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GAME
DATABASE
Previews
Here are
some interesting advanced looks at Tropico 2:
Computer Games
Magazine's cover story on Tropico 2: Pirate Cove
Tropico 2 -
Pirate Cove/Tropico 2 - Zatoka Piratów (Preview on the
Polish Website Tropico.pl)
from www.frogcity.com
The Story
Behind Tropico 2: Pirate Cove
You've
escaped from servitude on a tobacco plantation and made
your way to
an island outside the reach of the law. Due to your wit
and sophistication,
the buccaneers on the island elect you their leader. You
rule, for now. The question is, how to stay in power, and
how to become fabulously wealthy?
To keep your
followers happy, you'll need to supply them with wine,
women,
food, and a few other essentials like gambling. If you
aren't a good
provider there are plenty of other buccaneers who want
your job and your
fancy palace. But how can these things be paid for? The
island has no
industry or agriculture or anyone living here willing to
do an honest day's
work. The obvious answer is piracy.
The seas
off your little isle are teeming with unprotected and
foolish
merchant ships just waiting to be plundered. Piracy makes
your continued
rule possible: it gives you funds to spend on expansion;
it brings back
captives to work in your taverns, gambling halls,
industries, and farms; and most important, it puts money
in the hands of your buccaneer followers. As long as they
have money to spend, and a bar to spend it in, they'll
continue to do what you order--most of the time.
When you
command enough pirates, the great powers of the 17th
Century may bid for your services in a war. Be careful.
Some of your pirates might not feel secure
working for the nation that made them outlaws. Other
pirates might decline to serve against their homelands.
And of course, all pirates fear an encounter with a well-trained
naval vessel of England, France or Spain. These battles
are risky and some pirates won't
return. On the other hand, defeating a naval vessel means
lots of new
pirate recruits and probably new cannons and other
plunder.
Ruling Your
Island
To get
your pirate economy moving, you'll use your captives to
produce weapons at the smithy and cannon foundry, mighty
galleons or frigates at the shipyard, as well as rum,
beer, and fancy pastries for your pirates to devour.
Meanwhile,
watch out for escapes and captive revolts; an island with
few captives working won't produce much of value. It can
be tricky to
balance the pirates' insistence on no laws or rules with
the need to keep
the captives in check. Hiring some pirates as overseers
and guards helps
meet this challenge.
Your
pirate crews learn skills like sword fighting and cannon
aiming as they commit their crimes. And you can also
improve pirates' skills in port by building pirate
schools and ordering them to attend. Sometimes you can
use your growing wealth to bribe great pirate captains to
work for you. These leaders, like Blackbeard or Henry
Morgan, really know
how to get the most out of a crew.
The
pinnacle of pirate success - which few pirate rulers ever
achieve - is
to intercept and plunder one of the great Spanish
treasure fleets. You'll
be set for life if you can do it. But you'll need a large
fleet,
well-trained crews and captains, superior intelligence of
the treasure
fleet's route, and good luck.
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