which can put a big 
dent in your mid game income.  I have actually not experienced any other 
faction disasters during the scenarios which is one reason why I know my build 
order will work well.

I have also never been invaded by the super powers.  Your relations with them 
will deteriorate when you have a negative balance which will be often in mid 
game, but, I have never had a problem with it, so I can't comment on it.

One thing I will discuss is the difference between happiness and faction 
respect.  It is quite possible for a faction to have high respect for you but 
for your tropicans to have low satisfaction in a related area.  Each faction 
is only concerned about the absence or presence of certain buildings or 
conditions.  The factions are not concerned about the quality of those 
buildings or conditions.

Lets look at religion as an example.  The religious faction is only looking 
for the presence of a church and a cathedral on the island somewhere.  They 
don't care if it has a road near it, if they are staffed or even if they are 
on the far end of the island.  This means that you can have high Faction 
respect but low religion happiness.

On the converse, if you have a cathedral but no church, the religion faction 
will be displeased with you, but, if the cathedral has high service quality 
and is visited frequently by people who value religion then it is possible 
to have low faction respect and high satisfaction.

Knowing what conditions and buildings trigger each faction and keeping your 
buildings easily accessible and well staffed will ensure that you have both 
high satisfaction and high faction respect.  Of course my build order does all 
of this eventually and should keep rebels, emigrants and faction disasters to 
a minimum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VIII. YOUR AVATAR

I will not list all the traits and skills that your avatar can have.  You are 
free to mouse over them and read their descriptions and tool tips.  What I 
will talk about are the general abilities that the traits and skills give 
access to and which ones to look for and to avoid.

Any modifier that affects faction or super power respect is pointless.  This 
bonus is only going to be applied for about 5 minutes at the start of the 
game.  Respect fluctuates wildly in the mid game due to any number of reasons 
including scenario objectives.  I have had 100% respect with negative 
modifiers and I have been at 0% respect with positive modifiers.  This means 
that faction and super power modifiers are pointless and should not affect 
your decision.

Traits which affect crime, criminals and liberty are mostly pointless.  
Liberty will be the last thing you give your population because you need 
media buildings which are in the late game.  Once you have 1 of each media 
building active liberty will be through the roof even with negative 
modifiers.  Crime and Criminals can be easily taken care of with 1 or two 
extra police stations or jails.  Neither negative nor positive modifiers for 
these three will have much of an effect on your game so should not affect 
your decision.

Traits which give one free building or some kind of yearly income are also 
not very useful.  2000 per year is laughable even by early game standards.  
One free building is also bad because if that building is destroyed or you 
place it wrong, the free pass is gone.  Think of a free building as saying, 
“here is 1000 extra dollars to start the game with!”  really?  
That kind of sucks.

So what traits are good?

Any trait that will increase the speed at which your people learn skills or 
graduate from high school or college are excellent.  These are the best traits 
and should be stacked as much as possible.  Faster skills means more efficient 
production which means more money.  It also means higher service quality for 
all buildings everywhere which means happier people, more productive industry 
and higher tourism across the board.

Any trait that gives an across the board discount on construction costs, 
even if its is only a few percentage points, will be well worth it.  If a 
trait gives a discount on a sub set of building types then you have to think 
ahead to know if it will be of benefit to you.  A discount on housing sounds 
ok, but, a discount on souvenir shops is kinda pointless.

Any trait that gives increased production is similar to increased skill 
progression.  More production means more money, but, it will only affect your 
buildings that actually produce things.  Skill gains will affect production 
levels and service quality of all buildings everywhere which makes it better 
overall.

If there are any traits or qualities which I did not cover then they are 
probably bad or just not worth talking about.  I will say, that there is an 
achievement for maxing out all of your skills, so you will have to play with 
every skill for some time at some point if the achievements are important to 
you.  If you follow the build order, bad traits will hinder you, but, you can 
still succeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IX.   THE SWISS BANK ACCOUNT

The Swiss Account is just a fun little side thing that really has no affect 
on the game mechanics.  It can increase your score if that means anything to 
you.

Other than scenario objectives there are a few buildings that can help you 
funnel funds from your treasury to your personal account.

Building Permit Edict – This is an economic edict which raises the cost of 
all buildings by 20% and sends half of that increase to your swiss account.  
When enacted early on you won't notice the increase in cost and after 
building up your empire all the little charges will add up to quite a bit.  
Other then scenario rewards, this is the main way to pad your account.

Childhood museum - set to Retirement Fund this building will make the 
loyalists happy, provide entertainment for tropicans and tourists and all 
entry fees will be sent directly to your account.  Build this as early as 
possible.

Mausoleum – this is a decorative building that automatically sends the 
entry fee to your account.  Its an expensive building and is a magnet for 
rebels (but that is point I guess).

Custom's Office – Set to Duty Evasion will send a percentage of all export 
revenue to your swiss account.  The percentage is small, but, when you are 
exporting 200k worth of goods, it adds up fast.

Bank – set to Slush Fund will funnel money directly from the treasury into 
your account dependent on the skill level of the bankers.  Usually 100-200 
per month.  Its not much, but, you can have multiple banks on this setting 
at the same time.

During scenarios, when I am in the late game with a very stable economy I 
usually set all of these buildings to swiss account mode.  I sometimes end 
up with 100,000 or more in my swiss account by the end of any random 
scenario.  This may be a lot or not so much, but, I never really concentrated 
on the swiss account because it doesn't really do anything!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

X.    ELECTIONS

Elections are really the only way to lose the game with the exception of 
certain scenarios and sand box games which have a time limit.

Before you have the chance to allow elections or not you are told what the
current political landscape is.  Most of the time I had about 80-90% of the 
vote and I always allowed elections.  During those scenarios where the people
were against me by default I just banned elections outright.

Giving speeches does not seem to do much so its up to you if you want
to do so or not.

even if the vote is close you can also perform fraud to sway the vote in your
favor just to keep playing.  Most of this time this is not required.  I only
played around with fraud when I had nothing better to do.

ultimately, just follow the build order, keep people happy (above 60%) and 
you should never have any trouble with the elections process.

and no, you cannot kill or imprison your opponent.  I've tried...