Tropico 3 is a great game that signified the leap of the Tropico franchise into the 3D realm. However, it had gaps in its designs as well as many rough edges.
Its expansion, Absolute Power, addresses some of these issues and adds new things that contribute to the value of the entire package. However, it does little for about as many existing problems. Some of the new content isn't entertaining and is perhaps even aggravating.
Absolute Power uses the same game engine, same models and animations, and same sound files for existing content, so the player should not expect any changes in the aesthetics of things that are already in the original game.
The player can expect new buildings, goods and services, policy options and edicts alongside the original ones however, and these can spice up the existing game mechanics in entertaining ways. There is even a new game mechanic by the name of "Megalomania", which will be elaborated on later.
Previously, iron ore is little more than an export commodity after it is extracted from the island's mineral reserves. In Absolute Power, there is a structure that adds value to iron ore, but instead of a typical smelting plant that converts iron ore into boring ferrous products, it is a Weapons Factory that produces firearms and ammunition. Being goods of rather harmful nature that are made during the Cold War to boot, there can only be two customers who are willing to purchase these goods: the USA and the USSR.
The export of weapons, which fetch prices far above those for iron ore, contribute to the mechanic of keeping good relations with either superpower. The player can export to just one superpower to curry favor with it, at the expense of goodwill from the other, or sit on the fence and sell weapons to both (which raises the ire of both anyway, though to a lesser degree compared to that of snubbing either).
Such designs for the value-adding of iron ore are unexpectedly delightful. There is nothing new for bauxite ore, so it retains its status as an early-game source of income for players who do not mind starting Tropico's economy with a pollution-heavy solution.
Speaking of pollution, in the previous game, there is not any visual method of examining the pollution level of Tropico, other than to listen to Juanito's broadcasting of the Environmentalists' complaints or looking at the environment rating of the island. There is not really any quick and efficient way to significantly reduce pollution either; at most, the player can only purchase building upgrades that reduce pollution or painstakingly decorate the entire island with trees, gardens and shrubberies.
In the expansion, there is a new building under the Infrastructure tab simply called the Garbage Dump, and it looks exactly like such. In addition to being a spectacularly well-detailed eye-sore (this is actually a compliment to the developer for having invested effort in its graphical design), the Garbage Dump somehow reduces the pollution level of a large zone on the island. The Garbage Dump itself generates pollution (albeit highly localized), ironically.
Regardless of the (likely deliberate) quirks in the designs of the Garbage Dump, the player will be placing this building all about the island and purchasing its upgrades, because pollution especially affects other aspects of the island in tangible ways now, such as heavy pollution causing tourism ratings to sky-dive. Clicking on a Garbage Dump - and this is easy because it is a large, obvious-looking building - allows the player to see a visual representation of the pollution level around the island, color-coded in a similar manner to how the levels of liberty and crime are presented in the original game.
Furthermore, the policies for a Garbage Dump can be used to gain money, at the expense of goodwill from the Environmentalists, or curry quick favor with them in exchange for higher maintenance expenses.
In this reviewer's review for the original game, there was a complaint about the lack of animations for entertainment buildings. The existing ones still lack animation, but the new ones are a lot more animated. Notable examples include the Hot Air Balloon Ride, which spawns a balloon model with animated passengers, and the Ferris Wheel.
In the original game, the player has to keep either superpower happy to prevent an invasion, which can only be prevented by having an alliance with one or the other; yet, this alliance also brings with it complications (in addition to plummeting relations with the opposing superpower), such as the undesirable presence of foreign troops on the island.
In Absolute Power, the player can hold back both at bay by building and maintaining a Nuclear Weapons Programme, which also contributes to the Megalomania rating of the player (more on this later). It's a very expensive solution (and one that angers the superpowers too), but it is still an alternative if the player is not able to juggle relations with either.
Requirements for certain edicts have been changed to be more sensible. For example, the Same-Sex Marriage Edict now requires the achievement of a certain level of liberty instead of approval from the Intellectuals. This is a more sensible and practical requirement, especially if the player is having difficulty appeasing the various factions.
A missing gap in the low-level tiers of education has been plugged with the introduction of Grade Schools, which can give early-life education to fledgling Tropicans. The benefit of these is that when said Tropicans reach adulthood, they gain an increase in Intelligence (which helps them gain experience faster), but also experience bonuses to randomly selected skills. The player can even alter the education policies to have the graduates of Grade Schools being politically aligned to certain factions, in return for giving up said bonuses.
There are some improvements in the AI scripting of Tropicans, which are much welcome. Some examples will be cited here.
Citizens happen to loiter far less in their free time now, especially if there are other things that they can do with their spare time, such as spending money over at entertainment buildings. Travel time is no longer considered in the work shift hours in Absolute Power. This is a beneficial change.
There are also improvements in the pathfinding AI for road-bound people now. Drivers will consider travel times and traffic conditions when selecting paths that will lead to their destinations, and they will also change paths whenever possible if they are caught behind a long row of other road users. However, the improvement is not so much that road networks in Tropico can consist of single-road stretches and suffice for commuting purposes; the player will discover that at least pairs of parallel roads are still needed, and that he/she needs to build critical buildings like Construction Offices and Teamster Offices away from regions with heavy traffic.
(The latter is especially important as the people who work at these buildings will commit themselves to work shifts once they have exited the buildings in vehicles now. If there is a traffic jam in front of these buildings, they will be caught in this jam indefinitely until they die from degradation of their health or fired from their jobs.)
Garages are now smaller buildings, which is a good change as the player will still have to build quite a lot of garages to make sure that every region on the island offers a motorized solution for citizens who want to move about.
There are new backgrounds and traits for the player to create a new President with. Like in the previous game, they bring benefits in return for some amusing penalties.
Previously, the player can only gauge the reasons for the various political factions' attitudes towards the President through occurrences like radio host Juanito's airing of their grievances; their respective approval ratings do not tell much about these.
In Absolute Power, the player can now select the entry of each political faction in the list of approval ratings, and see the reasons that contribute to the ratings in the tab on the side. These reasons are categorized under so-called "major" and "minor" reasons; practically, though, major reasons are issues that the player should address or risk a severe penalty in relations, while minor reasons are issues that can be optionally resolved, usually for very significant improvements in relations, or simply ignored without much of a consequence.
This is not the only improvement in the user interface. There are others, such as farms now showing how many months there are left to the next harvest and the current estimated production rate of factories, whenever the relevant buildings are selected.
The feature of Megalomania has been added to make the game more interesting, as well as address one minor complaint in the previous game, which is that the player can't play the game such that the President seem more like a self-centered, sanctimonious despot without leading to a straight game-over. This feature allows the player to make decisions in the form of new Edicts and investments in the form of new buildings that not only pad the player's ego, but also bring about all kinds of benefits and challenges.
One of the Edicts concerns the fact that Tropicans get a lot of things for free but not accommodation (unless they live in shacks). Using the megalomaniacal Edict of Free Housing, the player can gain a huge boost in popularity from many segments of the Tropican population (except the Capitalists) and close to 100% utilization of residential buildings, but no income from them (of course) and more importantly, the risk of angering a lot of people if and when the player has to repeal this edict to shore up revenue.
The player can also provoke the rebel forces on the island into a battle now, instead of waiting for them to launch attacks, in order to trim their numbers preemptively. However, in this case, their target is almost always the Presidential Palace, so the player risks a game-over if he/she provoked them at a poor time.
Certain factions can be banned with an Edict against them, though this Edict can drive all members towards joining the rebels or migrate from the island en masse (if the player's emigration policies allow them to do so).
If the player is running out of money, he/she can make a last ditch effort to get more by printing money, though this will of course cause a lot of permanent economic complications, namely inflation. Still, printing money can help achieve certain scenario goals in a hurry, if the player intends to abandon the session altogether afterwards.
Next, there are buildings associated with Megalomania. These are very expensive buildings, but once they are built, they confer massive bonuses, usually towards the tourism sector of Tropico (as they are typically majestic sights), but may also bring out side effects that may be undesirable or not, depending on the player's plans.
For example, there is the Golden Statue building, which is practically a larger, gold-gilded version of the President's model. This statue is a visual attraction that may convert Tropican visitors into Loyalists (which is always good), but it also becomes a major target for rebels. Another example is a giant statue of a certain person of religious significance; building this creates a visual attraction and curries huge favor with the Religious faction, but also converts visitors to the Religious faction that in turn increases this faction's clout, for better or worse.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of the feature of Megalomania is the inclusion of the Loyalist faction. This faction, unlike the other factions in Tropico, will ever either vote for the President in elections if they are satisfied that the player is exerting his/her despotic influence on Tropico , or not at all if the player is accommodating of demands for more openness and democracy. Regardless, there are many new policies and Edicts that affect the proportion of Loyalists in the Tropican population; the player may want to use these, as Loyalist Tropicans will never revolt and are very difficult to displease.
Making Megalomaniacal edicts, building buildings associated with Megalomania and other related decisions increase the player's Megalomania score, which counts towards the total score of the session. This gives the player a different way to compete on the leaderboards, instead of the usual strategies that typically involve good governance, which is not exactly in harmony with the game's theme of despotic, egoistic rulers.
There is a more comprehensive set of tutorials in Absolute Power now. It teaches a lot more to the player than the original set ever could, and also gives several helpful tips to help a fresh player advance in skill further. Like the original set, it is voiced-over by an advisor, though he is now the much less brown-nosing (and perhaps more bland) Secundo instead of Penultimo.
An expansion won't be one without new official scenarios to extend the game experience with. Absolute Power features several new scenarios, many of which are more difficult than those in the original set. However, they do not do as good a job as the latter in introducing the new buildings, Edicts and other features in Absolute Power; many of these scenarios can be completed without even using the new stuff. Nevertheless, they offer great challenges, more witty writing and events that are lot more sophisticated than those in the previous game. A scenario with particularly noteworthy writing and events is the one that involves chronological shenanigans.
Not all of the changes and additions are good, however. It is doubtful that every fan of the original game can accept all of the new things in Absolute Power.
The change that a player would notice earliest is the revamping of the categorization of existing buildings. For example, the Marketplace is now under the same category as Farms and other raw-resource-producing buildings, which is a bewildering change from its original placement under Infrastructure. Of course, such odd changes in the user interface would not be much of an issue after the player has committed to memory which buildings are under which category.
The new addition that can perhaps be seen as the worst and least forgivable one is the introduction of Betty Boom, who is the voice of the rebel movement (which now apparently has a radio station of their own). As expected, Betty Boom is highly antagonistic.
What some players may not accept and understand though is how terribly snobbish and cynical that she can be. She will mock every decision that the player makes, even generally beneficent ones like the issuance of the Education Edict, the building of places of education and rationing of extra food for everyone, spinning them all in awfully negative ways with a lot of sanctimony and slander to boot. Unless the player is particularly tolerant of her radio announcements or has the willpower to ignore them altogether, the player would likely mute the radio outright for the sake of peace of mind.
Unfortunately, this also locks out Juanito's radio announcements. On the other hand, Juanito does not get many new voice-over clips, if any, so a player that has listened to Juanito's radio announcements many times over would not be missing much.
Then, there is the "Shoot Juanito" Edict, which for some reason silences Juanito instead of Betty Boom, who is the more provocative of the two independent radio DJs. Silencing Juanito prevents rebel attacks for quite a long while, but still leaves Betty Boom behind to rail against the player's efforts.
Many of the complaints in the previous game also remained. Some examples will be cited here.
The player still has to build associated buildings before policies related to that building can be altered. Construction workers still tend to walk towards the far side of a yet-to-be-constructed building before starting to work (and this walking time still contribute to working hours). Money that has been embezzled away from Tropico still cannot be taken out and returned to the Tropico treasury.
The landscaping exploit, which arose from a design convenience that allows for easy placing of building foundations, is still in the game, though Absolute Power also features new map designs that flag certain regions of maps as completely inimical to the placing of buildings, reminding the player that these regions were not meant to be built on anyway.
While a more apologetic person would consider that the improvements can somehow make up for the drawbacks, both existing and new, in the expansion, a more skeptical purveyor would assert that many of these improvements, especially the fixes for the problems that were present in the original game, should have been in the original itself. Moreover, the feature of Megalomania can be considered as nothing more than an extension of existing game mechanics, e.g. it mainly gives bonuses to existing aspects of the island and offers additional ways to improve scenario scores; any freshness that it has can be considered to be mostly of the thematic sort.
Graphics-wise, Absolute Power mainly offers models and animations for new buildings. There are some new cosmetic choices for the President's model, but these are very minor additions. Models for ships still clip through each other, unfortunately.
Any contribution to sound designs that Absolute Power provides also only encompasses the new content, e.g. the forging noises in the Weapons Factory and the sounds made by zooming jet-skis. They are very satisfactory, but otherwise unremarkable.
In conclusion, Absolute Power, having addressed many issues in its predecessor, can be considered to be what the original game should have been. The new additions add more flavour, but not all of them can be seen as welcomed enough to have Absolute Power declared superior over the original package.