People
The people of Tropico are both your greatest resource and most dangerous threat. Your citizens are the foundation of your economy, but they are also your treasury’s greatest burden.
Individual citizens have five basic needs: food, rest, faith, fun, and health. These needs are represented by five bars, which you can view by selecting a citizen on the street. While the bars are relatively full, the citizen will go about his or her current task.
Each time one of these bars drops too low, the citizen automatically attempts to satisfy the related need. To help keep your citizens productive, it’s best to provide conveniently located housing, places of worship, entertainment venues, and medical facilities.
Your people must be fed, housed, and protected, but their demands go far beyond simple necessities. Happy citizens will help keep your economy moving and your administration in power.
Unhappy citizens will leave the country, refuse to work, vote you out of office, or turn to lives of crime or rebellion. Use the Almanac and Overlays to monitor the population’s general opinion of available services.
Every citizen has his or her own reaction to each choice you make, and it’s simply not possible to please them all. The Overall Happiness of your citizens is based on 10 primary concerns, and meeting the needs of your people is no simple task.
Food Quality
Food is the most essential demand of your people, and it’s one of the only aspects of your administration that all political Factions can agree upon.
It can take a great deal of time and resources to develop a sufficient food supply, but failing to do so will result in starvation, frequent deaths, and a likely revolt.
When you attempt to improve your island’s overall Food Quality, remember that citizens are rating both the quantity and variety of the foods you provide.
Construct a new Farm, Ranch, or Fisherman’s Wharf if you notice that people are skipping meals, and look for opportunities to expand the variety of foods your administration offers.
People tend to eat at home, and they are generally unwilling to travel great distances for a meal. If all of your food production occurs on the outskirts of your island, you must take steps to ensure proper distribution.
Build Marketplaces near residential areas to ensure that all of your citizens have access to the full variety of foods produced on your island.
Housing Quality
Housing is a major concern for your citizens. Citizens without affordable, conveniently located homes will construct un-sightly shacks near their places of work.
These shacks lower your population’s Housing Quality and draw unwanted attention from political factions. Low-cost housing can keep people off the street, but wealthy citizens will come to expect more lavish accommodations.
Individuals and families can afford to pay up to one-third of their total income (rounded down) in rent. If the people are not taking advantage of available housing, you must either reduce the rent or increase the pay of your homeless workers.
As your population expands, it can be a struggle to provide adequate housing for your people. Use the Almanac to help balance your island’s housing needs with the required upkeep costs.
If the population has a generally low opinion of your island’s Housing Quality, consider lowering rent, upgrading existing housing, and investing in a variety of new buildings to better match the price ranges of your citizens.
Religion Quality
Religion is extremely important to the citizens of Tropico, and your administration will be held accountable if you fail to offer adequate locations for them to express their faith.
Simple Churches can meet your citizens’ basic religious needs, but it won’t take long for the devout to demand ornate Cathedrals or faith-affirming landmarks.
Use the Almanac to monitor the general opinion of your nation’s Religious Quality, and always be prepared to build additional Churches and Cathedrals as your population grows.
If you fail to satisfy the religious needs of your people, it sours your relationship with the entire community.
Entertainment
There’s only so much work your people can endure before they need to unwind. Entertainment may not seem like a matter of life and death, but an overworked population is a dangerous population.
If you allow your workers to have a bit of fun, you’ll soon see increases in productivity and Overall Happiness.
With proper planning, Entertainment can be fairly profitable for your island.
Citizens and tourists alike will spend good money for high quality clubs, shows, and attractions, but even modest Pubs and Restaurants will help keep your work-force showing up for their jobs each day.
Healthcare Quality
Poor healthcare can lead to decreased productivity, low Overall Happiness, and frequent deaths.
If you hope to keep your economy moving, you must provide adequate facilities to keep your citizens healthy. As workers become ill or injured, they’ll leave their jobs to seek treatment.
The faster they’re able to return to their jobs, the more efficiently your economy will run.
If a citizen dies before he or she receives medical attention, it not only takes a heavy toll on your public image, but your economy may suffer the loss of a skilled worker.
Build Clinics and Hospitals throughout your cities to keep your population healthy, and to avoid unnecessary deaths.
Crime Safety
Every society has a few bad elements, and Tropico is no exception. Even if you manage to keep the masses happy, there will always be individuals who turn to crime.
Construct Police Stations to clean up dangerous areas and keep your honest citizens safe.
Unemployment, overcrowding, income disparity, and many other factors can push potentially productive citizens into lives of crime. Keeping your citizens happy is the first step to keeping crime under control.
A thriving criminal element will lower your nation’s Overall Happiness and Tourism Rating, so maintaining Crime Safety is important to staying in power and growing your economy.
Environment
As much as your people want to live in a thriving nation with modern comforts, they also expect you to maintain Tropico’s natural beauty.
It’s not always easy to strike an acceptable balance between progress and conservation, but your citizens will voice their displeasure if you strip the land of natural resources or turn an island paradise into a sprawling metropolis.
If your people demand you improve the Environment, construct Garbage Dumps to help keep particularly dirty areas clean.
Use Trees, Fountains, and Gardens to beautify urban areas.
If your population isn’t satisfied with your efforts, build Horticulture Stations to replace forests consumed by logging operations, and issue Edicts to reduce industrial pollution and civilian litter.
Maintaining an appealing environment will not only raise your citizens’ Overall Happiness, it can have a big effect on your island’s Tourism Rating.
Liberty
Your people won’t always appreciate the measures you must take to ensure their safety and well being. Police Stations, military presence, and many of your Edicts and special actions will lower your population’s sense of Liberty.
To combat the unfortunate side effects of a strong government, it’s important to provide each of your citizens with a feeling of empowerment.
Construct Newspapers, Radio Stations and other Media Outlets to reduce the negative effects of Police Stations and patrolling soldiers.
Special Edicts can instantly boost your population’s perceived Liberty with fresh elections or special training for your law enforcement.
A lack of Liberty can breed rebellion within even the wealthiest society. Check the Almanac for signs of trouble, then use the Liberty Overlay to help identify concentrations of oppressed citizens.
Job Quality
Maintaining a high perception of Job Quality requires careful planning and frequent adjustment. Job Quality is about more than simply keeping your population employed—you must ensure that every citizen feels that they are appropriately compensated.
To achieve a high Job Quality rating, you must ensure that every citizen has the chance to earn a decent wage in a pleasant work environment.
In a struggling economy, you may not be able to provide adequate wages or appropriate jobs for all of your citizens.
As your population becomes larger, more educated, and more accustomed to the services you provide, it can become even more difficult to offer acceptable positions and fair wages to your entire population.
When you create new, high-paying positions, remember that previously happy workers may quickly grow dissatisfied with their own jobs.
Raising the wages of a few unhappy workers will cause a stir throughout all of your workforce.
To keep a growing population happy, you must constantly create new job opportunities, and ensure that every wage reflects the advances of your developing economy.
Respect
Essentially, your citizens’ Respect levels indicate their reaction to your overall effectiveness as a leader.
The way you handle political squabbles and foreign relations will raise and lower the Respect of individual citizens according to their personal feelings and ideals.
Most citizens belong to one of Tropico’s political factions, so any policies, bargains, or economic strategies that please or anger a faction will be reflected in your population’s current Respect.
To maintain a high level of Respect, it’s best to focus on elements that most factions can agree upon. Adequate housing, healthcare, religion, and employment opportunities should help keep your Respect from sinking too low.
If you need a sudden boost to your Respect rating, try to improve your relationships with Tropico’s dominant factions, or issue Edicts like Tax Cut and Social Security to earn respect from the entire population.
Overall Happiness
Overall Happiness is a reflection of how well you’re meeting all 10 of the population’s basic demands. A high Overall Happiness should keep you in power, but it’s always important to monitor individual demands.
When your economy is stable, try to address any demands you might have neglected during less prosperous or more chaotic times.
Overall Happiness is a good indicator of how well you’ve managed your nation up to this point, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect how well you’ve prepared for the future.
Political gaffes, unforeseen natural disasters, and fluctuations in commodity prices can suddenly shake the population’s confidence in your leadership.