Tropico

Tropico
Tropico	2001
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove	2003
Tropico 3	2009
Tropico 4	2011
Tropico 5	2014
Tropico 6	2019

Tropico is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and isometric building game in the Tropico series.

The game received the Paradise Island expansion in January 2002, and the two would be combined as the Mucho Macho Edition in July 2002 with 12 extra scenarios.

When running on modern graphics cards, the game crashes when using the hardware renderer unless changed to software or a wrapper is used.

General information

Official game series site

Tropico Wiki

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GamersGate		Tropico Reloaded.
		Tropico Reloaded.
GOG.com		Tropico Reloaded.
Green Man Gaming		Tropico Reloaded.
Steam		Tropico Reloaded.

A free demo version is available from Archive.org.

Version differences

Tropico: Mucho Macho Edition (known in Europe as Tropico Gold) is a bundle that contains Tropico and the Paradise Island expansion, along with 12 extra scenarios.

Tropico Reloaded is a bundle that contains Tropico, the Paradise Island expansion, and Tropico 2: Pirate Cove.

Monetization

Type	Notes
Expansion pack	The expansion pack includes new challenges, buildings, tourist types, events and disasters.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Paradise Island

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch for the base game is v1.07.

The latest official patch for the Paradise Island expansion is v1.53.

The Gold and Mucho Macho Editions have separate v1.53 installers.

Fix graphical corruption and crashes when using hardware renderer

Use dxwrapper^[1]

Download the latest version of dxwrapper and extract the archive.
Open the extracted folder and copy the dxwrapper.dll, dxwrapper.ini, and Stub\ddraw.dll files.
Paste the files into <path-to-game>.
Edit dxwrapper.ini from <path-to-game>.
1. Under the [Compatibility] section, set EnableDdrawWrapper to 1.
2. Under the [ddraw] section, set DdrawFixByteAlignment to 1.
3. If using a multi-monitor setup, to prevent launch issues, under the [Compatibility] section, set Dd7to9 to 1.
Save and close the file.
Run the game. Change the 3D Mode to "Hardware" after loading a game.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\data2^{[Note 1]}
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/33520/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Games^{[Note 1]}
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/33520/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings

Graphics settings

Memory settings

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Game only supports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200.
Multi-monitor		Multi-monitor setups can prevent the game from launching; see Fix graphical corruption and crashes when using hardware renderer.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		64 fps cap

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration		Default windows behavior
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, music
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Music and background sound effects continue to play
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French				The Steam store page does not advertise it, but is present.
German				The Steam store page does not advertise it, but is present.
Hungarian				Retail only. The "Paradise Island" Expansion pack never translated officially, but a fan translation is available. The files from the original release are available here.
Italian				Retail and GOG.com only.
Japanese				Retail only.
Polish				Retail only; details.
Brazilian Portuguese				Retail only; GreenLeaf release.^[2]
Russian				Retail only; download for digital releases.
Spanish				Retail and GOG.com only; download for Steam release.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DirectDraw	7
Software renderer

Executable	PPC	16-bit	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac OS (Classic)

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System
Cutscenes	Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	98, NT 4.0, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 200 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1400 MB
Video card (GPU)	4 MB of VRAM DirectX 7 compatible

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/33520/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (33520) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ Github: elishacloud / dxwrapper: issue #109 by Ligushka: Tropico - hardware rendering mode yields corrupted graphics - last accessed on 2022-08-17
↑ Novo Milênio, 21/06/2002 (archived) - last accessed on 2023-10-01

[gamedir-2] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-3] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/33520/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (33520) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[dxwrapper-1] Github: elishacloud / dxwrapper: issue #109 by Ligushka: Tropico - hardware rendering mode yields corrupted graphics - last accessed on 2022-08-17

[4] Novo Milênio, 21/06/2002 (archived) - last accessed on 2023-10-01

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[2]

Developers

	PopTop Software
Paradise Island Expansion	BreakAway Games
Mac OS (Classic)	Feral Interactive
macOS (OS X)	Feral Interactive
Publishers
Retail	Gathering of Developers
Retail (Russia)	1C Company
Brazil	GreenLeaf
Retail re-release	Sold Out Software
Digital	Kalypso Media
Mac OS (Classic)	Feral Interactive
macOS (OS X)	Feral Interactive
Mac OS (Classic)	MacSoft
macOS (OS X)	MacSoft
Engines
	S3D
Release dates
Windows	April 21, 2001
Mac OS (Classic)	July 17, 2001
macOS (OS X)	July 17, 2001
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Building
Themes	Comedy, Cold War
Series	Tropico