14 DAY TRIAL // Tropico 5 understands history, at its core, even if the game never aims to deliver a true simulation of how poor Caribbean islands have been both blessed and cursed by their geography and their choice of rulers during the past few centuries.
Upon starting a new game, either in the sandbox or the campaign, the player cannot do too much as his island is mostly empty and he does not have the cash to embark upon a fast and extensive building program in order to create a modern nation.
In the Colonial Age, the player depends on the whim of the King, who can cut his mandate short, and needs to set up a local player base, which is best done by choosing one or two cash crops and then opening up the trade routes required to deliver them to commercial partners.
Early on, I chose cocoa and cattle as main resources I wanted to export, after putting up a coffee plantation first only to notice that I had no buyers for it.
The big potential trouble in the early game is linked to the limited positive cash flow of the island, which means that gamers need to take their time, build just one new business at a time and make sure they are getting enough money to build up a reserve of about 10,000 before they launch another project.
This is needed because there are emergencies like natural disasters to sometimes deal with (although I tend to turn their frequency down in the options menu) and because the ships that power trade seem to sometimes take too long to reach my shores and load up cargo.
Cocoa and cattle are great for exporting but the local population also needs to stay as happy as possible and that means that a tavern, funded to the max and with a good manager if one can be found, is another requirement early on in Tropico 5.
The developers at Haemimont Games clearly did not set out to create an experience based on the real world, but a quick glance at history shows that many nations choose the path of resource exploitation to boost their initial economic development.
The problem is that this kind of initial path tends to lead to the development of oligarchies, powerful state institutions and semi-authoritarian regimes, which tends to also happen in the long term in Tropico 5, as other world powers get involved and the population gains more education.