Let's Play: Tropico 2

[Savagezion]

Thanks to all the free cards steam gave me and the crazy ass competition people got into I was able to get Tropico 2 on Steam for free! I saw a friend buy Tropico Reloaded (1+2) and got an itch to play it again. Then I figured, why not do a let's play so you guys don't have to explore this terrible game I love so much with your money. Heck, let's not even use my money. This one is on Steam users. Thanks Gaben!

For the record, this game is not well designed and I don't think I could recommend it despite the fact that I love it so much. I have some nostalgia buried in it and the first one both, admittedly. This was one of the few games my broke ass played for like 5 years during the PS2/Xbox generation. So, let's get this show on the road.

P.S. We may lose.

Here are the settings:

The map is easy because I don't want to fight topography.

Map Size: 5 (max)
Hills: 2
Water Coverage: 2
Vegetation: 4
Minerals: 4

Restless inhabitants. (A moderate to rough setting, the people will get pissed fairly easy if left unchecked.)

Lost Colony. (This allows more captives in the start.)

Game Length: 30 years (max)

Objective: Pirate Happiness. This will be out main focus unless I get sidetracked - but I will try to keep focused.

So who is our first captain?

Cheap shipyards and a bonus to courage for our pirates.

[HEADING=2]It Begins[/HEADING]​

The escapist community is sailing under Blackbeard and we come upon a small island colony of farmers. Our boat is in poor shape because of feminist storms and too many people rocking the boat. It's land now or die at sea. So we storm the beach and force the inhabitants into slavery. Some of us stand around discussing whether that automatically makes us racist while the rest of us build me a palace because its my play through. Blackbeard is constantly whining that he wants a new boat and that he misses his old one and I tell him "Hey! Shut up. Gimme a minute." As a pirate king, I can't be having Edward Teach stealing my spotlight. So I assess the island we have. We got a lumberyard and some farms and that is about it. I set aside lumber to zone out an area for corn farms in the future because I had a feeling all my time playing video games would pay off in this video game. We also had built a prison for our new captives.

The roads were a disaster so I quickly got to work making sure they made sense. Priority was put into the lumberyard and we all took turns whipping the captives. We were all pretty sure it made them work harder. They seemed to sweat more at any rate. We quickly laid plans to build an iron mine and take advantage of the large deposits of iron near the palace. Some of you complained you didn't have a house so I gave you some spare lumber to build 4 houses. Then we had a drawing as to who would get them. I think Blackbeard rigged it though because its funny the captain was the first one with a house and his was better than all of yours. What a dick. But maybe now he'll shut up about his boat. Heavy is the crown of the pirate king.

Many still complained about housing and hookers but by the end of the year, we were producing iron bars for weaponry and four of you had houses. Plus, the roads were no longer a city planning nightmare. I know that sounds terrible if you are sober, but I made sure to build a brewery and a bar so everyone was too drunk to realize they didn't have housing, unlike the prisoners. But they don't get beer.

(BTW the orange bar on the left by the minimap is pirate approval and the white bar is captive obedience.)

So, the second year drags on. I know you guys want to go plunder your guts out and I am trying to make that happen in full force. All of our supplies are being put towards getting us a good ship ready for adventures. During the second year I made sure to build a sea rations factory to supply the ships. I then ordered construction of a shipyard and a forge for brand new cutlasses. By the end of our second year on this sorry excuse for an island, we have swords in mass production for raids. As well, we have both a ship and a dock under construction. Next year, we will take to the seas and begin to terrorize the carribean! Plus, some of you will get houses. You guys are getting pretty pissed at me despite how good of a job I am doing.

(I hid the trees so you could see the layout better in this shot)

EDIT: What shall we name our first ship? Blackbeard is a crybaby so I am gonna let everyone but him name the ship.

 

[Savagezion]

It seems there is an odd bug with this version of the game or something. I have ran a quick game of 10 years to familiarize myself with this quirky game before starting this let's play. I am pretty sure I picked the capatin Laurens de Graff in it but I ended up with Charlotte de Berry. I know I picked Blackbeard this time and somehow we still ended up with Charlotte de Berry.

[HEADING=2]Blackbeard was an impostor![/HEADING]​

So as it turns out Blackbeard was an impostor and we lynched him. Then we appointed Charlotte de Berry because she literally gave us no other choice. In fairness, I let her name the ship because you all gave her literally no other choice. Then she called it the Angry Muskrat. I thought it was a stupid name but you all seemed to like it. What more could we ask for in a pirate captain? I knew we were going to need muskets for the crew and sent her and all of you off to kidnap a gunsmith. Which you all did under her command.

However, while you were all gone, our captives took advantage of me while I was on throne sitting duty and our first captive escaped.

I was very disappointed. But wait, it gets worse. Right after Mr. Fenwick's escape, it seems he blabbed the location of our island to the English! Seriously, I wasn't expecting that. First captive escapes and it costed us.

(That seriously is an odd occurrence.)

But eh, we ain't afraid of the English. Now we're making guns. Soon we are having trouble keeping tabs on the prisoners and they are constantly trying to escape this island paradise. We decide that they could probably use some free education to see how great this island really is so we decide to give them anatomy lessons by decorating the island with the skeletons of those who once opposed us. Two birds with one stone and all that. It seemed to scare them though instead which ends up working towards the same goal because they grow much less resistant to the island and challenging our rule.

Soon I send everyone out to go raid a nearby farming settlement and bring back more captives to live in this utopia we are creating. A few weeks later you show up with 5 new captives to educate in anatomy.

I was so pleased with you all that I commissioned the construction of a casino and a small 'red light district' in addition to giving all 9 of you houses. Now our crew is fully armed with muskets and cutlasses. Next year, 1654 will be remembered as the year our band of piracy struck the carribean!

 

[Savagezion]

[HEADING=2]Trouble in Paradise[/HEADING]​

1654 was as promised the year we took to the seas. Twice we cruised the Bermuda isles pulling in much needed funds to support our growing island haven. The captives grew more restless as anarchy reigned over the island instead of order which in made them start speaking of rebellion. You scurvy dogs also delighted in the lawlessness of the island like any good pirate would. I took this as a good sign.

We pretty much just plundered gold at sea first. I was hoping for more but we just didn't run across much else than small trade ships apparently. Unless you were all holding out on me but I doubt that. We already have enough skeletons on the island. I shared generous portions of the booty with you all to raise your standard of living yet the captives still continued to rise up after all we had done for them. At one point in time one of my advisors told me that there was a plot to kill me while you all were at sea. This scared the crap out of me and I thought it was game over.

However, just as the captives were nearing the palace you all returned from you voyage with little luck and a substantial gold plunder and killed the resistance just in time saving your beloved king.

Escapes had still been an issue over the next year and it seems Spain soon found out the location of our island too. This is a little worrying. We certainly need more pirates to defend our haven. I figured it best to send the boat out on multiple cruise raids to see if we could find some recruits or something that would help us.

Then we kind of hit the motherload on one raid. We did find recruits but it was at a net loss to casualties. You all seized some kind of large vessel collecting gold, cannons, and valuable people. Two were from a rich family that we could ransom later on for more gold. Then we also happened to gain a skilled blacksmith and skilled server. I figure the cannons were our biggest win there.Perhaps now we have the means to properly outfit our island as our reputation is sure to go up.

 

[Savagezion]

[HEADING=2]Risk without Reward[/HEADING]​

Well, over the next 2 years, I figure our best bet is to raid our little peg legs off. (Even though we don't have a peg leg maker yet.) I send you out on multiple raids to bring back some captives for labor and as many recruits as you can influence. Most of these assaults end up against Spain who knows our whereabouts. It is slow going because even though we don't need money, you all bring back wealthy aristocrats to ransom off for money.

This makes me spend many of our resources on a swanky new hotel so that we can extort the most out of them so they won't run off. Even though we don't need the money, I figure why not; waste not, want not. However most of these wealthy captives escape or die before the hotel is completed anyways so that didn't work out. At this point, I am letting you all keep the majority of what you plunder. In return, recruits show up a little more and the ship is being outfitted rather well.

That isn't great recruitment but it is moderate. Slow and steady will work good enough. Our biggest problem is not pulling in enough captives. Every settlement we raid we get only 2 captives. I can only send you all out so many times per year and low captives means we pirates aren't being catered to like the bosses we are. Then I hear that our relations have gotten so bad that Spain is actually in talks to raid our island. Being already very low on labor I had no other choice than to release all Spanish captives to gain good favor with Spain.

Now we're really hurting for captives. But we are no longer in danger of being invaded before we are ready. I decide to enact an invasive policy using captives as informants to help increase the order and fear on the entire island. This should get the captives under control with a bit of reinforcement. As the 7th year on the island comes to an end, I desperately want more recruits. We should really have another ship by now and could easily manage it if we had the pirates or the captives to support it. We're in a pinch. So I send you out on one last raid of the year hoping to see you come back with more recruits.

It almost feels like you guys did that to me on purpose. Normally, that is a pretty awesome score. Wealthy captives for ransom aided by our hotel, a skilled tobacconist, another blacksmith and another server. 3600 is a pretty awesome gold stash you all get to keep for yourselves and 6 cannons! As for things we need, 1 recruit. I will take it, but crap. That feels like a kick in the balls.

The good news is that the island is shaping up. You can see you all have a better standard of living now by your houses becoming more and more luxurious. I have managed to separate the captives from the pirates for the most part. This way we can enforce order on them while you all still get to have your anarchy without encouraging them to rebel. If we can hold on a bit longer we could turn this thing around. However, we do need to catch a break. We end our 7th year with a pirate party that is makes the island one big festival celebrating the fact we somehow haven't managed to get ourselves killed.

Well, as promised in the original post we may lose. I am not sure where this is gonna go, we do need some luck right now. Every settlement raid we go on we only get 2 captives and we are losing them faster than we can regain. My opening strategy usually is a gambit. If we can pull through this, things will pick up so fast it will actually be hard to keep up. We are employing a slingshot strategy with the economy. Let's hope the sling don't break because we have it pulled back pretty far now.