Tropico 3 [PC]

City-building games are about choices, and the overall appeal of the design depends on whether or not those choices are interesting and interrelated. The Tropico series has scored high in this regard, giving players a system that feels logical and consistent but also charming and unpredictable. The third game in the series, Tropico 3, due out next week, captures this appeal very well. Far from stopping at the "chop wood, process lumber, make furniture" dynamic that comprises the sum total of most city-builders, Tropico 3 adds a layer of political action that makes you feel like a real leader and not just a businessman.

From the first day you take office, you'll have ships putting in at your dock, dropping off immigrants and picking up exports. If you want to remain in power, you've got to strike a number of very fine balances, finding food and jobs for your people, while also shipping enough goods to keep the cash coming in. You'll begin with a couple of farms and a tenement, but you'll want to add new housing and farms as your population grows. You'll also need to make sure that everything is connected by roads and that you have enough garages to provide transportation for your people.

If you have enough food coming in, you can start assigning workers to harvest lumber or mine precious metals or oil from the earth. These goods can combine with your agricultural surplus to bring in a bit more cash. Once you've got a profit going, you can start to think about the social welfare of your people, giving them the churches and clinics they need. At first you'll have to rely on experts, purchased from abroad, to staff these buildings, but if you build a school, you can start to fill these jobs with natives. With their needs taken care of, you can then begin to consider adding some entertainment venues for your people. Of course, it's impossible to keep everyone happy, so you might want to consider building a few army bases and setting your soldiers' wages high enough that they won't turn against you when public opinion does.

A larger population will require even more services, so you'll need to construct even more buildings and adopt new policies to combat crime and pollution. You can begin to add even more layers on top of the infrastructure, building canneries and furniture plants to make even more valuable exports, or hotels and tourist destinations to earn money from vacationers. An immigration office will then help you determine who can and can't enter or leave your island and a diplomatic mission will open up new options for dealing with your relations with the US and USSR.

In other words, there's a lot to think about in Tropico 3 and the interplay between the various elements, while not always as apparent as it might be, is nevertheless engaging. Just trying to get the logistics of each segment of your society in balance is a very satisfying challenge. From the first tenement to the last television station, your ability to balance the basic needs of the people on your island is what determines your success in the game. Too much unemployment, for instance, creates unrest, but too little gives you no room to grow. Nightlife and industry might fill the coffers, but it alienates the religious and environmental factions that you might need to win the next election.

You can keep track of all of this in the game's handy almanac, a book that not only tells you about your financial bottom line but also shows which factions do or don't like you and why. The nationalists might be angry that you've allied with the US, while the intellectuals might be mixed because you're a religious zealot who also happens to believe in a free press. Trying to figure out why you are or aren't hated by a particular group becomes just as important as whether or not your jewelry shop is getting enough raw gold and has a close enough garage to take it to the dock.

While this tool is invaluable to the player, the ability to get down to the individual level is less useful. You can track each individual's Tropican's needs and wants to find out why a certain group might be turning against you, or even engaging in open revolt, but it's a bit like missing the forest for the trees. It might be interesting to see that level of detail, but it's hardly informative from a standpoint of setting new policies.