Many people here have stated that sandbox is too easy, and on the average settings, I agree. But has anyone ever set all of the sliders to the maximum (or minimum) as the case may be?

If so, how did it work out? Still too easy?

I play to maximize score, and since character background, rise to power, and traits do not affect the difficulty modifier, I often choose my favorite traits:

• Farmer: For my particular playstyle I guess booze baron might be better but I want a diversified economy
• Hotel corporate buyout: I noticed that an early hotel+tourist attraction counteracts the monthly decrease due to wages and helps stabilize the treasury, instead of it alternating between positive and negative so for example you won't find yourself debt at the crucial moment when a factory needs to import raw materials to be unloaded from a docked freighter
• Financial genius, entrepreneurial, hardworking: For production and export price bonuses
  

On the other hand, game settings do affect the difficulty modifier so for island geography I go for moderate settings but occasionally for a challenge I set both minerals and vegetation sliders to minimum and import everything and have sort of a mini-Japan going. Also, some pre-made maps come with somewhat higher difficulty modifiers when in fact some of them are even easier than most random maps because fertile croplands and resource deposits are so conveniently placed e.g. Tierra de Veganza

As with game settings,

• Political stability = min: rebels are notoriously stupid and the people are incredibly gullible and easy to please
• World economy = min: the negative modifiers are offset by more production and higher prices from a combination of traits, building upgrades or edicts
• Tourism = min: I don't focus too much on this anyway, I just build tourist accomodations for building variety and for the ability to zoom in close to the scantily-clad female tourists at the beach sites
  

Game length = max: I really feel this and the following two settings' effects on the difficulty modifier do not scale very well; in the case of this setting for example changing game length by +-10 years changes the difficulty modifier by a linear scaling factor of only +-5%, while the main components of score such as population and treasury balance increase exponentially over the course of a game
Starting pop = min: low starting pop can be grown quite easily by building an immigration office @ open doors, then later by issuing china dev't aid and festival of love as well as building hospitals/sanitaria @ "obstetrics" work mode
random events = normal: I've often considered setting this to the max because most of them are readily solved with money when the economy is established but if you're unlucky enough to get one at the very start of the game it could be game-breaking.

And finally,
Rebel yell + free elections = on: as I've said, rebels are notoriously stupid and the people are incredibly gullible and easy to please, and if ever election results are in doubt just issue a tax cut right before the results come out
Faraway place = on: tourists still come, some ironically from places that are further away from the US, if we assume Tropico is located somewhere in the caribbean, which is directly to the southeast of the US

Given these settings, and especially the new modern times cheesiness, my games turn out pretty well, as evidenced by this little snapshot from my current sandbox game: agro-industry fueled by bio-farms is maturing and am currently expanding into mineral deposits to feed my weapons/jewelry factories and later electronics and car factories... onward, my malnourished underpaid and overworked slaves!


...

(P.S. holy hell I think I got a bit too carried away there! Gonna get some sleep now)

Thanks Dicktator!

So has anyone tried the game on maximum difficulty?

(19-06-2012 06:19 PM)beancounter Wrote:  Thanks Dicktator!

So has anyone tried the game on maximum difficulty?

I have and it is still too easy. I usually only get one or two rebels on the hardest difficulty, the people are easy to please and I'm still able to generate decent income.

If you want a challenge then play the campaign mode.

well the best way to make a sandbox island that is a challenge is to use the editor, and tweak some things.

then every 5 years have some repeating scripts.

things like increasing rates people need to saticfy needs. Like set it up to all citizens, and increase food need by 100%, but you can do this with all.

then you can add others to add rebels every 5 years, or criminals..

another thing you can increase building cost, or edict cost.

If you would like i have been meaning to make a challenging sandbox, but honeslty i never can decide on what map to use, and making your own takes a long time.

So if ya have a preference, perhaps i will finally give it a shot. I supose i could use any map, and then just copy all the code to all the maps at a later time.. Rebel Beta was actually an attempt at a sandboxish story map, But MT came out, and i lost interest and got into other gaming hobbies. But i still have the desire to make a challenging tropico map/mission in t-4

another thing i thought about was to make a Long campaign mission.. start it in like 1930, so all the MT stuff comes much much later, along with removing some other buildings to unlock at a later time, but again i never got motivated to actually do it.. Darn ADD and other games..