For starters, my apologies for taking this long to complete my blog posts. Between final exams and my laptop being set out to get repaired (the display decided to randomly not work), playing Tropico 5 was difficult. (That is why the pictures will be limited since I do not have access to my screenshots.) When I saw the colorful graphics, it seemed like a fun game so, I was excited at the possibility of using it in a classroom. Tropico was my second favorite game, behind Civ 6, that we played in class. It was easy to learn and I enjoyed all the jokes since they were my type of humor. However, I was disappointed that there were many reasons why I would not use it in a classroom. The main reasons were the historical inaccuracies mentioned in the History Respawned video we watched in class which includes not mentioning the impact of slavery in the Caribbean, how they handled independence, skipping over the nineteenth century, and how they incorporated WWII. Slavery and revolutions for independence were connected and played a significant role in Caribbean history. It does not make sense that the game would leave it out, especially since it is important that students are taught about this atrocity. As for how WWII was incorporated, it was inaccurate that you could choose between siding with the Allies or Axis powers. Also, communism in Latin America came from the bottom up, as many Europeans were moving there. Skipping the nineteenth century leaves out a lot of how Latin America interacted with other countries. Additionally, the satire takes on communism and dictatorship I feel would lead to a lot of problems in the classroom. I feel like many students would cling to the connection of Castro in Cuba during The Cold War and not look at the larger picture of the game. The way that simulation was structured I feel would not be beneficial in the classroom. To tie into McCall’s book when he states “Because the outcome of a game will change with each playthrough, and because game designers often readily and regularly concede historical accuracy to appealing gameplay, the primary strength of the simulation, on the other hand, is to model in more-or-less broad terms how the city functioned. This strength must be taken into account when critiquing simulation games […] Inaccuracies in specific details should be noted, but are not the sole means by which an effective simulation would be judged” (23). I guess Tropico could be analyzed with supplemental lectures and readings to point out its historical inaccuracies to improve critical thinking skills. I just feel like it is not worth wasting crucial time to wedge in a game that would not reinforce the things state tests usually include.
As for gameplay, I played the tutorial and was surprised that it did a thorough job at explaining the mechanic and was incredibly useful, unlike many of the games we played. The one thing that annoyed me was placing the roads, I never got the hang of that. Another was the number of tabs to click through, but at least they were categorized in a way that it was easy to get used to finding things. After playing the tutorial, I spent a copious amount of time customizing my character (I am incredibly angry I cannot include a screenshot of her). I enjoyed that the game allowed a player to pick a female character to be a dictator, despite that being historically inaccurate since there has not been one. It was also interesting that you could pick your character’s race, which probably explains why slavery is left out (besides, it being controversial). I also found it extremely infuriating that you could not just put whatever name you wanted, instead, you had to individually click through a bunch of random names. Also, they have colored hair options, but not a blue option, which infuriated me! I had my playthrough on the easiest setting because I am a noob. Leah named my island ‘sacapuntas,’ pencil sharpener in Spanish because I wanted the name to be in Spanish and she thought it sounded funny. As I said, I did not get too far in my playthrough, I only got to establish the main buildings. This was difficult because where my spawn had a lack of trees. When trying to establish a logging place where a patch of trees was located (it was highlighted green), the game was saying I could not place it there because it was too far from the prebuilt construction office, which resulted in me having to build another one. So, that made getting started difficult, and why I prefer Civ 6’s building mechanic better since it tells you where to build things. The mechanic I very much appreciated as an impatient person was the fast-forward button. I also thought it was an interesting touch that you could individually click on your citizens to find out their personal information. It shows how powerful a dictator is and the lack of privacy because of that. However, are were issues with how killing individuals is seen as satire and considered to be problem-solving. This should be portrayed as a more serious issue. I ended up watching a few episodes of a Tropico 6 playthrough by a YouTube channel Jerutastic as study breaks since I could not play the game more (the most inconvenient time for my laptop to die). One of the tips I found useful from that playthrough I watched said, is that you should not worry about how your island looks at first since it is going to change drastically as you progress. The key is to focus on housing, jobs, and food initially. This is quite different from Civ 6’s playthrough where you must be incredibly strategic on your placements of buildings because of turn limits. He showed a lot of features of Tropico that I did not get to, which was nice, but the game seemed to get a bit confusing the further you progressed since there was more to manage.
Overall, as someone who was lucky enough to learn a lot of Latin American history in high school, I do not believe that Tropico was an accurate simulation of it. The last thing history teachers want is to spread misinformation to their students. I feel like it should be required that students learn more about Latin America’s history because there is not much currently in the curriculum. I only learned a bit because our Spanish teachers incorporated history and culture into their lessons. One took part in an exchange program where she lived in Brazil and the other was from Venezuela so, she spoke a lot about the crisis that is going on there. Plus, it is not involved much in the history curriculum, besides the Haitian Revolution and Cuba in the Cold War, even though it should be. Therefore, trying to cram in a non-historically accurate game seems like a waste of time.
Jerutastic. “Tropico 6 (Season 4).” YouTube, Uploaded by Jerutastic, 4 Oct. 2020,
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(It for some reason would not do a hanging indent so there is an enter between the link, so if you want to access it, do not clink the link and instead copy-paste it)
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