How to make people happy and make money?
[startclear] [postad]Ola El Presidente! I am so glad you decided to make the most out of your Tropical island.
In Tropico 5 El Presidente has to to provide for his people. Everyone wants a safe neighborhood (police), healthcare (clinics), entertainment, awesome housing, food, etc. However, the happier your make your people, the higher the bill for El presidente! Eventually, especially if you listen to Penultimo, you will find yourself in a situation where you are no longer making a decent profit. We can fix this by choosing the “best” workplaces. Try to avoid the industries with low profits and high number of workers.
[stopclear]Guide concepts
- Yearly profit: In Tropico 5 the in-game profit are only reported on a monthly basis. A yearly overview allows for much better comparison!
- Income per worker: People are an important resource in Tropico 5! You will always have a limited workforce, especially educated workers. Each inhabitant requires you to invest in safety, healthcare, food, housing,etc. So you better make sure that your workers are earning the most money they can!
- ROI: The ROI stands for Return on Investment. Meaning the time it takes to earn back your initial investment. For example, if you spend 10.000 and receive 1000 each month it would take 10 months to cover your expenses. After the 10th month you start creating value.
Industries
| type | cost | workers | profit | yearly | per worker | ROI (months) |
| Lumber Mill | $ 7.500 | 8 | $ 381 | $ 4.572 | $ 572 | 20 |
| Cigar factory | $ 12.000 | 14 | $ 950 | $ 11.400 | $ 814 | 13 |
| Textile mill | $ 13.200 | 12 | $ 1.242 | $ 14.904 | $ 1.242 | 11 |
| Rum distillery | $ 16.500 | 8 | $ 940 | $ 11.280 | $ 1.410 | 18 |
| Steel mill | $ 9.700 | 8 | $ 1.749 | $ 20.988 | $ 2.624 | 6 |
| Jewelry workshop | $ 9.000 | 4 | $ 1.100 | $ 13.200 | $ 3.300 | 8 |
| Cannery | $ 9.300 | 10 | $ 520 | $ 6.240 | $ 624 | 18 |
| Furniture factory | $ 14.000 | 6 | $ 761 | $ 9.132 | $ 1.522 | 18 |
| Pharmaceutical company | $ 20.000 | 6 | $ 950 | $ 11.400 | $ 1.900 | 21 |
| Vehicle factory | $ 25.000 | 10 | $ 3.423 | $ 41.076 | $ 4.108 | 7 |
Colonial era: This era only has the Lumber Mill that employs 8 illiterate workers. Takes a while to earn itself back so not really recommended. The biggest downside is that your logs will start to pile up in the Lumber Mill. So instead of having a steady export income from 2-3 logging camps you will have to wait till they are ALL converted into planks.
World War era: If you want your economy to grow quickly then you should go for the textile mill. In the end the Rum Distillery will earn more for each worker and is easier to operate at 100% because it requires only 8 workers. Furthermore its job quality level is higher. The Cigar Factory does not seem that interesting. It requires a LOT of workers to operate at 100% efficiency and the income per worker is not that great. Once you get your research going you should focus on getting the Steel Mill. If you build a college you can build a Jewelry workshop but keep in mind that it stores very expensive gold as input. So that is a risk.
Cold War era: Vehicle factories are your best friend. They require steel and bauxite as imports. If needed just import them with docks. Their amazing profit gets even more amazing when you reduce the number of workers by 6 with the Robotics upgrade. Pharmaceutical companies earn a decent income but require college workers, and lots of them. So unless you have a highly educated workforce you might not want to build too many of these. The Furniture factory is underpowered, there are World War Era industries that do much better. Penultimo does not approve…
Bonus
Mines and other raw materials
In Tropico 5 mines are completely changed compared to Tropico 3 and 4. They can now only build on mountain deposits. So you can only build one on a specific spot. After the resources are depleted the mine is automatically destroyed and the mining spot is removed. So how efficient are they in providing El presidente with some cash?
| type | cost | workers | profit | yearly | per worker | ROI (months) |
| Coal mine | $2500 | 5 | $ 115 | $ 1.380 | $ 276 | 25 |
| Logging Camp Reforestation | $1800 | 6 | $ 142 | $ 1.707 | $ 285 | 13 |
| Logging Camp | $800 | 6 | $ 182 | $ 2.187 | $ 365 | 4 |
| Iron mine | $2500 | 5 | $ 275 | $ 3.300 | $ 660 | 12 |
| Bauxite mine | $2500 | 5 | $ 320 | $ 3.840 | $ 768 | 8 |
| Gold mine | $2500 | 5 | $ 365 | $ 4.380 | $ 876 | 7 |
In the Tropico 5 campaign you will generally you will start with Iron or Bauxite deposits available. The income generated is pretty decent. However, compared to Tropico 3 and 4 they are less effective. The “best” mine only generates a yearly profit of $4380. Still an Iron mine will generate a profit of $660 per worker. This is similar to the Lumber Mill making the mine a decent early game investment!
Keep in mind that the Coal mine offers a very low profit for each worker. Therefore I recommend importing coal from a trade route.
Automated Mines
In the Cold War era you unlock Automated Mines. These new mines cost $10.152 to construct, produce more, and require less workers. They do need high school education to operate the machinery.
| Type | Profit | Yearly | per worker | ROI (months) |
| Coal | $207 | $2.483 | $497 | 49 |
| Iron | $458 | $5.490 | $1.098 | 22 |
| Bauxite | $564 | $6.768 | $1.354 | 18 |
| Gold | $655 | $7.860 | $1.572 | 15 |
Looking at the ROI we can conclude that the new mines are not big money makers. It takes over a year to earn back your investment. They are however a smart investment to increase your income per employee. The iron mine now provides almost $1100 for each worker. Not only is this double the ammount of the original mine, it is also higher than almost any building from the World War era!
