I use to play the original Tropico for the longest time and attempted Tropico 2 but hated that one.

So about a month ago on a whim I bought Tropico 4 and I'm hooked but I've been dealing with a few issues.

What's up with the garages? About 15-20 years into the game I keep getting messages about garages being full, build another nearby. Well many of my garages are in downtown areas that are already packed. How does properly setup their garage system to keep traffic flowing smoothly?

Also, I get annoyed with requests to raise Healthcare/Religious rating. I never seem to be able to finish those. Any tips other than to build more?

Thank you![/font]

the key is to spread things out a bit..

Also, have things in walking distance. If a person can leave their house, and have a church, market, food, hosptiol close by, then there is no need to drive.

Make note of people and where they go. have low income areas, and high income areas.. make sure roads give easy access to places to help aleviate traffic jams. Stalk your tropicans and see how they move.

healthcare, isnt to hard, later in game hospitols are key, But expensive. Clinics can still be used but don't give the quality. (a chemical plant helps)

religion, churches are key. figure one per 75 people. You really only need a single cathedral. Also setting schools to patriarcal, and getting a newspapper with word of god helps. If your not concentrating on pubs/caberets for your entertainment,(aka only building one each) You can destroy them when you get the quest later in the game, then a few years later rebuild it so you can keep using your mardi gras edict.

Basically if your getting traffic jams, and over used garages, try changing your layout.. Cause it's a sign that something isnt set up well.

The traffic problem is a difficult one to predict when you start playing the game. By the time you get the problem, it's usually too late because you've already filled up the space and so there's no room for extra garages. Early game, you tend to build things very close together so people don't have far to walk to get to where they need to be, but it pays dividends long term to space a few things out.

When you play more, you start to think ahead a little. The one thing I always think about is "Will my teamsters be able to work efficiently i.e. fetch resources to factories/docks. Sometimes I may delete a bit of connecting road, so that even though the miners may have a bit of a drive to work, the teamsters will have a free run to the dock area.

When you play more, you'll start to instinctively place your buildings in more sensible places, but it could always cause an issue depending also on the shape of your island. Adding or repositioning a dock also can be beneficial.

The Garage overloaded problem though is often difficult to overcome once you get it. Not a game killer though.

Personally, I'd say do one thing, and it's not intuitive to me :

Do not specialise.

Do not have a residential zone, an industrial zone, an entertainment zone, and a religious zone.

Make every place you build have everything needed for your population there, and they will not travel (hopefully).

That being said - always plan road networks in advance. If you can get 2 roads through a possible future chokepoint, do it.

well you can have specialty zones, But the thing about them is you need easy access. The key to that is part of your city creation which is basically half the fun of the game.

I build garages EVERYWHERE. I wish they had parking lots that could be upgraded to garages because it looks a little weird to have garages all over the island when the I think the people cap is around 1500.

MT may solve the need to have so many garages so we'll see.

T4 is only a few tweaks away from being up there with SC as one of the best city sims ever created.

Cities XL is okay to but I get the impression they are barely alive.

(Edit to add: ) I'm not sure what the policy is here regarding mentioning other city sims. In situations like this, I usually let professionalism and common sense be my guide.

(21-02-2012 01:03 PM)genfinity Wrote:  I build garages EVERYWHERE. I wish they had parking lots that could be upgraded to garages because it looks a little weird to have garages all over the island

Totally agree.. there is a HUGE need for a rural parking lot. Atleast for those that like to stylize their islands