Tropico 4...xbox360 (125g elite)...saving to HD....am about to feed the disc to my dog! I haven't had a problem till now. But i've hit level 5 and everytime the level loads i get about 30 seconds before it tells me i've lost! The island doesn't spawn with any buildings on (ie palace or construction building).......and IT KEEPS TELLING ME I'VE LOOOOOST!! Have reloaded plenty, gone back to the last year on my previous save and completed the previous mission again and the same thing keeps happening. I am one demented mo fo :[ blub
Any ideas pls Kalypso?

I recently purchased modern times on the xbox, played a single sandbox game for about for hours, and got to the year 1987. I had 620 citizens, numerous skyscrapers, and saved the game at several points. The next day when i tried to load the game, it would freeze when i tried to load it. this would the occur for the other saves as long as the population of my island was over 500. This is really making me frustrated.

Hey everyone,

My copy of Tropico 4 also has been crashing once the population hits around 600. I have tried running off the disc and off the hard drive. I have cleared the cache on the Xbox 360, tried saving new files instead of over-writing them, all ended up with the same issue, now its to the point any time I hit the population mark and save, once I try and load the save file it just freezes. Hours of gametime lost.

What really irritates me is I e-mailed Kalypso about this problem, and the reply basically went; "We are aware of this issue (with the game becoming unstable when playing a large city.) The developers instituted a "soft" population limit of 600 on the Xbox 360. It is "soft" to make hitting it less unpleasant from the player."

The e-mail then goes on to say that basically the campaign can be completed with populations under 300, so I should stick to that.

Maybe its just me, but that is crazy that a game could be released with the SAME problems as the previous version? Also to be offered the option of playing only the campaign, due to the fact "sandbox" mode is basically unplayable.

I e-mailed them back asking if they planned on trying to fix this issue, but apparently they must not have time to respond to my question, lol

Make sure to connect to Xbox Live in order to download the latest Title Update for Tropico 4 that fixes a number of bugs and alleviates many of the crash issues.

This is not meant to be an excuse but please understand that a complex simulation such as Tropico is very demanding on a console with limited memory and processing power. The easy solution to avoid crashes would have been to limit the number of buildings and population in the game. Tropico 4 also features maps that are up to four times the size of maps in Tropico 3 and a lot more buildings and graphics detail while still improving over the performance of the predecessor in most parts. This game is pushing the limits of what current-gen consoles can do in a genre where few other games have tried to achieve the same. We will continue to work closely with the developers in resolving all the remaining issues but it's the nature of the beast that this is an ongoing herculean task.

That said, thank you for supporting Tropico and helping us prove that non-watered-down strategy games do in fact have a place on consoles.

Hi Timo,

I am connected to Xbox Live, and have recieved the update. This issue occured before and after downloading the patch. I've tried re-installing everything, clearing cache, you name it.

I'm just a little irked that one of your reps would say, "Yeah we know about it... try playing the campaign instead of sandbox."

Is any work being done to correct this issue still? As I am sure I'm not the only one still experiencing this problem, lol

I recieved the reply from your rep this morning (April 13) And he seemed pretty aware the problem still exists.

I love this game but there are some serious issues that prevent me from finishing, this is for xbox 360. i have tried reinstalling the game to the hard drive, clearing chache doesn't change anything. I even deleted my awsome cities and started over from scratch and i still get the same problems.

Xbox 360 Errors:
-Game freezes often usually when too many tasks are going on at the same time, lots of gameplay hours lost
-Saved games are always currupted, game freezes, saves will not load after the year 1980, lots of hours of gameply lost! (modern times DLC)
-population over 200+ citizens seems to cause problems
-I am currently unable to finish any modern times levels.

Are there any patches coming out soon for these problems?

I'm not sure what you guys expect them to do, the population limit is a function of the Xbox processor. There's a lot of heavy-duty number crunching that goes on with this game, much more so than your average FPS. Even the minimum recommended PC specs are far above the Xbox 360. The best programmers in the world can't make a $200 game console perform like a $1000 PC. In fact, it's pretty amazing to me that they got it to run on Xbox at all.

I'm on Mission 10 in the MT campaign with one of the newer Xbox 360 S model. It can get sluggish with populations over 500, but I haven't encountered any lockups or problems saving or loading.

If you want to play with populations of 1500+ then buy the PC version. Otherwise, stop whining, accept the console limitations and enjoy the game.

I am more than aware that the xbox processor is maxed out running this game, I will also give a lot of credit for trying to make such a large game playable on the Xbox.

I couldn't care less if the population cap was 100 or 1500. Sluggish or lagging on the Xbox happens. Locking up the game (During gameplay or even just trying to load files) should not though. Its hard to enjoy playing when you have to erase everything you've done and start over after a couple hours.

I'm not sure where you got the idea we all needed to to have gigantic islands with huge populations. If we wanted that, your right we would have bought the PC version. If anything the population should be lowered for the Xbox 360. I'm sure it wouldn't take away from the experience, however it might allow the game to be played with less issue.

So yes, people will "whine" or comment negative experiences. Congrats that you haven't had any problems with yours. If nothing else the posts on here will allow the developers to see issues customers may have with their copy of the game. To fix, or prevent in the future.

I am experiencing the same problem many have mentioned on the Xbox 360.

Game runs perfectly smoothly in all modes towards the beginning. Once I ramp my economy and have 400+ citizens the game runs sluggish, regardless of sandbox or campaign. I can get around the problem by only building or inspecting while time is paused. That is the fashion in which I typically play anyway so it isn't as much of a hassle.

However, this does lead to the "corrupt saves". I do not believe the saves are as corrupt as much as the Xbox is unable to process the load and freezes. I understand that indicates a platform limitation. Mentioning that the problem exists and requesting a fix isn't whining as much as it is being a responsible consumer.

Buying the PC version if you want to play the game is not a solution. Ramping quickly to a large economy may be the fastest, most efficient, way to complete objectives for many people regardless of platform.

As developers it is their responsibility when porting to a platform to port it as seamlessly as possible regardless of system limitations. If this were a free title, that would be be thing. The fact that we pay and are marketed to for dlc/expansions puts the responsibility on us as consumers to report lack of satisfaction or ability to use the purchased product. This will assure satisfaction in future products.

I love the title and sincerely look forward to purchasing more in the future.

Bought this game today - very excited.

Within 10 mintues had two red rings.

Fair enough, it's a hot day so I put our big fan on the xbox and power brick and started again but within 5 minutes - two red rings.

Crazy thing is, the console wasn't even that hot.

So I installed the patch and cleared my cache and re installed the game but once again - two red rings.

I have tried a couple of other games and they both work fine.

I'm hoping someone can suggest a way to fix this or I'm returning this game and never buying from this developer again.

Sorry, forget that. CEX sold me a NTSC version.

All of these issues are so true....kalypso let me give u my details...I have a xbox slim 250 gigs..very clean and not cluttered in an well ventilated area cause I know games will not function properly if the hdd becomes over heated due to the spinning disc. About 6 months ago i purchased tropico 4 on disc from gamestop id play campaign with minimal issues few crashes but not like sandbox..when i play sand box my system freezes and i mean everytime i go to play my system freezes i restart my system and then try the load option and my system freezes again...usually my stats are around 400,000 with a population over 500 and my island is bustling..so after all of that confusion i decided to sell the game let some time go by then try again later usually a company had their game heavily beta tested to the max so kalypso will fix..so here i am now 6 months later i go on marketplace and the game is available for digital download..how can u beat that faster load time and better stability u would think right...now im back at the same exact position only difference is i brought all the dlc and now i feel stuck with a game i cant refund and cant enjoy..id send you vid of my issues if that would help cause the game is so good...only the crashing issue and the lag in scroll are the issues come on kalypso lets get it right......

I am very concerned that I just spent $45 on a game I can't load up after I save it. I bought the modern times DLC and I can't load up any games I have saved. My population is under 200 every time it has occurred. I have not been able to get that far in one sitting, which is what I am going to have to do to play campaign.
I am definitely expecting a fix or my money back!

---

I am very concerned that I just spent $45 on a game I can't load up after I save it. I bought the modern times DLC and I can't load up any games I have saved. My population is under 200 every time it has occurred. I have not been able to get that far in one sitting, which is what I am going to have to do to play campaign.
I am definitely expecting a fix or my money back!

I have completed Tropico 3 and am now on mission 15 of Tropico 4 and experienced my very first crash the other day. Looking through all the forum posts it was pretty obvious that it was due to the size of my population (I was deliberately taking my time on the mission as you usually get an unlimited mandate time in T4, so population was swelling). I won't bore you with all the game stat details as I don't think they're relevant - simply a case of the console not coping with the complexities of a large population.

I tried all the fixes suggested but none of them worked. Also I only had the one save slot so I was worried I'd have to restart the entire game from mission 1! Luckily this was not the case...

What I did to fix it was:
- load mission 15 to the point it was saved at (in my case it was crashing about a minute after loading)
- hit 'restart' from the pause menu
- play mission 15 again from scratch (no way around this I'm afraid)
- madke sure population stayed managable (once I got to 300 or so I set the immigration to Tropico First)
- do the main mission tasks a bit quicker

I completed it fairly easily and all is now back on track.

I can see Kalypso are getting a fair bit of criticism on this. I do think it would've been good to have a mechanic in the game that prevents the population from exceeding the console's capabilities, but it's not a perfect world... in this case it's up to us to take responsibility for our population sizes and manage them; reckon you won't have any problems if you do this.

Good luck!

Any news on this? I just downloaded modern times and have the same problem.

(28-02-2012 11:23 AM)Timo Wrote:  We are investigating the issue and looking to provide an update which improves game stability in the near future. We'll keep you posted!

The freezing is so bad; this game is borderline un-playable on my Xbox360. I've had a corrupted save, which I promptly deleted... But that did nothing for the crashing problem and development of more corrupted saves.

Even sub-400 population and 300-population my game will randomly freeze while I'm scrolling around the map, and the camera will list off to whatever way I was last scrolling before the freeze.

The sound and everything will freeze and will repeat the last bit of sound that was played ex: an earthquake sound will be repeated until the console is shut off and the camera will just list all the way off to the border of the map...

This game is pretty much un-playeable as is, and there's no way I'd recommend it to friends. I've spent countless hours getting to the 6th mission, and unfortunately it's taken about 3x-4x the time it really should have. Playing this game is an exercise in patience and frustration. I'm looking into a possible refund for my money. This is a horrible product.

I am really disappointed to find Tropico 3 issues in Tropico 4

I really loved T3 but hated the stability issues on Xbox. When T4 came out I wasn't sure about getting it, then I figured they'd address the issues of the previous game so I broke down and got T4 and MT. Now I'm on the 3rd mission in MT and it freezes ALL THE TIME and when I do manage to load my game save it craps out during the game.

The game is installed on the HDD, I've got the patches, I clear my cache before playing but WTF? I'm not "whining" because I don't understand the limitations of hardware, I'm bitching because I don't understand the logic in releasing a game with the same issues as its predecessor.

Having to monitor the population to make sure my game doesn't get hosed is BS and the fact that it locks up my Xbox half the time is also BS.

It's too bad since I enjoy the game when it's playable but I won't waste my $ on anymore DLC and certainly not a new game if they're just going to let old problems continue to ruin newer versions of the game.

Greetings,
I too am also having this problem with corruption of the save files. Being new to the franchise I think this game is great out side of the fact that my 12+ hours of hard work got wiped twice causing me to look up this forum and post my opinion so that hopefully the issue would get fixed. So the story goes like this, As El Presidente my reign was becoming supreme. Business is booming, people are living in happiness, but it gets to a point when your money starts flowing around $500k and the population is around 400-600 people, the game gets a little jumpy. I started two sandboxes, first over a million in treasury and a little over a thousand people when I finally called it quits and saved again before quitting, second game around 900k in treasury and 700 people when saved and quit. upon trying to reload both games, the game freezes in the middle of the load screen. Very disappointing, Its almost like watching a baby die. Please, help save this great game!!!!

just brought the game yesterday on Xbox live and loved what i saw but this morning i went to play the save i did and it wouldnt load, if it helps i generated a random map with a volcano im on the year 1967 and have 277 population the random events are set to rare and i have the plantation dlc with only 1 plantation factory laid down atm,
p.s when i saved the game i went to the 1st menu screen and just turned off the console, could this be the reason? because i didn't exit to the xbox dashboard after the save then turn the xbox off, and ive seen that in some games this used to be a issue and would corrupt saves (test drive unlimited 2 was well known for it until it got patched and fixed)

My technical problems are exactly the same as every one elses. I have read all the posts and done every thing that was recommended. It still did not work.
I spent $40 (AUD) for the base game and then I shelled out another roughly $40 (AUD) on all the dlc (this was all purchased from xbox live on demand by the way) only to find that I could not load a single game that I had put a lot of effort in. I understand the limits of the Xbox but what I do not understand is why you would still realise the game on Xbox live if you knew that the majority of players would have a problem with it. I know at the end of the day, your a business and you want to make as much profit as possible, however while you may be benefiting in the short term buy not using your profits to not fix problems in the game, you are hurting your self in the long run. I am sure that many players will discriminate against your future games and dlc all because of these current issues. This could potentially lose you future investors, publisher contracts, community/consumer respect, in game corporate sponsorship etc, etc. On a side note, it has been found that companies with a good CSR (corporate social responsibility) ethic tend to achieve greater profits and are generally more successfull, also potential investors strongly analyse a companies CSR, as well as other things, before investing. Releasing a "quality game" that could potentially not work for a lot of users counts as bad CSR.
imagine if you spent a large amount of money ($80 AUD in my case) on a game only to find that you can not enjoy it for a extended period of time? What would you do. When you buy a new console/electrical item/computer/a top rated game, you expect it to work 90% of the time along with technical support, right? How is this really different?

I have to say though I still really love the game, when I got to play it , and I will definably become your biggest fan when you can fix these problems, or when I become less of a cheap ass and actually go and get a good gaming pc

First off... I LOVE this game! That said like many others here I am now experiencing the same irritating bug that cause games save files to be corrupted and freeze the XBox. This is HIGHLY ANNOYING after investing many hours on a particular scenario, creating the island just how you want it, then POOF its gone, lost forever!

For me the problems really only started AFTER I returned to playing the game, purchasing some of the DLC (Modern Times) and applied the title update patch. Prior to that I had no issues whatsoever playing the primary campaign and loading saved games. I have the game installed on a 250GB HD on a new 360 Slim.

I see people making excuses about the processor, population size etc... Well that's bogus... Prior to the DLC I had game saves with populations above 600. Now the last two primary campaign missions I've played since getting the DLC have only made it to populations between 300-400. Both times the saves have been lost as they FREEZE the XBox 360 using either "Continue" or "Load Game".

It seems to me that it must be something in the title update and/or related to the DLC that is causing the bug problem, since there are DLC items that can be used in the primary campaign (cement factory, various new decorations etc). Another issue I've noticed is that the newest game saves don't sync to the cloud storage. All my other saves are there but the newest ones that have the freeze issue are not. It's like the game doesn't always sync to the cloud. It may not make any difference but just something odd I noticed.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed ASAP! Let's see, why should I not be pissed?! Oh yeah... I just spent a good chunk of money/microsoft pts downloading all that DLC only to now have the game BROKEN & UNPLAYABLE! THANK YOU KALYPSO!

In the meantime I'm planning on deleting the DLC and reinstalling the game without the latest patch in order to pick up the campaign again from an older save file, hopefully without the save files freezing and FAILING.

ya so it seems like there never going to fix this problem they just dont give a shit about their customers that paided 40$ for game u cant play. i have the gold edition for the 360 and love this game but its to much to spend all the time u do for it just to freeze and lose everything. cant even get through the first mission for MT and the second on the regular story mode. i now 1 thing for damn sure, im not buying any new anything for this game or tropico 5 if its being made theres no point it'd be another waste of money:

(07-03-2013 06:14 PM)stevem420 Wrote:  ya so it seems like there never going to fix this problem they just dont give a shit about their customers that paided 40$ for game u cant play. i have the gold edition for the 360 and love this game but its to much to spend all the time u do for it just to freeze and lose everything. cant even get through the first mission for MT and the second on the regular story mode. i now 1 thing for damn sure, im not buying any new anything for this game or tropico 5 if its being made theres no point it'd be another waste of money:

I deleted the DLC and the game off my HD... cleared the cache, reinstalled the game to the HD and updated it with the patch. I've been able to go back to playing the campaign missions without any issues to the save files and with populations up around 600-700.

Without the DLC the game is back to working like it did before... So that means it's definitely a DLC issue... I haven't played ModernTimes at all so I can't comment on that, but mixing DLC elements like the new decorations etc. with the main campaign has to be one source of the problem. Kalypso need to get off their butts and look into this mess... Nobody wants to buy DLC that breaks a game!

ya the shitty thing for me is i bought the gold edition with the BROKEN dlc right on the disk. i cleared cache and deleted my saves and game progress. and i was able to get a population of 600 and lots of stuff happening and didnt have a problem untill it froze again on my buddys xbox after i did the same stuff for him. What a piece of shit company Kalypso is. i will never buy a game that has there name on it ever again, they dont give a fuck about there customers and release a dlc that dosnt work and even worst they released a gold edition with it on it, this is purely incompitance, there programmers are garbage and obviously are incapable of making a dlc that even works. im so frustrated with this ima bought to spamm there phone line till i get my money back for the broken game they sold me and thousands of others. doesnt even look like they give a shit ether, i sent support a email and go figure they didnt reply. there not planning on fixxing it or it would have been by now. they say we are aware of the problem but say nothing of fixing it

Add me to the list. Ive had the game (gold) less than 1 week and all I know is that after saving a game and going back to play t locks up BOTH my Elite and brand new Slim 360.
My population is less than 500. Probably closer to 400.
Are there any patches, work arounds??? How do I install the game to HDD or clear cache???
Please fix.

To install the game put it in the console the press x when select it this gives you the details and there should be a option to install it

(28-03-2013 01:08 AM)broderp Wrote:  Add me to the list. Ive had the game (gold) less than 1 week and all I know is that after saving a game and going back to play t locks up BOTH my Elite and brand new Slim 360.
My population is less than 500. Probably closer to 400.
Are there any patches, work arounds??? How do I install the game to HDD or clear cache???
Please fix.

How to clear your Xbox 360 system cache or How to Delete the Cache on Your Xbox 360

Manage your Xbox game library (including install & delete)

Copy, move or delete Xbox saved games, profiles and avatar items

(Previous answers to this question, placed by me in other threads will now be linked to this post)

Well not all of us are rich assholes like you and can afford a $1000 pc for a game. Not to mention I already paid $30 for the game and would have to pay $30 for the same game on the pc. Also I have the new Xbox and my game still freezes while loading the game from a save within 10 minutes of play on the first mission and a skirmish. It's not just limitations on the Xbox. There are other problems and Kalypso should be fixing them instead of letting poor suckers like me pay for a game that basically doesn't work.

Hi all, I posted this on the Xbox forum so I thought I would also post it here. I may have found a possible solution, however it won't save already frozen games/islands, but it will prevent further islands from freezing. Now bear with me, I have only tried it on 3 islands so far after having my 5th island freeze on me after reaching a population of 480, so I'm not sure if its completely fail safe. Basically, all I'm saying is that it HAS worked for me SO FAR. Okay, so if most players are like me, you have little patience and are likely playing the game at FULL speed. I know I do and when I'd save, I'd leave it at full speed, as it happened on my frozen island. Well, I restarted the island from scratch and this time i saved often, and each save, especially the crucial last save before turning the game off, I made sure to completely PAUSE the play first, then save, then exit while still on pause. So far its worked like a charm for me, so here's hoping it will help others.

Now I'm definitely not saying that Kalypso shouldn't fix this issue, it seems like such a simple fix that they are simply ignoring. However, for anyone who really does enjoy the game, at least this might help make it somewhat enjoyable again.

TL: DR - Save often and pause the gameplay before each save and especially before the last save. Kalpyso needs to fix this issue rather than ignore it, but since we've already paid for the game, maybe this will help others keep playing.

Thanks for the post. I don't know if it works (for me anyway) but I will defiantly try it. It seems like you've put more effort than Kalypso to find a solution. Thanks again.