Part 3

Tropico 4 Part 3 covers essential edicts like Social Security, late game building strategies, and housing options like Tenements and Apartments.

Edicts:

1. Enact Social Security (General).
2. Enact Literacy (Education) once High School Teachers are skilled.
3. Enact Pollution Standards and Building Permit (Economy) if you care about the Swiss Bank Account, waiting for marketplace workers to be skilled.
4. Enact Litter Control (Interior) once Policemen are skilled.
5. Enact Secret Police (Interior) using a Pub or Restaurant to prepare for scenarios requiring 3 secret agents and to help with random events.
6. Consider ministers for Defense to handle random events, assuming you have skilled soldiers at the palace.
7. Enact other edicts as you see fit.

Industry Choice:

You can either begin your tourism industry or stay with manufacturing.

To begin tourism:

1. Build a dock.
2. Build three Hotels.
3. Build 3 attractions/entertainment venues.

Alternatively, build a second industry.

Industry Management:

1. Allow imports for all industries.
2. Set your port to infinite imports.
3. Upgrade industries when you have sufficient money.

Stabilization Period:

Allow your society to stabilize. Workers will initially be unskilled and slow. Buildings may take time to become efficient, and your high school will need time to graduate students to fill open positions, potentially leading to a worker shortage (the opposite of unemployment). Set the game speed to level 3, manage random events, and wait. As time progresses, workers will become more skilled and efficient, and more immigrants will arrive to fill empty slots. This period may last a few years, during which you might experience financial losses, but the situation will improve.

Late Game Preparation:

You are ready for the Late Game when your treasury has a minimum of $50,000 and you are making regular exports on cargo ships (earning $35,000 – $50,000 each). A potential issue is that building upkeep may nearly equal your export value, consuming all profits before the next ship arrives. Continue following the guide. Warning: DO NOT enact the Print Money edict, as it increases the cost of everything and is not worthwhile.

Late Game Buildings:

• College
• Science Academy – set to Research Grants.
• Bank – set to Urban Development (can be built in Mid Game to save on construction costs if you plan to invest in a foreign expert).
• Newspaper – set to Coupons 'N More, placed near housing.
• Power Plant – set to Natural Gas (or Nuclear Plant if making substantial money, or Solar Plant if you have Modern Times and it is after 1975). Use Electrical Substations to extend power radius if needed.
• Radio Station – set to Opera, placed near the residential district.
• TV Station – set to Lucha Libre, placed near the residential district.
• Hospital
• Cathedral
• Add entertainment buildings as desired (e.g., Night Club, Movie Theater).
• Expand industry (tourism or manufacturing) as needed or desired.

At this stage, you should have a stable economy, happy citizens, and widespread approval. You can then pursue scenario objectives or achievements. You should have abundant money, and the map is yours. Scenario maps typically have no time limit, while Sandbox maps last until the year 2000.

Notes on Housing:

A Tenement can house approximately 25 people. A general rule is to build 1 Tenement for every 25 people, plus 2, to accommodate population expansion without shacks and account for unmarried individuals.

There is a debate between using Tenements or Apartments. Tenements have lower living satisfaction but offer more space and are cheaper to build (even cheaper with USSR development aid). Apartments provide a much better quality of living but have less capacity for their cost and size.

In mid-game, you can build a Fire Station set to Cat-in-Tree, which increases the living conditions of surrounding housing by 10 points and responds to fires. In late-game, you can provide air conditioning to each Tenement, further raising living conditions. With these upgrades, Tenements can reach a living condition rating of 60, which is sufficient for most scenarios. Apartments can reach 80, but building enough to house the same population requires more construction and land area.

Tenements also simplify the early game. It is suggested to use Tenements in early and mid-game, then switch to Apartments or Modern Apartments in late-game. Keep at least 4 old Tenements with rent set to 0 to house students, the elderly, and the unemployed, reducing the number of shacks.

Other housing options are generally not recommended unless for specific objectives or aesthetic choices in sandbox games.

If you have the Modern Times (MT) DLC (downloadable content — extra missions or items released after launch), the Modern Apartment Building is superior to the Apartment Complex. It costs slightly more, requires power, but houses the same number of people as a Tenement and offers additional features, making it ideal for late-game residential growth.

The Ziggurat in MT is a very large building requiring significant power, housing 50 families (100 people).