president patata i just want to show my gratitude to u and your guide. it has shown me all the errors of my presidency. i bow down to u. plus i think the colors are kool

(30-03-2010 08:48 PM)FritoPatata Wrote:  Fellow forum posters, through my years of presidency... I have received your gratitude my compañeros, alas, I am nothing but a humble servant. You are MY masters, MY employers. I would like to extend my gratitude to the constructive critics, who help me to refine this guide through their valued suggestions and their kind words for the benefit of Tropico. Yes there are problems, there will always be problems, especially in the current board organization situation! The lack of proper subcategories, about which I hear so much these days, is one of them, and it WILL be resolved, in time, as the forum popularity stabilizes.

My election promise: An updated guide addressing the new gameplay in the Tropico 3: Absolute Power expansion!

Frito, your guide was invaluable to me! I'd pretty much given up on some scenarios, until I found your awesome guide here.

who is serial number

Excellent Guide!

-Although it may be misleading to refer to it as a "Transportation Guide", as it is so far also the best "Generic" guide I've seen.

Been awhile since i've looked at this thread. I have changed my thought on it, but not sure of the solution. While a "long circle" helps, and the smaller circles where 3 or roads cross, I've found the biggest issue is with cars stopping, and garages... Instant jam.
I would venture that using the smaller circles to connect 3 roads or more (the circle about the size of a power plant), and have all buildings off the main circle (theory) might help with moving cars around over all. I admit, i haven't really played with the smaller circles for muliple roads. I know where ever there are buildings, there will be traffic jams. And it REALLY becomes a problem when only one road leads to the dock, and buildings are on that road as well (deathwish).

Thank you very much for your wonderful guide!

I'm trying to stimulate a bit of interest in this thread again, particularly now that absolute power is out.

From this forum http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/caf...ic=11301.0

Quote by loverevolutionary - "I just figured out why the Taxi Tycoon Guide is wrong, and why his experiment didn't work: drop-offs. When a Tropican wants to visit a building, his car stops outside that building to let him off, holding up traffic. With only loops and no side roads, this will be a major problem. As intersections don't slow traffic down realistically, it may be better to have more intersections to side roads that have high traffic buildings fronting them. Also, without a nearby garage, the car will have to make a long trip to one, creating even more traffic problems."

This is also something I have observed.
One point not brought up by FritoPatata is the fact that cars don't just disappear they have to go to a garage after dropping off.
I haven't tested the loverevolutionary idea of side roads yet, does anyone else tested this?

I my last game I had a single route from my mining area to the dock with housing and services on a side loop on the way. Where houses were close to the main road junction, traffic slowdown was increased by cars dropping off at houses (which then continue on to another garage).

Hypothesis:
To effectively manage a large island traffic must free flowing. On a long road with no intersection and no drop offs cars move quickly and efficiently. This is want we want to achieve.
Congestion is caused by two things;
1) Cars trying to turn across traffic into and out of intersections (Cars turning right into an intersection do not really slow down that much and cause much congestion?)
2) Cars stopping for drop offs cause all traffic behind them to stop.

(16-08-2010 12:09 PM)bigfatjonny Wrote:  I'm trying to stimulate a bit of interest in this thread again, particularly now that absolute power is out.

From this forum http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/caf...ic=11301.0

Quote by loverevolutionary - "I just figured out why the Taxi Tycoon Guide is wrong, and why his experiment didn't work: drop-offs. When a Tropican wants to visit a building, his car stops outside that building to let him off, holding up traffic. With only loops and no side roads, this will be a major problem. As intersections don't slow traffic down realistically, it may be better to have more intersections to side roads that have high traffic buildings fronting them. Also, without a nearby garage, the car will have to make a long trip to one, creating even more traffic problems."

This is also something I have observed.
One point not brought up by FritoPatata is the fact that cars don't just disappear they have to go to a garage after dropping off.
I haven't tested the loverevolutionary idea of side roads yet, does anyone else tested this?

I my last game I had a single route from my mining area to the dock with housing and services on a side loop on the way. Where houses were close to the main road junction, traffic slowdown was increased by cars dropping off at houses (which then continue on to another garage).

Hypothesis:
To effectively manage a large island traffic must free flowing. On a long road with no intersection and no drop offs cars move quickly and efficiently. This is want we want to achieve.
Congestion is caused by two things;
1) Cars trying to turn across traffic into and out of intersections (Cars turning right into an intersection do not really slow down that much and cause much congestion?)
2) Cars stopping for drop offs cause all traffic behind them to stop.

Thanks for your continuing interest in my guide. I have to admit, I have not picked up Absolute Power yet, but from what I can understand, it really did not change much as far as the mechanics of traffic flow. It just added a smaller garage option and some dirt roads, which are generally just aesthetic in nature, and will certainly not improve traffic.

As far as cars returning to garages, this is really a factor that we cannot predictably control. The best we can do is provide adequate garage access at both the beginning of a Tropicans journey, and at the end. My guide seeks to keep all of the industries on your island together as to not interrupt your cash flow due to heavy traffic volume. By keeping industry separate from residential and commercial areas, you avoid a lot of the drop off traffic involved in the frequency at which Tropicans visit services. We should not really care as much about traffic in residental areas as we do about traffic that could affect our cash flow.

(16-08-2010 12:09 PM)bigfatjonny Wrote:  ... Hypothesis:
To manage a large island effectively, traffic must free flowing. On a long road with no intersection and no drop offs, cars move quickly and efficiently. This is want we want to achieve.
Congestion is caused by two things;
1) Cars trying to turn across traffic into and out of intersections ...
2) Cars stopping for drop offs cause all traffic behind them to stop.

I have to suggest that you neglect a third and perhaps most important cause of Congestion.

Every adult person has completely equal access to a single occupancy vehicle.

For pity sakes, there is no differentation of who gets to 'hit the road' by class, income or any rational concept of what number of vehicles ought to be on the road for gameplay purposes. Then the vehicles have to return to a garage DRIVERLESS because of the game design rule of "suspension of disbelief" does not allow a vehicle to vanish when the driver gets out? What could be more unbelieveable?

The player's attention is so completely diverted to road construction and traffic control that one wonders if the game is trying to compete with the 'transport tycoon' genre of games.

(25-08-2010 05:27 PM)CoconutKid Wrote:  The player's attention is so completely diverted to road construction and traffic control that one wonders if the game is trying to compete with the 'transport tycoon' genre of games.

***LOL***

But indeed... it' just: Make roads like a spiders-web. Always (!!!) use ONLY T-junctions. And also DECENTRALIZE the needs-buildings as everything else. And you will see the traffic slippering well.

This usually results in very funny looking excessively unsymmetrical, colorful, bended and twisted towns. This is usually not adequate for what the most posters here think is "right". They mostly need regularity. But this is not the way Tropicans or Tropico work at all!
At least this is my observation.

Maybe... just to mention: I nearly always play at full speed and do not pay much attention to those highscores... But I'm disappointed if I have to start a mission a second time because of failure!

(25-08-2010 05:27 PM)CoconutKid Wrote:  The player's attention is so completely diverted to road construction and traffic control that one wonders if the game is trying to compete with the 'transport tycoon' genre of games.

Is that a bad thing? I can't think of a more fitting city builder game to integrate Transport Tycoon type gameplay into considering just how much control you are suppose to have in this game over everything that is going on. When you consider the SimCity series which dosn't even make much use of much of the potential it has of offering transport strategy and yet still the transportation aspect is the only significant strategic gameplay in that series.

Even if the depth was merely directing the traffic on foot (The Settlers 2 anyone?), such as teamster routes and main walkways connecting one area to another, that would be a welcome addition in terms of adding more depth and it would be very fitting considering the games focus.

(28-08-2010 09:26 AM)Vimpster Wrote:  ... I can't think of a more fitting city builder game to integrate Transport Tycoon type gameplay into considering just how much control you are supposed to have in this game over everything that is going on. ... and it would be very fitting considering the game's focus.

I'm not quite sure what you consider to be the game's focus.

In any case, if you really wish to go the Transport Tycoon route, it's going to take a considerable additional amount of both development and gameplay resources, e.g. ironing out the current kinks and adding multiple people movers. But, different strokes ----

(29-08-2010 02:09 PM)CoconutKid Wrote:  I'm not quite sure what you consider to be the game's focus.

In any case, if you really wish to go the Transport Tycoon route, it's going to take a considerable additional amount of both development and gameplay resources, e.g. ironing out the current kinks and adding multiple people movers. But, different strokes ----

Well in the context of my last paragraph I was refering the game's focus to the tropical island setting the game uses.

As far as requiring more in game resources to be implemented and such, I don't think that would be neccesary. Its pretty much all there already. You already have farms producing raw resources and factories producing manufactured goods and teamsters assigned to moving all the goods around the island. The only thing really needed is some manner of setting up routes for the teamsters so as to add some strategic element to the whole process.

(29-08-2010 06:02 PM)Vimpster Wrote:  As far as requiring more in game resources to be implemented and such, I don't think that would be neccesary. Its pretty much all there already. You already have farms producing raw resources and factories producing manufactured goods and teamsters assigned to moving all the goods around the island. The only thing really needed is some manner of setting up routes for the teamsters so as to add some strategic element to the whole process.

This is exactly what I tried to highlight in my guide. Right now there IS a strategic manner to doing this. You need to ensure than the teamsters are going to take a short and mainly congestion free route from raw materials to factories and then from factories to the docks. I cannot stress how important it is to relocate your dock, sometimes multiple times in a single game, to ensure that your cash flow is not interrupted by civilian traffic.

I really love the guide. It helped me so much! I took a look at my best island and realized the problems immediately. I tracked it too. I went from making a about 500k a year to about 1 mill in the first year alone. Very good guide. Keep up the good work.

-El Presidente 1949

Nice post... interesting !

Finally I found something interesting about Tropico 3 strategies ^^

I must admit I'm almost using the same tactic to organize my islands.
My build order focuses mainly on farms and flats in the early stages of the game, then I quickly buy the first education building as well as a church, and some medical building, and basic entertainment buildings.
Then I focus on harvesting ore and building my industry, i.e. every industrial building I can use on said island.

Once I got a solid industry, and before the mines depletes, I move to the tourist building.

I tend to use the same organisation, with one side of the island dedicated to tourists, another to industry.
I found that having a circular road around the island solves most traffic jam issues IF and only IF you put enough secondary roads around garages, so they can be avoided "easily" and minimize the jams.

I do however have some issues with industry buildings...
I don't understand what ratio of harvesting building I need for each industry building I build.
I wasn't able to find as well how to place efficiently my industry building: do they have to be near the harvesters, or it doesn't matter at all?
Its also hard to see where a church is missing (no problem for freedom building, we have access to such stats), but what about religious buildings? And educational building? What's the ratio? Does their placement matters?

If you have any piece of info about that it would be great!

PS: at the moment I satisfied with my island, with almost 100% satisfaction for all factions (I set the game to custom, with a 80% difficulty, for testing purpose). I have a fine economy (reaching 1 000 000$ in a few months) and a lot of tourists ^^

(05-10-2010 03:03 PM)sybylle Wrote:  I do however have some issues with industry buildings...
I don't understand what ratio of harvesting building I need for each industry building I build.
I wasn't able to find as well how to place efficiently my industry building: do they have to be near the harvesters, or it doesn't matter at all?
Its also hard to see where a church is missing (no problem for freedom building, we have access to such stats), but what about religious buildings? And educational building? What's the ratio? Does their placement matters?

If you have any piece of info about that it would be great!

I have some insight into these topics... I'll address each in kind:
-On ratio of harvesting to industry buildings... it depends a lot on your chosen traits. If you have chosen farmer as your background (which I really like to do) then you can count 3 farms for every 2 that you own. I also like to choose Booze Baron and Hardworking as well, so I make massive amounts of money on alcohol and get great production from my industries. The general rule in my opinion is 2 farms for every factory, if your are a farmer and have located the farm on very fertile land, then 1 farm can probably sustain a factory on "easy does it" setting.

- On proximity of factories to farms... This is largely personal preference. Early on before you relocate your dock, it is best to place your factories near your farms and away from your populace. However, they should be as close as possible to a garage so workers can arrive quickly and goods can be easily moved to the dock. Once you have moved your dock, I like to locate my factories right by the dock, creating a very short path for finished goods to travel.

- On churches and service buildings... Your island should only have one church, but at a certain population point it becomes necessary to have more than one cathedral. This is not really something you can track, but you should monitor how many members of your island belong to the religious faction, eventually their respect will begin to decline without any obvious reason, and this is 99% of the time due to overcrowding of your first church and cathedral. I have never come across a situation where I needed to build more than one high school or college. Once your population becomes educated, quite often these buildings will sit fairly empty. You should follow the diagrams in my guide so you can see the optimal placement for Cathedrals and Education buildings, remember, you want Tropicans walking to these services if at all possible.

Thanks for reading my guide!

Ah I see ^^
I haven't finished reading your guide so far (was at work when I picked it >.>), but I'll do it accurately now

I'll see how it works on my last save...
I did had [as usual might I say] some troubles with religious and army from time to time, but I solved it building many churches and army camp (I'm rich, I don't care!).

Maybe I can destroy some buildings.... >

I can't tell you how much this thread helped in my island building. Thank you very much for everything.

your Transportation Guide is very helpfully.
Thank you very much for this good stuff!

Excellent guide and thanks. I havn't seen these big huge islands but can appreciate the problem. What I do is create a cloverleaf straight away, that is, the main st I start with is the center of said cloverleaf (playing pizza sandbox isle w/ 30 pop). Using all curved roads if I can help it, take each end of main st and split them into a "Y" with 2 road lengths, cap these "Y's" with loops and they kind of look like a snowcone, and will fit a gourmet restaurant or something small, then connect N/S with long curved E/W roads. Costs about $800. Long story short: don't "Tee" into a road, "Y" into it. All of them.

Thanks for the tip that teamsters in garages actually transport goods (I thought they gassed up cars and stuff) be aware thought that their native job satisfaction is on the same scale as farmers and there is no way to un-sweat them.

---

Factory/raws ratios are plastic because farmers etc yield varies w/ exp. Lumberjacks start at 50 and top out around 70. I only run furniture as a sideline but would probably run 2-3 lumbermills fed by 8-9 lumberjacks per each furniture factory. For style points I run one lumberjack per each logging site with both upgrades. (lonely, solitary creatures, lumberjacks are, actually, "OK")

(26-12-2010 03:36 PM)Knefsky Wrote:  Using all curved roads if I can help it, take each end of main st and split them into a "Y" with 2 road lengths, cap these "Y's" with loops and they kind of look like a snowcone, and will fit a gourmet restaurant or something small, then connect N/S with long curved E/W roads. Costs about $800. Long story short: don't "Tee" into a road, "Y" into it. All of them.

That sounds really good!
But unfortunately I can't get a picture of that been popping up in my brain. Maybe on a long dark December-day you might find the time to load up a picture of such a perfect "Y".

Happy x-mas greetings

Well the first thing I put down road wise is a racetrack oval around my starter town, thats what I mean by curves. Then take the starter main street and connect them to the oval in 4 spots. The 3rd street that usually goes nowhere is trashed. This is what I mean by "Y" >---< the dashes are main street. Might be undoable on a tight mountainous island.

I'm gonna try to modify this a bit if you were trying to create a more economically equal island. So basically only one giant housing zone is needed. Possibly because of this, you could place education centers, basic services, and AoE jobs more effectively. You could also eliminate the need for the power planet by building a couple wind turbines. Eventually you could possibly phase out all industry and export agricultural sectors by just turning the island into a giant resort, with almost everyone working in tourism, and all needed things like basic services, entertainment(that tourists could also use), education, etc. You could from there, make all food, fish. This is will cause you to lower food quality slightly, but you can now eliminate the entirety of agriculture. Now you could have only 3 main areas, main road, housing district, and a tourism/entertainment center.

There is also another thing to consider. tourist will travel to ANY entertainment building on the island, even if you placed a few near them. They can very easily ignore what is near and go by the pub you built "downtown". Becomes a challenge keeping the tourist and the locals seperate.

(07-01-2011 05:06 PM)Lenin Cat Wrote:  I'm gonna try to modify this a bit if you were trying to create a more economically equal island. So basically only one giant housing zone is needed. Possibly because of this, you could place education centers, basic services, and AoE jobs more effectively. You could also eliminate the need for the power planet by building a couple wind turbines. Eventually you could possibly phase out all industry and export agricultural sectors by just turning the island into a giant resort, with almost everyone working in tourism, and all needed things like basic services, entertainment(that tourists could also use), education, etc. You could from there, make all food, fish. This is will cause you to lower food quality slightly, but you can now eliminate the entirety of agriculture. Now you could have only 3 main areas, main road, housing district, and a tourism/entertainment center.

The problem that I find it doing it this way is that the tourism sector does not employ enough people if you have a large population. Going for a tourist economy in a recent game, I still needed to build out the industrial sector if not for the sole reason to employ people.

(22-05-2011 04:28 PM)LeaT Wrote:  The problem that I find it doing it this way [Lenin Cat's] is that the tourism sector does not employ enough people if you have a large population. Going for a tourist economy in a recent game, I still needed to build out the industrial sector if not for the sole reason to employ people.

This is pure curiosity! And somewhat OT from the transportation topic. Why be concerned with full employment and\or why doesn't the tourist industry provide full employment?

If you have sufficient revenue, you can pass the Social Security Edict and allow the Unemployed to live on the "dole." That way they provide a "reserve" for your workforce.

I understand that there is a limitation on the number of tourist "accommodations" that need to be built and that limits the employees needed for them. But what of the "attractions?" If you have the revenue and are not "scrouge-like" in demanding a profit from all of them, why not build enough of them to employ your surplus population?

Again, just curious.

First, let me say that like so many, FP's guide made a tremendous difference in my play. Thanks, FP, for putting it all together.

Second, I picked up playing again after a long hiatus, and I thought I might post how I tweaked FP's methods for my own use, in order to solicit feedback on the setup.

I make a generally loop-ish setup, as per FP's guide, but I also ranch beef...a lot...as in it's outproducing my oil...bunches. What I setup, after reading all about garages, is tiny little spurs, sticking in from the loop or main thoroughfare, each terminating in a garage. Between the main road and garage, along the spur, are a Market, a Church, a Clinic, and a Cabaret. Then, there's about 4 Apartments, 2 on each side of the spur, right before the garage. Sometimes I vary the exact building, but not often. Kind of like this:

FFF
FGF
R|R
R|R
H|E
C|M
------

Then, around the garage, I place 4-6 Ranches.

So far, what I've noticed is that this keeps a fair number of cars off the main roads, since everyone lives, eats, and gets care in the same location; those that don't, don't have to go very far. According to what I've read, Tropicans only use Garages where the live, and where they work. By placing everything they need on each spur, everyone basically works and lives near what they need. Exceptions occur, but they are acceptable traffic issues, like dockworkers or 'downtown' workers like teachers, etc. I keep the numbers of employees down to one or so at these locations; I consider the build cost minimal in the long run.

What I end up with is that all the 'support' Tropicans that service the Ranchers can also live in the local Apartments (they might not, but they could). Figuring on 12 Ranchers, plus 6 or so support people, means 4 Apartments more than suffice. It also keeps the supply of exports readily accessible, since they abut the garages.

Thoughts are welcome!

-J

Good guide.

However, personally I never use it. It doesn't look right.

It's makes the game look like any large scale city sim...reminds me of the strip malls of Anno. Ughh

While I do plan out my initial city. ( laying out roads, planning on future building, resource sites ) after awhile I just go with the flow...makes the city look more real. Go to the center of any city in the world and you'll see the center of the city is pretty much thoughtfully planned out but as you reach the suburbs it gets more and more chaotic.

That's the way my cities turn out...

While I can understand the need for planning and traffic control, by the time your city is that big you should be so buried in money and some little traffic jam, or lack of garage should make little difference.

I'll take a more natural looking city and island over the Indy 500 Speedway any day.

Not dissing your guide...I even gleaned a few new tips just reading it. Appreciate that.