Is that Farms just plant their stuff anywhere they please.
I really hate that with all Tropico titles. Can we have bigger farms in the future with predefined fields please?
That way city building is more planable.

(13-05-2012 06:35 PM)Scorcher24 Wrote:  Is that Farms just plant their stuff anywhere they please.
I really hate that with all Tropico titles. Can we have bigger farms in the future with predefined fields please?
That way city building is more planable.

Modern Times gives you what you crave.

At least after nineteen sixty something.

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Also I actually kind of like the idea your citizens are somewhat autonimous about where they put their fields since it lends itself to the idea they may not always make decisions in line with your glorious vision and you'll be forced to steamroll their green shoots to put up another parking lot.

Sort of having to knock down the sheet metal shacks of those inconsiderate homeless people who set up their lean-tos against your gleaming new hotel.

ehh not really saphire, those round farms don't look that good, and take away to much if ya ask me. MT kinda turned me off, it has some decent things to it, But it turned tropico into a city builder, vrs a politcal sim..

I completely agree. This is one of the features that I like about the Anno series that Tropico lacks: you can place fields manually but you also have the option to place them automatically. Trying to find the most efficient layouts for fields was always fun for me.

Sometimes this can be annoying. The worst part is when there are farms close to your more developed urban areas (either you place them there by accident, the game places them there at the start, or the farmers just decide to plant way down the road). They put crops inside the city squares, which usually means I have to build stuff on top of them and make them go somewhere else.

I always place my farms spread out to give them room, although they don't always place them in good spots. The farmers sometimes plant on hillsides or in less fertile soil when a perfectly flat and fertile area is available nearby. It seems like placing your farms all right next to each other and letting the crops make a circle around them is the better way.

But this isn't Anno, or any other builder. Your people basically run the town, they choose where to work (i.e. where they can/are qualified/are allowed), they choose what they do when (eat, sleep, work), etc..

If you remove this element of free will, the player is no longer responsible for thinking about what the people MIGHT do, and just controls it all (...boring).

At least they're not as bad as the farms in T1: once the farmers decide to plant on a tile you cannot build anything over it, it says "overlapping farmers' fields" and the only way around it is to demolish the farm

As was already posted MT gives you the option of building bio farms after a certain date: they're much larger than the old farms but the crops are restricted within the building.

Also, I thought I'd just mention: Black and White 2 had a feature where if you build a closed loop of roads first then put a farm in the middle the crops would be bounded by the roads - it looked real nice

(16-05-2012 02:13 AM)Swixel Wrote:  But this isn't Anno, or any other builder. Your people basically run the town, they choose where to work (i.e. where they can/are qualified/are allowed), they choose what they do when (eat, sleep, work), etc..

If you remove this element of free will, the player is no longer responsible for thinking about what the people MIGHT do, and just controls it all (...boring).

That's true, but I choose where everything else is built. I choose to build farms or plantations on fertile areas, but I can't choose where to place the fields? It's a moot point with Modern Times though.

Think of it as both more and less refined than SimCity's old style. Instead of "zoning" you put down the building (in a micro way). They choose the zone around the zone. It'd be nice if we could fence though, as with B&W2 though ...

Precise placement is fun. Don't get me wrong, I play the Anno series too It just seems a little against the grain in Tropico though. Anno is about precise placement; Tropico is about the people, and the buildings are more or less just the tools to guide it...

(16-05-2012 10:40 AM)Swixel Wrote:  Tropico is about the people, and the buildings are more or less just the tools to guide it...

ehh, i kinda disagree here.. Tropico was about the people.. But with MT, it's basically to a city builder with a shadow of people in the background. Without heavy scripting there really isnt much tourmoil and the people just become background noise. Lucky for us, they have a nice toolset to play with heavy scripting.

Just play MT for a few hours, then pop in t1 and it is pretty obvious. T1 you build to please the people or else, MT you build basically what you want, and then if it suits your fancy you can screw with them for fun.

Id love to see t1 reskined with modern graphics though, and not touch the code side outside of a couple modern conveince changes.. perhaps one day..

(17-05-2012 01:37 AM)Tropije Wrote:  

(16-05-2012 10:40 AM)Swixel Wrote:  Tropico is about the people, and the buildings are more or less just the tools to guide it...

ehh, i kinda disagree here.. Tropico was about the people.. But with MT, it's basically to a city builder with a shadow of people in the background. Without heavy scripting there really isnt much tourmoil and the people just become background noise. Lucky for us, they have a nice toolset to play with heavy scripting.

Just play MT for a few hours, then pop in t1 and it is pretty obvious. T1 you build to please the people or else, MT you build basically what you want, and then if it suits your fancy you can screw with them for fun.

The satire (Tropico v the real world) continues ...

(17-05-2012 01:37 AM)Tropije Wrote:  Id love to see t1 reskined with modern graphics though, and not touch the code side outside of a couple modern conveince changes.. perhaps one day..

Heh. There'd be virtually no money in that You could mod T4 to cover it though.

Well i like that in tropico. They plant where the best fields are. I dont't like this ANNO-Field-Style.

(17-05-2012 03:33 AM)Swixel Wrote:  Heh. There'd be virtually no money in that You could mod T4 to cover it though.

I'm not so sure. Just look at all the old titles that are coming out of moth ball's and getting reskined and republished. MDK2, and monkey island come to mind right away. but there are a bunch of adventure games and even baldur's gate is getting a new coat of paint and an upgrade.

T1 and t4 are really different. So many little things that you really couldn't mod it all with out some major revamping. For example the way mining works, or how crops work. There is a lotta behind the sceane stuff that is just different at the core. Perhaps you could add all that stuff in, But id think it would be a ton harder to add in elevation and wind, and terrain deformation as a couple examples. and the basic fact that the game at it's core is just different. Roads are a huge change and really change the gameplay.

(I have been wondering if you could remove the roads from T4, and make um not able to be built with the challenge editor)

anyways, I think it would be really cool to get a couple of people and spend a year re-modeling T1, and just add a few small engine changes for ease of use updates. Lets face it, there are just new tricks we can do in 2012, vs 1999 or soo when the devs orginally created the game.

I like to think there is room for all versions of tropico.

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(17-05-2012 06:40 PM)Server-Toni Wrote:  Well i like that in tropico. They plant where the best fields are. I dont't like this ANNO-Field-Style.

they don't always plant where best,.. some tropicans are not to smart..

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  I'm not so sure. Just look at all the old titles that are coming out of moth ball's and getting reskined and republished. MDK2, and monkey island come to mind right away. but there are a bunch of adventure games and even baldur's gate is getting a new coat of paint and an upgrade.

Monkey Island and its sequel don't even *run* on 32bit processors. They've got 16bit code. And they didn't just "reskin" it, they added voice acting.

MDK2's audience ... heh. But similar compatibility issues apply.

They're not just reskins, a lot more was added.

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  T1 and t4 are really different. So many little things that you really couldn't mod it all with out some major revamping. For example the way mining works, or how crops work.

HGE2 is nearly completely Lua. Hundreds of thousands of lines of code. You could literally delete the HPKs and drop your own in place. Or just use the "Game" "HGO" and "HGE" directories.

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  There is a lotta behind the sceane stuff that is just different at the core. Perhaps you could add all that stuff in, But id think it would be a ton harder to add in elevation and wind, and terrain deformation as a couple examples. and the basic fact that the game at it's core is just different. Roads are a huge change and really change the gameplay.

The engine has support for all of the things you've mentioned already. The user-mode editor has nothing on the dev mode one

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  (I have been wondering if you could remove the roads from T4, and make um not able to be built with the challenge editor)

Yep. Done that a couple of times now. Haven't looked into the best method of doing it, but basically you remove all GarageBase properties, remove the Garage (or repurpose it to be ... something else?), repurpose the Metro in MT (noting that they're just entities), and you're good.

It's all in the Lua (except pathfinding).

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  anyways, I think it would be really cool to get a couple of people and spend a year re-modeling T1, and just add a few small engine changes for ease of use updates. Lets face it, there are just new tricks we can do in 2012, vs 1999 or soo when the devs orginally created the game.

I like to think there is room for all versions of tropico.

The original was optimised in ways I'd rather not even think (let alone talk) about. T3/T4 uses Lua. You'd probably get similar performance without the driving aspect in T3/T4 (just in terms of overhead of Lua->C calls going away), but if you rewrote it, fully optimised, who knows. Either Intel OR AMD CPUs would miss out when it got down to hardcore implementation details though -- times have changed.

(17-05-2012 06:44 PM)Tropije Wrote:  

(17-05-2012 06:40 PM)Server-Toni Wrote:  Well i like that in tropico. They plant where the best fields are. I dont't like this ANNO-Field-Style.

they don't always plant where best,.. some tropicans are not to smart..

Some overlords haven't been educated in forcing people to build in the right places by giving them no other options

Giving me a chance to layout my fields would be nice, its not taking away free will but allowing you to "maximize" your farm land so you waste less of it. The most precious resource in Tropico is LAND!!!

(18-05-2012 02:47 AM)SSRCP Wrote:  Giving me a chance to layout my fields would be nice, its not taking away free will but allowing you to "maximize" your farm land so you waste less of it. The most precious resource in Tropico is LAND!!!

Not in unmodified Tropico it's not ... 1500 people won't fill an island.

It is too much micro-control, I think. I disliked such field jigsaw puzzle in Anno 1404. It is time-and-nerve consuming with not much benefit on game fun. I hope that Tropico not to adopt such fun-less micro-control.

(17-05-2012 08:58 PM)Swixel Wrote:  They're not just reskins, a lot more was added.

well see that is the beuty of it,.. a T1 Reskin would be much simpler than reworking a whole game!

I've seen lots of games that fans have reskined.. The theif serries for example..

I just think t4 and t1 are just too different to add in everything t1 had, and remove all it doesnt. Even the simple things like the terrain is completly different. the gentle rolling hills, the polution system, beuty system, and don't get me started on tourism or media.. it is all a comptely different animal, even though they are similar.

If i was motivated i could probably list 100+ things that work differently.. Not to mention priates cove.. Boy that would be a good game to update as well..

have you played much t1 and t2? Just currious? Still wish kaylpso would add a reloaded forum.. they are actively selling the game, so i'm not sure why it doesn't have it's own forum..

(18-05-2012 03:50 PM)Tropije Wrote:  I've seen lots of games that fans have reskined.. The theif serries for example..

Yes, and again, there's no money in it But if you want, go for it. I'll be curious to see how you go about handling the ancient DirectX build The reason I suggested just remaking on the T3 or T4 engine is that it is Lua and you can tweak it all you like

(18-05-2012 03:50 PM)Tropije Wrote:  have you played much t1 and t2? Just currious? Still wish kaylpso would add a reloaded forum.. they are actively selling the game, so i'm not sure why it doesn't have it's own forum..

Yes ... I have old retail versions and the pre-order bonus (from T3 I think?) on Steam I'd also love to see a new Pirate Cove. Even a remake would be worth it -- honestly I had hoped when T3 came out that T4 would be piratey. I know a lot of people disliked it, but given all of the piratey goodness in the movies and TV over the last decade, feelings towards that sort of game style have softened a bit.

(18-05-2012 06:41 AM)Swixel Wrote:  

(18-05-2012 02:47 AM)SSRCP Wrote:  Giving me a chance to layout my fields would be nice, its not taking away free will but allowing you to "maximize" your farm land so you waste less of it. The most precious resource in Tropico is LAND!!!

Not in unmodified Tropico it's not ... 1500 people won't fill an island.

I didnt reference people. I referenced land. I play in high vegitation maps so i can farm/chop wood. But there's little tobacco farm land early in the game. Being able to mirco manage would be nice so instead of dropping a farm "hoping for the best" i can maximize my farmland.

Just so everyones happy maybe they can add this as a setting, Who says its one or the other? The game by defualt will auto place all land. There should be an advanced setting to allow us to manually select areas if we so choose....

See Everybody wins

(19-05-2012 07:47 PM)SSRCP Wrote:  

(18-05-2012 06:41 AM)Swixel Wrote:  

(18-05-2012 02:47 AM)SSRCP Wrote:  Giving me a chance to layout my fields would be nice, its not taking away free will but allowing you to "maximize" your farm land so you waste less of it. The most precious resource in Tropico is LAND!!!

Not in unmodified Tropico it's not ... 1500 people won't fill an island.

I didnt reference people. I referenced land. I play in high vegitation maps so i can farm/chop wood. But there's little tobacco farm land early in the game. Being able to mirco manage would be nice so instead of dropping a farm "hoping for the best" i can maximize my farmland.

The farmers plant on the better land, it's not a "hope for the best", it's down to you to guide them there with other things (buildings in the way of other potential spots, etc.).

My point is that with 1500 people you shouldn't have enough farms for the limited vegetation to be a problem, and if you're only building the one crop type you might want to fix your playstyle ...