BUILDINGS Buildings are the most important thing in Tropico that you can control.

(The population you can't really do much about.) The tutorial will generally cover most of how to build structures and how to go about things in Tropico, but to know which buildings to construct is another matter. HOUSING Buildings that your population will live in. Housing can hold tenants and each tenant can have one more person living with them. (Husband & wife usually.) Housing Quality of each building will affect your approval rating from the population. Little importance in early game, Medium importance in mid-game, Above Average to High importance in late game. You don't have to build houses next to roads since people can walk to their house without losing much productivity.
Name Cost Space Required Housing Quality Tenants Comments

Shanty Bunkhouse Country House House Mansion Tenement Apartment Block Condominium

$150 $500 $1000 $2000 $4000 4MW $4000 $5000 $6000 6MW $0

6x4 6x3 4x5 4x7 9x6 7x8 6x8 4x7

15 25 50 70 95 38 60 85

1 3 2 2 2 12 6 4

Shacks

1x1 (?)

only holds 1 tenant for a 6x4 space, low housing quality. probably shouldn't bother building these holds 3 families. middle quality house that holds 2 families great quality house, 2 families. sounds good, but you'll need a ton of these to house everybody late game extremely high quality house. requires electricity (4MW), and houses 2 families. (build a few of these once your island is rich) This can be your workhorse building if you're trying to fit a ton of people really quick in small spaces. It holds 12 tenants but isn't amazing in house quality. I suggest going for Apartments even early on, skipping this entirely. this costs 1k more than Tenements, half occupancy, but nearly doubles the house quality. I highly recommend going for this and skipping Tenements early game a perfect replacement for Apartment Blocks late game. This bumps your house quality significantly to 85 and houses 2/3 your Apartment's dwellers. Since it occupies less space than Apartments, you can build more to compensate for the lack of occupants. Requires electricity to build and maintain. these are like mushrooms that grow anywhere, people will build this if they can live nowhere else. You can't build this on your own. Costs nothing. Horrible Housing Quality. Late game you should strive to have 0 shacks

General Housing Strategy When you start a game, a Tenement is usually around for the immediate population. Make income-generating buildings first and skip suggestions about housing. (leave a decent sized area in the middle of your town for future housing, or where you see Shacks forming.) Once you have income, its time to work on some housing. Build aDiplomatic Ministry and use the USSR Development Aid edict, which will half the cost of all Tenements and Apartments. (You will need some passable relations with USSR, so maintain it early on.) Build Apartments in your major Shack areas to appease the population. I suggest setting the Rent to 1 and clicking the "assign to all similar buildings" button. This can serve you for your whole regime if you want, but in the late game when you have more money than you can spend and nothing to do, you can invest in Condominiums. Make sure to have ample electricity, then begin to demolish a few Apartments at a time, then replace them with Condominiums. Sometimes you can place more Condo's than the demolished Apartments because they use less space - so make sure to spend a second playing Building-Tetris. Even if you don't change the Rent on these, the population will love living in them. All of the other Housing types can be used if necessary, but the Mansion is a good way to increase Housing Quality approval in extreme late game. FARMS & MINES Farms and Mines are your income creating, population feeding buildings that you will always need to build, especially early in the game. They generally require uneducated workers and produce decent profits in the early game. All of them create at least a minor amount of pollution. Most of them don't need to be built adjacent to Roads but they benefit from being accessible to the workers and Teamsters. People will travel to food-producing buildings to satisfy their hunger.
Name Cost Comments

Farm

$1500

Ranch Fisherman's

$750 $3000

All games generally start with 2 farms pre-built because this is your bread-&-butter way of feeding your people and exporting the excess for income. Crops available to grow are Corn, Banana, Papaya, Pineapple, Coffee, Tobacco and Sugar. Pineapple can be processed. Coffee, Tobacco and Sugar will be exported or processed but cannot feed your population. Farms will use a portion of its surroundings to plant its crops so leave space. A ranch is like a farm that grows animals to feed and export. Available animals are Cattle, Goats & Llamas. Llamas aren't eaten but their fur is exported. Can be upgraded to make Smoked Beef. Ranches need grazing space for their animals so leave some space, preferably in a green Pasture zone. Built near the shore and sends out fishing boats to gather fish which can be eaten by your people or exported or processed. Check your Overlay to see where the fishing is best.

Wharf Logging Camp Mine

$1500 $3000

Oil Well

$8000

A building that chops nearby trees and turns them into logs. Sells for export or processed into lumber. Can upgrade for faster production or tree regrowth. Adds some pollution. Don't build things around it too much so that trees will be available for chopping. This building sends out miners to nearby pockets of deposits (see your Overlay) and slowly depletes them. Iron, Bauxite and Gold can be mined for export. Gold can be processed. 3 available upgrades for production. Adds significant pollution. Devaluates the land where the deposits are at. Mining is supposedly a good way to earn export profits. Don't build things on top of the mining deposit because the miners won't be able to get to it. Must be built next to a Road. Place directly on top of a land-based oil deposit to export Oil Products for profit. Adds pollution. Requires College graduates as employees so take note before building one. Oil supposedly provides significant profits.

General Farming & Mining Strategy At the start of the game, hit the Pause button and click on the Overlay. Check your map for all the resources and possible farmland, mining, logging, ranchland, oil, etc. you can use. Make note of the deposits and decide if you want to pursue them later. Click on the two pre-built Farms and choose what product they should make. Pick an edible produce for each Farm and make sure they provide different food to improve your Food Diversity. Check their immediate surroundings for the best ones they can make. Next, while the game is still paused, find a suitable location for your other forms of uneducated exports. For example, if you want to build a logging colony, start by building Roadsto that area and try to build your Roads in a way that won't cut out the trees you need. (Later on, read on how to build roadways more effectively.) I suggest on concentrating in one type of product for now. Going for a combination of Farm exports, Logs, and Iron and Oil isn't going to make sense once you turn your attention to Industry. Anyway, in some games the pre-built Port needs to be connected to your Road network first. Next, I suggest building a Garage near your Construction Office / Teamsters Office / Palace. This will significantly improve build times. Unpause the game and send your Presidente to the Garage build site to speed up construction. Now, create about 3-5 profitable structures like Farms / Mines / Logging Camps etc. in your new area and wait. Send El Presidente to improve speeds. At this point, you will probably have little money left or in debt. You will need to wait 'till the year rolls over to get some Financial Aid from the US & USSR. As your money slowly start to trickle in and your farmers/miners/etc. get acquainted with their new jobs, you should outfit the new area with a Garage & Teamsters Office, preferably next to each other. Since your workers are human, they will need to travel to town or some other places every now and then, adding transportation will improve their productivity because they don't spend half their lives walking to-and-from their work. Teamsters are also important because they are the ones who take your products from their buildings and bring them to the Dock for export. Giving them access to cars to-and-from your production buildings will improve exports greatly. Personal Farming & Mining Strategy My playstyle concentrates on Sugar Farming > Rum Industry and nothing else. Yes, nothing else. There are many reasons for this style but suffice to say its the best in terms of profits, minimal pollution, and ease. (I believe its pretty easy and doesn't require a ton of micromanagement.) Follow the General Farming & Mining Strategy but your major goal is to create 3-5 Sugar Farms only. Find a good area for Sugar (doesn't even matter if its on the other side of your island, Rum exports is all worth it) and build your Road network to go there. If its particularly far, you can opt to build a Garage or Construction Office near there first. Once your infrastructure is in place, build about 3-5 Farms as money allows. Sugar money isn't amazing but you can go straight into Rum Distillery as soon as possible after the initial profits and after that will never have money problems for the rest of your time as El Presidente. (Explained more later on my Personal Industry Strategy.) INDUSTRY While basic exports can be profitable, it just doesn't sell high enough. To upgrade your economy to the next level, you need to build Industry buildings. These take raw materials and turns them into processed goods that sell for a lot more than basic commodities. Industry buildings require High School educated workers or better. Most upgrades require electricity. Some need to be connected to Roads but being accessible is always advantageous. It is recommended to build Industry buildings between your Raw Material producing buildings and your Port, preferably near Teamsters and Garages. This will make sure your Teamsters will pass by the Industry building and drop off the Raw Materials before going to the Port. And this will also ensure that your Industry exports are delivered as quickly as possible.
Name Cost Comments

Lumber Mill Cigar Factory Rum Distillery

$5000 $10000 $22000

Processes Logs from Logging Camps into Lumber. Lumber can be processed further into Furniture. Upgrades for less pollution, and productivity. Takes raw tobacco leaves and rolls them into Cigars. Can be upgraded for less raw material use, job quality, and producing Machine Rolled Cigars which cost less but get processed faster. The most expensive industry building is also a veritable Gold Mine so if you're ever going to build just one Industry, this should be it. Takes sugar products from Farms and brews them into Tropican Rum. Rum is one of the top export prices available. Can be upgraded for production and Spiced Rum, which sells for even higher.

Jewelry Factory Furniture Factory Cannery Oil Refinery

$13000 $17000 $15000 $15000

A jewelry factory will take Gold and turn them into Jewelry. Gold deposits in maps are generally small and will deplete before your game is over so make sure to take that into consideration. Upgrades available are for Job Quality, Faster Worker Experience, and Fine Jewelry, which is the highest priced export. Must be connected to a Road. Furniture Factories are 2nd tier Industry buildings that require lumber from Lumber Mills to make furniture. This is the only product export that requires two buildings to process. Can be upgraded for Production, and Job Quality, but one upgrade's side effect is +50% Pollution. Must be connected to aRoad. A Cannery is almost an all-in-one processing plant for a lot of products. It can take Coffee, Fishes and Pineapples for canning. If you spread out your raw material production into something that suits a Cannery, then you should invest in these. Upgrades for production and Freeze Dried Coffee, which sells higher. The refinery is a beach-built building that will send out tankers to underwater oil deposits and collect them for export. Can be upgraded for extra storage and less pollution. Requires College graduates to operate. It doesn't require Raw Materials from other buildings to process. (However, I think it "refines" oil and sells it as a different Oil Product than the Oil Well. If so, Teamsters can probably take Oil Well products for "refining" here. Will need to check up on this.)

General Industry Strategy Once you've built your initial couple of Raw Material producing Farms/Mines/etc, stop building anything for a while and wait for some export profits. A decent turnout from about 4-5 Farms should give you around 15-20k on a good shipment. If you still aren't in huge debt yet, (I hope not) then build your first major Industry building as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if you'll end up with a little debt because once your Industry gets to work you'll should never have money problems again. Since you've built an area and concentrated on one type of export to process, your Industry building should be placed near your area closer to the Port than all your Raw Material producing buildings. This way, your Teamsters will pass it by and drop off the materials for processing. Most industries require High School graduates. Once the building is built, one or two workers might start to work there. These are usually Immigrants with High School diplomas because you haven't built a High School yet. They can also come from your Soldiers at the Palace and switched to Factory working instead. Since it should be early enough, there shouldn't be too many problems that require Soldiers. Let them be. As soon as you can, most probably once the first shipment of processed goods have been exported, you should immediately hire foreign experts on your Industry building, preferably fill it up with workers. (Since first export would usually give you 20k+.) A full factory is important to maximize your Industry efforts. Unless necessary, don't build more than one of the same Industry building because what would usually happen is that the workers from one building will just split-up to man the other building. After a year or so, consider buying non-electricity requiring upgrades for this one building. The best upgrades are the ones that make higher quality exports like Spiced Rum, Freeze Dried Coffee, Fine Jewelry (I think the latter two require electricity), also there's Machine Rolled Cigars if you need to produce more. Oil Refineries are different here because they don't require Raw Materials and don't apply to this build order. They also require College workers so consider them as nonoptions until late in the game. IGN http://guides.ign.com/guides/14327511/page_2.html

Getting Started
Every dictator knows that the people are his/her most important asset. Unhappy people tend to protest and can even become rebels and conduct subversive activities. Make sure that you have basic needs like religion, entertainment and healthcare covered early on in the game. Keeping Your People Happy As more money becomes available, you can address other needs such as quality housing, liberty, education and lower crime. Factions demand messages and the various radio announcements can give you a good idea of what your people currently need. Do not forget that you can issue edicts such as "Food for the People" and "Social Security" in order to boost morale. If things get out of hand, an immigration office set on "Love it or leave it" work mode can help to vent off some of the pressure. Builders, Teamsters, Dockworkers These professions may not be very prestigious, but they are the backbone of your island's economy. Make sure you always have citizens employed in these positions as their absence will have adverse effects on your economy. Raise the salary in the corresponding building if necessary. Establishing an effective transport system is very important in Tropico 3 as it immensely speeds up the transportation of people and goods on the island. Transport System Garages serve as entry points in the transport system, so make sure you have one built at both the beginning and the end of the route you have planned. Note that a garage can stop operating if there are no workers in it and can also become overloaded due to heavy traffic. If such an occasion arises you can click on the corresponding notification in order to view where the problem is.

MAKING MONEY It is very important to establish a stable cash flow early on in the game. You accomplish this by building some farms, mines or logging camps. Be careful Getting Started though, as your workforce is limited to the number of citizens on the island and you can end up with a banana economy. If you end up short on workers for your buildings you can construct an Immigration Office in order to attract immigrants from abroad. Building up an industry Before investing in an expensive industry building make sure your island produces the resources required for its operation and can educate qualified workers to staff it, as hiring foreign workers may prove costly in the long run. In order to set up a successful tourism industry you need to build a tourist dock, some tourist accommodations, and at least a few attractions. A high service Developing tourism quality in these buildings will, ensure that more tourists will leave happy from your island, providing an increase to your tourism rating. The higher your tourism rating, the more tourists will decide to spend their vacation on your island. Also consider that different types of tourists prefer different attractions. POLITICAL The majority of your citizens will be affiliated to one or more of the different island factions and will be affected by that faction's overall respect towards you. Each faction will have its own demands and will comprise of a different part of your population. The Communists and Religious factions for example will Factions usually have more supporters than the Environmentalists and Intellectuals faction. This proportion is not static and can be changed during the course of the game by setting specific work modes on buildings such as the High School and the Newspaper. Each faction has a leader whose opinion of your regime has a strong effect on that faction's overall respect. You can issue personal actions from the citizen's info-panel in order to gain an unhappy leader's favor or take more drastic measures and remove the problem altogether. Any good dictator knows that elections are a necessary evil. Refusing an election will drastically drop your citizens respect and may even trigger an uprising. You can issue the "Early Elections" edict in order to hold an election anytime you like, but be mindful that this will increase your citizens' democracy Elections expectations and they will demand elections more often in the future. If you find yourself behind in the polls do not despair - there are still measures you can take to turn the situation around. You can issue various edicts such as "Food for the People" and "Mardi Gras" in order to gain an immediate boost to your citizens' respect. If all else fails you can always make a "slight adjustment" to the ballots on the day of the election. Be careful though, as cheating will lower the respect of your citizens. As they say "no man is an island". Just the same an island cannot remain isolated from the rest of the world for long. Balancing your foreign relations between the US and the USSR can be hard but if you manage to get on their good side, you can receive a substantial amount of money in the form of foreign aid. Building a Diplomatic Ministry will help you to improve your foreign relations and will grant you access to new edicts. Foreign relations When your island enters debt, your relations with the foreign superpowers will begin to worsen rapidly. Be mindful of this, as maintaining bad relations with one superpower for too long will provoke them to invade your island, which will put an untimely end to your regime. Often the foreign relations with one superpower can take turn for the worse even when you have no debt. Building a military base owned by the other superpowers will prevent the invasion.