CHAPTER SIX

BUILDINGS


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."

Lord Acton

My PresidentΘ, I hope you brought your hardhat. Building construction will take up a large portion of the conscientious Grand Administrator's time, as will subsequent building administration, requiring a thorough understanding of the complexities and vagaries of building construction and administration. As per Section 3, Paragraph 42 of the Tropican State of the Interior Act of 1938 (Document not attached), we have prepared a new report available for your use.

BUILDINGS TYPES

Buildings serve a variety of functions on Tropico. When you enter Building Mode (see Chapter 4: Interface), you will be presented with a set of subgroup tabs arranged by building type/function. These are:

Housing Every inhabitant of Tropico must have a place to live. If you do not build one for them, they will build their own in the form of a shack. Building housing for your citizens has three basic benefits. It makes your people happier, it provides a means of income for the government, and it lets you set up housing near work locations so that workers do not have to walk as far.

Farming and Mining Buildings in the Farming and Mining subgroup provide a base level of income and food production. Farms allow you to grow food crops or cash crops. Ranches require a lot of land for grazing, but can be quite lucrative. Fisherman's wharves allow you to harvest food from the sea. Without a food processor, fish are not ideal for export, but they are a great local food source. Logging camps, if located in a thick forest, are steady income producers, if perhaps not ideal for the environment. If you have a mineral deposit that can easily be developed, they, too can be quite lucrative.

Industry Industry buildings refine products brought to them from a farm, mine, or logging camp. The refined or manufactured goods are worth much more when exporting. The Industry buildings available are the Lumber Mill (refines logs into lumber), Cigar Factory (refines tobacco into cigars) , Jewelry Factory (refines gold into jewelry), Rum Distillery (refines sugar into rum) and Cannery (refines fish, pineapples and coffee into canned goods).

Tourism The Tourism section contains facilities exclusively built for the use of tourists. These buildings include both lodging and attractions, and are generally very profitable. You may also have an archaeological site on the island that can be developed into a tourist attraction.

Entertainment Everyone likes to be entertained, and most are willing to pay (and make you money) in order to obtain that entertainment. All buildings in this group can be used by locals OR tourists.

Infrastructure Certain buildings are required for the building and maintenance of the rest for the island. Roads allow faster walking and goods hauling. Docks allow the arrival of freighters to carry your products to market, and yachts bringing tourists. Banks are rather flexible, and can be used to lower the costs of other buildings, or they can be used for El PresidentΘ's personal Swiss Banking needs. Airports bring in plenty of the wealthiest tourists. Construction offices allow you to hire extra laborers, to build everything else faster. Teamster's offices allow you to hire extra teamsters, to haul your goods to factories and docks. Electric power plants allow you to use more advanced buildings, which require electricity. Electric substations extend the power grid to remote corners of your island.

Government In order for the government (meaning you) to exert maximum control the population, these buildings must exist. Guard stations allow you to repress your people and fight rebels. Armories allow the use of generals, which in turn, allow guard stations and large numbers of soldiers. Police stations fight crime. Prisons allow you to arrest your opponents. An immigration office gives you more control over the amount and types of immigrants you welcome to Tropican shores. A foreign ministry allows improved relations with the U.S. and Russia. Newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations can be used for profit, to enhance the liberty of the people, or simply to broadcast government propaganda.

Human Services Many buildings are used to provide non-entertainment services for the welfare of the citizens. Clinics and Hospitals provide health care. Churches and Cathedrals provide religious services. A marketplace allows food distribution closer to where your people live (especially useful if your farms are far from your population centers. High Schools and College provide education. Note that the willingness of your people to attend High School or College depends entirely on the availability and quality of jobs that require education. If you build a high school, but have no jobs requiring a high school education, you will attract no students.

Landscaping The final two subgroup tabs in Build Mode, Landscape and Special Tools and Structures, contain objects that can be used for the beautification of your city. Since people like living in pretty environments, these objects will have a positive impact on your peoples' happiness (specifically, their environment rating). They can also be pleasing to El PresidentΘ's weary eyes. The items include rocks, small plants, flowerbeds, trees, bushes, fountains, and statues, and they come in a variety of sizes and prices. Note that some of the plants here are natural, and will be planted as smaller saplings and go through a normal plant life cycle, while others are ornamental only, planted at full size and do not age.

Bulldozing The final subgroup also contains a panel for bulldozing. Select the bulldoze panel, showing a pile of rubble, then click on a building in the main window. The selected building will become a bright red and construction workers will come by to tear the structure down.

CONSTRUCTION

Building Placement
To construct a building, enter Building Mode, select a structure, position your cursor on the map so that the building lights up green, and click to place.

If the building stays red and you cannot position it so that it turns green, it likely means either:
  • You don't have enough money or some other requirement for the building - check the Circle Window for any requirements listed in red.
  • The location in which you're trying to place the building is invalid. Usually this is because the building is too close to existing buildings. It can be especially tricky to place buildings in hilly areas, as the need to level the ground to place your new building often conflicts with the level ground on which other buildings are placed. Buildings may have to be spaced more widely apart in hilly areas.

Location considerations
Some buildings have special location considerations that will be important in determining where you place them, such as mineral density, agricultural value or crime. When this is the case, an Eye icon will appear at the bottom of the Circle Window. When the eye is opened, the ground in the Main Window will become colored to show the rating (using the same coloring scheme as used in Info Mode for the given information type). If you're not sure what overlay is being shown, move the mouse over the eye for hover help. Sometimes the colors can be a distraction - click on the eye to toggle it closed, which turns off the colors.

Construction Management
Once you have placed the building, a yellow ghost version of the building will appear on the construction site. The building must be built by laborers- it has no effect until it is fully completed. Over time, laborers will clear any trees, level the ground, and construct the building. The yellow building will become solid as it is built and finally becomes full color and open for business when it is finished.

Laborers: The laborers are dispatched from your construction office. To speed construction, make sure your construction office is fully staffed, and consider building additional construction offices as soon as possible.

Build priority: If you have multiple buildings under construction, the laborers will typically work on the one closest to their office first. To change their priorities, click on an uncompleted building. You'll see a set of green arrows indicating construction priority - make one building high priority and another low priority.

Canceling construction: Should you change your mind while the building is under construction, a red X button in the bottom left corner of the building's information panel can be used to cancel construction and regain part of your investment.

Construction Considerations
A wise leader must weigh many considerations when deciding on a new location to be used as a construction site for a facility. We recommend the application of the following guidelines in site location.

"Flat sites are better." The slope of the land in a site is important to whether a building should be developed there. Laborers will attempt to level the ground in order to create a proper plot of land on which to lay a foundation. This causes a delay in construction, adding time to the overall project. A flat site will allow for much more expedient construction. Similarly, in a few cases the grade of the land coupled with already present neighboring buildings may create a location inaccessible to some buildings. Attempting to place a smaller building on the site should meet with success. Finally, once constructed, a building must be accessible. Citizens forced to traverse extreme slopes will not be able to reach buildings as quickly.

"Lots of trees mean more time to build." The laborers must take time to chop down trees on a plot of land in order to clear it before construction. As with grade leveling, this process takes time, and sites without trees allow for much faster construction. As an extra note, trees near farms and ranches will not be automatically removed during construction (only the trees on the actual building site). The farmers will chop those trees down when they have free time, but not otherwise. The presence of trees in the fields and pastures will create a detrimental affect on the efficiency of the production at those farms and ranches. This guideline should of course be ignored in the placement decision regarding logging camps.

"Long walks mean less efficient workers." As citizens must walk from location to location, a compact and well-planned city layout will create much more efficient traffic flow. If a city is spread out, workers will have to walk farther, thereby depleting their stores of energy more rapidly and necessitating an earlier departure time from work.

"Take into account building effects." Many buildings, such as the electric power plant, police station, and guard tower, radiate effects on the world around them (electrical availability, crime control, and government control respectively). Be sure you take into account how the new building will affect an area, as well as the affect other buildings may have upon the new structure.

HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ

TITLE: President of El Salvador
REIGN: 1931-1944
RISE to POWER: As a general in the military, was installed by a coup that overthrew the government.
CLAIM to FAME: Sought to emulate the fascist dictators of Europe, but may be best known for his interest in occult arts.
ANTI-COMMUNIST: Initiated an anti-communist purge, killing an estimated 40,000 peasant leftist and wiping out the country's Indian culture.
THE SLAUGHTER: Suppressed a rebellion by farm workers and authorized the summary execution of 10,000 suspected participants. The uprising and its brutal repression is referred to as "The Slaughter."
OUSTED: A general strike launched by university students brought the nation to a standstill and caused the dictator to resign from office.


"Agricultural Value determines crop and livestock success." (farms and ranches only) As agriculture is highly dependent on the quality of the soil, we recommend determining the ability of the land to support the types of crops and livestock you wish to use before the creation of a building involved in the production of said products. This information (for overall crop conditions, as well as individual crops and livestock) can be gathered in the Info Mode, under Resources and Environment: Crop Conditions. Agricultural value is, in turn, based on factors such as soil quality, soil wetness and rainfall, which can similarly be found within the Resources and Environment subgroup.

"Look for electricity." Many buildings require electricity for operation. Similarly, some upgrades to non-electrified buildings require electricity. Make sure these buildings fall within the range of an electric power plant or substation.

BUILDING ADMINISTRATION

After construction is completed, the President must accept the duty of administration of that building. This may at first appear easy since a selected building's information panel in the Central Control Panel does not contain any tab buttons. All information for a building is contained on a single panel. However, this panel includes a variety of controls, and the amount of control changes from building to building.



Basic Information
All buildings have one interface element in common. When any building is selected, a square appears on the left of the Central Control Panel, listing information important to that facility. This can include the name of the building, profitability, megawatt usage, and amount of products in the output store, among other information. While a few structures, such as the Electric Substation, only have this basic information panel, the vast majority have at least one of the following control elements.

Staff Controls: Most buildings have a staff employed there. This is displayed by a row of small figures at the bottom of the building control panel. When a position is empty, the figure appears as a gray silhouette. When filled, the figure appears as a small version of the employee. This usually takes the form of the type of employee used as staff at the building (i.e. doctors at the clinic) but will sometimes briefly show up as the form of the person accepting a job before they have arrived at the building. For example, a farmer who changes careers to become a teamster will appear in the teamster office panel as a farmer until he actually arrives at the office.
  • Selecting/Navigating: As your cursor moves over a filled position, the name of the employee will appear in the Info Bar. To select a person employed at a building, click on the image from the row of employees. The Central Control Panel will change to show the person's information, and the Circle Window will show a moving shot of that citizen.
  • Firing: To fire an employee, Shift-click on the figure in the staff panel. That position will then be available, though the fired individual is excluded from re-applying for the same job for two years.
  • Limiting Staff Positions: Clicking on an unfilled, gray silhouette causes a red X to appear over the silhouette and all following silhouettes. Those positions are now unavailable. Clicking on an unavailable position will free up any preceding unavailable positions. Use this ability for some of the buildings that can employ a large number of workers - initially you may not need as many workers at the building as it can accommodate. For instance, a teamster's office can employ up to 8 teamsters, but for the first couple years you will likely need no more than 3.
  • Wages: A grid of coins to the right of the employee figures shows how much the employees at that facility are being paid. You may change this salary by selecting another coin in the grid, filling up or emptying the salary to that point. The Info Bar will tell you what level a coin represents as your cursor passes over it. As mentioned throughout this guidebook - the more you pay for a given position, the more likely you are to quickly attract workers to fill that position. Well-paid workers are also happier.
  • Global wage changes: [Shift] clicking on a coin sets all buildings of that type to the same wage. [Control] clicking on a coin sets all wages in that education class to the same wage.
  • Employee Education Level: If a facility requires employees to be high school or college educated, there will be a mortarboard icon to the left of the silhouettes. A blue mortarboard icon represents high school education, and a green mortarboard represents a college education.

If you do not currently have any properly educated citizens capable of working at the building, a simple click on the mortarboard icon will bring up an approval form for bringing in a qualified employee from off the island. If you grant approval, you will be charged a fee and the qualified person will soon arrive at the port. While useful early on, over time, this grows expensive, and you'll want to consider building a high school and eventually, a college.

FIDEL CASTRO

TITLE: Dictator of Cuba
REIGN: 1959-present
RISE to POWER: Led army of 800 guerrilla revolutionaries, defeating the Cuban government's 30,000-man professional army.
RADICAL POLICIES: Created a one-party government to exercise dictatorial control over all aspects of Cuba's political, economic, and cultural life. All political dissent and opposition were ruthlessly suppressed.
TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE: Trade agreement with the Soviet Union has deepened American distrust. In 1960, most economic ties between Cuba and the U.S. were severed, and the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with the island nation in 1961.
RELIGIOUS CONCESSIONS: In 1998, Castro allowed the Catholic pope to visit the island nation for the first time.


Residency Controls: Housing and tourist lodging buildings show the adults currently living there. As in the Staff section, this is displayed by a row of small figures, now at the top of the building control panel. When a room is empty, the figure appears as a gray silhouette. When occupied, the figure appears as a small version of the resident or guest.

Only adults are displayed here. Minor children live with their parents, but are not shown here.

Unlike the Staff section, you cannot directly limit the rooms available. The number of employees determines room availability. A half-staffed motel, for example, can only fill half its rooms.
  • Evicting: To evict a resident or guest, Shift-click on the figure in the occupancy panel. That room will then become available. Evicting one person in a family evicts that entire family. You can also quickly empty a building by raising the rents high enough. Special note: shack residents cannot be evicted, although you have the power to bulldoze occupied shacks. Shacks left unoccupied for a while tend to collapse (they are not sturdily constructed).
  • Rent and Nightly Fees: Rent and Nightly Fees are set by the grid of coins to the right of the occupancy silhouettes. This works in the same manner as wages, described above, with one exception. The Rent/Fee section provides a red X'ed coin at the bottom left corner, used to set the charge to zero. This allows people to stay free [Shift] clicking a fee sets the fees of all buildings of the same type to that fee level.
  • Service Fees: Service Fees apply to tourist attractions and entertainment buildings. However, citizens and tourists absolutely cannot be expelled from a service facility. [Shift] clicking a fee sets the fees of all buildings of the same type to that fee level.

Building Upgrades: Quite a few buildings can be upgraded. When this is the case, the upgrade window(s) will be set in the top of the building control panel. They will be dimmed out prior to upgrading, with a hammer button in the corner of each panel. If you move your cursor over the panel, a detailed description of the benefits will appear in the Info Bar, along with the cost of upgrade.

To purchase an upgrade, click on the hammer button. A window prompt will pop up, letting you know whether you may purchase the upgrade at that time. Accepting the upgrade will cause the new additions to appear on the building. Upgrades are built immediately, and do not need laborers. Some upgrades require electricity prior to being built. The Info Bar will notify you of this.

Pop-Up Building Options
Most buildings have a set of extra options used to set crop type, service quality, work atmosphere, fuel type, or other similar settings. When this is the case, the Pop-Up Options window will sit beneath the Staff and/or Occupancy panels. The current setting will already be displayed, with an arrow sitting on the right side. Clicking on the arrow or the selected option will cause a list of options to pop up. As your cursor passes over an option, a detailed explanation of the resulting affects will appear in the Info Bar.

Tourist Off-Shore Accounts (Bank only)
This control is only available to the bank while the Tourist Off-Shore Banking option is active. A new panel containing a grid of check icons will appear above the Staff Control panel. Each check icon represents one tourist's offshore account, and the accounts make money for the Tropican economy.

Livestock
The cattle and goat ranches display the livestock in what should by now be a familiar manner. The possible cattle or goats are shown as grayed-out livestock silhouettes. As the cattle and goats are raised and produce more offspring, the silhouettes will fill in to display the population. The Info Bar provides the name as the cursor moves over the livestock, and you may select that animal by clicking on the filled silhouette.