Part 14: Fly Air Tropico!

Update 13: Fly Air Tropico!

Greetings from the great land of Tropico, ruler of the skies! This is Juanito coming live from TNN’s palace studio! Boy, are we in a good mood today! Before I explain why, I will as usual begin with the world news.

It seems that our former resident turned Presidente Richard Nixon has learned too much from Mr. Pizzaman’s example, and unlike in our country, the Americanos occasionally listen to their Intellectuals. When the journalists there revealed that Nixon may have done some tampering in the last election, and then did not leave him alone about it, he finally resigned peacefully, with no army coups at all. The US is a strange land indeed. I have also heard that there is a Ford in the office now. El Presidente once had a Toyota in his office, and TNN was off the air for a week while they cleared the damage! I wish the Americanos luck in finding the man who was driving it.

In third world news, the “Khmer Rouge” faction has taken control of Cambodia, and reports of brutal repression have been filtering out of the country. The Americanos have finally left Vietnam completely, allowing the North to finally take over what little is left of the nation. Portugal has left Angola and Mozambique in South Africa, where the militias are still fighting over control. Strangely, however, one of the backers for the Marxist militia is our good friend, Castro! El Presidente says he was considering sending some of our troops to Africa as well, but eventually decided against it, since for him “the Old Country is mostly just West Africa.”


Tropico’s big problems have mainly been limited to traffic. It seems that with all the farms and army men where the mine used to be, the three intersections so close together have caused a very bad jam to back up the system.


Because of this, we were forced to move the connection to the other side of the high school. The drive to and from the army base is longer now, but as the connection is far away, it is now faster to travel over.


The people of the world spoke, and so El Presidente ordered that no new buildings should be constructed until the airport was finished! He even moved up the construction to the highest priority, and spent most of his days at the site to direct the workers.


To solve the underemployment problem, El Presidente encouraged the immigration office to lower its standards some. The Nationalists were not pleased, but Mr. Pizzaman did not intend to leave the doors open forever.


By April of ’74, construction workers had finally reached the point of adding a second level to the comically oversized scaffolds.


That July, they managed to paint some lines on the ground where the runway will go.


In November, the underemployment problem was very suddenly solved, and six men are now unemployed. El Presidente has decided that this is better than the alternative, and has allowed the unemployed men to stay in their shacks. For today, at least.


He did make sure to shut down immigration, however.


In December, an economic crisis shook the world once again. Since our economy is now only halfway focused on exports, Mr. Pizzaman has decided that I do not need to scold the world for being irresponsible again.


December also marked the 2/3rds point in the airport’s construction. You can see here that the terminal itself is starting to fade in nicely.


In fact, one of the master builders showed up soon after, and by January of ’75 the building had gained a proper shadow!


Finally, in September, the building was finished and Air Tropico was made a reality! We are all very excited!


In fact, there was enough time to spare that El Presidente sent a trade delegation to the US.


After some talks, the Americanos agreed to lower the tariffs on Tropican Rum, allowing us to keep the price the same and pocket the difference ourselves. It was a very successful mission!

Now it is time for the special segments.



This time, TNN will focus on the brave general who was so worthy of El Presidente’s personal attention: Dthulhu!


Here we can see General Dthulhu bravely waiting in line to use the central garage downtown.


This shot from the tenement across the street shows General Dthulhu bravely about to run over one of his fellow soldiers.

And bravely not thinking about any Tropican nuclear program, of course!


It seems that General Dthulhu was bravely going to the army base in order to take a nap in the middle of the day.


As you can see, the army base is a family-friendly area. The kids love playing with the live ammunition and explosive barrel depot!


His siesta finished, General Dthulhu decided to finally go to work bossing soldiers around from inside his office at the armory.


The last TNN saw of him, General Dthulhu was going to the Cathedral of Saint Gerard to pray once again. I imagine he was going to pray for safety at home and victory abroad!



Today’s Meet the Paperwork examines the “people” tab.


TNN long ago devised a means of quantifying the happiness of the people of Tropico, and we have been faithfully keeping track of every type and source of happiness ever since. For instance, food quality is determined by how much variety is open to the people of Tropico (not to mention how much!), and religion quality is derived both from how good the priests are and how many times the people are able to visit when they desire it. Liberty has gone up tremendously in the last two years, as it was near 10 only a little before. Thus, 40 points of that score come merely from having a newspaper on the island.

Overall respect is reprinted here from the politics page, and the average pay and income disparity is also seen on the economy page. Average age can show if the island population is getting too old or too young, which can make problems with the workforce if it is too far away from the working age.


Food quality has its own page of details, where the amount being eaten by the population and the number of people going hungry indicates whether the population is starving or not. We also have a spot to show how much variety there is in our meals, and whether the Food for the People edict is active.


Here we see just how many people our island is growing by. There are 301 people on our little island now, and well over half of them are immigrants! It is like we are the new US! Not counting the children, all but six of our island’s inhabitants are fully employed. It is incredible that we have grown so much, but I must admit that I miss the days when I knew everyone by name.

But now is not the time to be nostalgic. Now is the time to vote! Once again, your decision is between three buildings. Which massive (but hopefully less time consuming) project should El Presidente commission next?


Juanito does not know why, but many Tropicans do not want to listen only to TNN! They say we are biased, but I say how could anyone love El Presidente any less than we do? A radio station will make them happy, but when TNN is on, why listen to anything else?


I have heard rumors about a box of moving pictures recently. It is supposed to be like a film on a small screen, but with the benefit of not having to leave the apartment! Juanito would be very interested to see if this is true, but I am not sure it will catch on. Still, El Presidente is willing to test this out by building a TV station.


I know what will catch on, though: sports! The sports complex! An air conditioned sports dome would make us the envy of all the Caribbean, and tourists and Tropicans alike will flock to the building to watch our amateur athletes kick balls around. We may even be able to host the Pan-Caribbean games! Do you want to watch the Pan-Caribbean games at Tropico, people of the world?