After a quick tutorial from your toady advisor on how to control things, you can immediately get stuck into a game of Tropico. No fiddling about to learn a million interface niggles. It isn't long before you realise what Tropico is all about - it's just one big balancing act made all the more difficult by the fact that you can't order people around directly. Nor can you, true to the saying, please all the people all the time. The moment you start the game, depending on what sort of dictator profile you picked, you'll have supporters and critics in different camps. For example, if you went to Moscow University you'll be best chums with the Ruskies and should get a decent amount of foreign aid from them as a result, but at the same time your American neighbours will be pretty cold towards you which means you get less spend-happy tourists. More locally, you'll be well in with the local communists, but don't be surprised if all you get from the capitalists is cold stares and bricks through your Presidential Palace windows. Endlessly postponing elections will also please the communists, but everyone else won't be too happy about it, and rigging the election in your favour is no better. You can also issue edicts which are often quick ways to gain support with one faction or another. Anti litter campaigns, increased food rations and contraceptive bans among other things can quickly gain you favour with different factions, but they cost money to issue so they're not always the easy way out.

Making cash is a tricky matter too. The easiest way is to build farms and then factories, but unless you build them far away from your residential areas people will start to complain about the pollution, and while the capitalists won't care, the environmentalists will be none too pleased. I could go on and on about the countless tricky decisions you'll encounter while playing Tropico. When you consider that there are numerous ways to make money (mining, logging, farming, manufacturing, tourism and so on) and just as many factions (religious people, communists, intellectuals and capitalists) all but the smallest of Tropico games can become challenging affairs indeed, especially if you're siphoning off a little extra money into your Swiss retirement fund.

Challenging though it may be, it's not without its rewards. There is of course the satisfaction gained from completing one of the many scenarios on offer, such as recovering from an earthquake, building a cigar selling empire or even playing a game according to parameters you define yourself. Tropico is also just inherently charming and funny. What bona fide dictator could resist paying bar staff less than half what it costs to get in if he could get away with it. And then there are often amusing comments from your advisor ("Ah, the smell of fertiliser - while some people might complain, it smells like money to me!").