I played a game yesterday, that went fairly well for 30-35 years, but then my economy tanked, and hovered at around -90k to -120k, for year after year after year. Finally the Soviets invaded me.

The cause of the problem was clearly that I didn't have enough Teamster buildings, but once I became aware of that, I was so far in debt I couldn't afford to build even one such building. I've never used the Print Money option, and didn't do it in this case either. I hoped the local economy would get moving again, as my exiting Teamsters (IIRC I had 2 buildings) moved stuff to the Port for export, but I only made about 20-35k per year and my expenses kept pace.

I tend to run islands based on production and export, usually a mix of Farms and Logging Camps and Fishermen's Wharves. I never do tourism, and I almost never do mining or oil.

In the most recent game I saw that my Farms and Fishermen often had 250-350 items of output ready to be moved, and I figured that was ungood, so I built a 2nd Teamster and quickly a 3rd, then a 4th. But I think that may have been too much too fast.

At what "output" level should I start to worry? Consistently 400-500 units in several different buildings?

Is there some rule of thumb, like 1 Teamster Building per 90 Tropicans?

I kinda like the idea of building 1-2 Teamsters at each of my Garage nodes, but then closing most of the employment slots, so that I have the buildings and can increase employment when I figure I need it. Two problems with this. First of all, it's the expense of building it, which gets frontloaded. There may also be a running cost of having a building with zero employees or just one, beyond salary. I don't know that. Secondly, finding the things when I need them, since I have to click on each individual Teamster's Building to configure it.

In my most recent game, I build two Armouries right next to each other, very early, and closed 2 slots in each, simply in order to reduce the amount of micromanagement I'd have to do during the later game. Having the buildings next to each other makes it fast and easy, no hassle trying to find each individual instance of one kind of building, if they're all next to each other.

But I figure with Teamsters there might be a point to having them more distributed, over the island.

I just didn't like the way I lost the game yesterday. I had a good production going, a Lumber Mill, Furniture Factory and Cannery, and 4 or even 6 Fishermen's Wharves, and a variety of Farms. But my stuff ended up being moved too slowly, and by the time I saw that I was deep in debt.

well what i see, is no upper end level money making. You skipped tourism, which hotels make a decent amount of money with out much tending. Just focus on things that both tropicans and tourists can use and you should be good for getting wealthy tourists. (casino, sports complex, cabarret, pyramid museum, gourmet restraunt, movie, and if room a zoo) though you can add a beach site and senic outlook too, because they are pretty cheap, and give good ratings.

i don't see mention of coffee, cigars, or rum. which, you should have atleast 2-3 buildings of this type. (get tv station with learning with larry near industrial park.. and try to get some banks inside this radious too

I also see no mention of media. a radio station in the city near tenements set to pop station, , or another near condos on something else, i forget the name should bring in money. a tv station is also a good idea, or even a newspapper set to cupons. Tv station radius of effect is about 3x as it is long. the radio is slightly smaller, the news papper slightly bigger.


You mention armories, but i'm not sure why. those buildings are for military. they let you call an edict (i think) but minaly they are just generals, so you can build more gaurd posts. So they don't have anything to do with economy.


in T3, adding teamster buildings really isnt nessesary. Just have enough garages. A good garage layout is key. tropicans don't like to walk, and walking a long way really kills your economy. You want a garage near farms, or basically anywhere that you have people. the most you want a tropican to walk is maybe 3 blocks, but typically should be less than 2 blocks. think of a block as 2 tenements, a garage, then 2 more.. sqaures of that size are good.

If you have inputs over 600 constantly, look into building more garages in places they might help. You can build another teamster office if you like, and then close off slots in your garages. Better job rating, but it does reduce the amount of cars it can service.. (atleast i think it does)


I really think if you build an industrial sight, that has a couple tabbaco buildings, your furnature factory, then also get a construction office and teamsters building near by... in a tv station with learning with larry going.. it also would be a good idea to find room for 2-3 banks just on the outskirt radious of the tv station, closer to town..

give that a try and watch the money roll in..

here is a screenie from an early mission in the t3 campaign.. I think it is the third mission.. gives you an idea of what i was talking about.. the industrial park is down near the shore on the other side. though remember, this mission has limited avaiablity of buildings, so no tourism and i don't think i used media either but atleast it is an idea of what a layout could be like.

Hmm a strange strategy you got

first of all why no mining or oil - they are in my opinion the most profitable industries, secondly tourism can be useful if your island has a beautiful beach area, a few hotels and bungalows a beach site, the cheap attractions (shop, tour office, ...) and all the stuff working for citizens as well (pub, restaurant, kabarett, child museum) give you quite easy money, of course it's much more steady unlike industry, but the main advantage in long missions is --> you can't run out of resources

secondly each building does not only cost a lot of money to build (which you tend to not have in early game, also it costs time for your builders), it also permantly costs maintenance - and that in addition to the wages of your workers, so too buildings which half workers is less efficient then 1 with full workers

concerning the need for teamsters --> in early i usually fire half of the teamsters and use them in other areas - later need more but as you should build several garages in the housing areas, and 1 where your farms/industry is you usually have enough teamsters ( i am having each garage full though, if it doesn't have workers it doesn't work as far as i know) - i rarely have 2 teamster offices
what could be is that your road system has problems, do you have big traffic jams? that could cause a lot of delay - it often makes sense to build grid like networks (like in american cities) - also on some islands it makes sense to build a new dock (and destroy the old one) if it is than much closer to your industrie / farms / mines ...