Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 6/10
- Offline: 48 (980)
- Online: 1 (20)
- Approximate amount of time to 1000g: 50+ hours
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1 + Sandbox games
- Number of missable achievements: None!
- Glitched achievements: No
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: Yes

Introduction
Tropico 3 is a strategy game that relies upon a careful mix of economy and politics – so finding a balance between acquiring funds and keeping people happy is the key. This game is all about having a good strategy, though once that is in place you can pretty much use the same tactics on each campaign map with only subtle alterations.

There are cheat codes (if you have a chatpad) but they disable achievements so there is no point using them. The save feature is also slightly glitched so whenever you save a game do so on a completely new save file. DO NOT overwrite an old game or it will glitch and crash whenever you try to load it. This happens more often with larger numbers of buildings/people.

When going for achievements that require you to please/upset a specific faction then picking your characters attributes beforehand is recommended. Decide what you are trying to achieve and choose attributes that are appropriate.

Step #1: Tutorial and Campaign
Play the tutorial first for the achievement as it will only take a few minutes. Once done you should start campaign mode. Here you have fifteen islands to work through with a variety of objectives. Be sure to tailor your avatar’s attributes to the task at hand. Along the way you should pick up the majority of the achievements but if you miss any then don’t be too concerned as you can clear them up later. Be sure to go for Curse of the Llama when on the CursedIsland scenario, and Tropican Fiesta when playing Viva Tropico as these are made much easy on these specific missions.

Step #2: Sandbox games
Set up a Sandbox map and make all the settings as easy as possible (i.e maximum foreign aid, max starting population and minimum random events etc), and be sure to set the time limit to only ten years, then select God mode as being active. Now just play normally for ten years and you will get the achievement – be aware that you cannot get ANY other achievement while God mode is on so do not even attempt it. Now set up the same sandbox game but turn God mode off and Rebel Yell and Free Elections mode on – again play through the ten years to snag these.

Step #3: Challenge mode and clean up
Select the challenge Where is the Beef? As this is by far the easiest and has the longest time limit. You can also use this map to mop up any achievements you have missed so far. Play the game as per the general campaign guide, but be sure to build at least 10-15 cattle ranches. With that set up you will hit your target within forty years (you actually have eighty). So check your almanac often and save if going for specific tasks, like allying with both superpowers, assassinating people etc. When you get to about 70k of your 100k target make a save. Now you can stop beef production and focus on any other task you want to do – be it oil output, tourism, industry or whatever. Then you can just load up your original save to finish the challenge or go back to beef production at any point to finish off. Be aware that it you are going for a certain level of output or happiness then it needs to be achieved by the time you complete the challenge so plan carefully. If you are STILL missing anything after this, then set up a sandbox game with appropriate settings and focus on specific tasks.

Conclusion
Once you have a strategy down this game becomes fairly simple and each map can be overcome in pretty much the same way. The key really is knowing what you are trying to achieve and then planning accordingly. Even then you will be forced to spend a large amount of time on the game as many of the campaign missions take a few hours by default, due to the fact they end at a set point in time rather than depending on your output. Learn the best steps to getting a thriving economy and stick with them, that way you will be fine.

[x360a would like to thank jackanape for this roadmap]

Tropico 3 Achievement Guide

Printable Guide
Show completed achievements
Show secret achievements

There are 49 achievements with a total of 1000 points

  • Learn how to run a Banana Republic

    Start a New Game on the Main menu and you will see the option to play the tutorial – just follow the on screen advice and this will pop up when you are done.
  • Prove your governing skills on 15 different islands in Campaign mode

    Complete ALL of the campaign missions.
  • Build an Airport

    An Airport is actually fairly cheap, but it can take a long time to construct so it might be advisable to build up your island first so that you have happy citizens and plenty of construction offices. You can also halve the cost via the US Trade edict. Once it is complete the achievement will unlock.
  • Build a Skyscraper Hotel

    You cannot build a hotel until you have a Tourist Dock or Airport. Once they are up and running you will need to build a Power Plant (or a substation so the power covers the area you want the hotel to be in). Then you can construct the hotel and snag the achievement when it is complete.
  • Issue 5 kill orders in one game

    Requires soldiers in order to activate. Highlight a citizen by clicking X then scroll to the second screen with RB, then move down to the options and select the kill order. Be aware that it takes some time for the target to be ‘disposed of’ so it will not pop until all five are actually dead as opposed to just selected. It will cost you $500 for each kill.
  • Bribe 10 citizens in one game

    First of all you should build a bank to have access to bribes. Then you can bribe citizens in the same menu as the kill order, it costs $1000 a time but will raise their respect for you also. Using the Bribe Faction Leaders edict does NOT seem to count towards this
  • Arrange 15 "Accidents" in one game

    Build a police station, then go to the edicts menu and activate Secret Police. You can then arrange accidents via the same menu as bribes/kills. You can select fifteen citizens fairly quickly (I would recommend you select a lot more just to be safe) but it can take quite a bit of in game time for the accidents to occur possibly 15-20 years, so be patient and this will eventually pop. It would make sense to get the Secret Police set up asap and then you will have more in game time for this to happen.
  • Have over $20 000 in your Swiss Bank account

    See Filthy Rich.
  • Have over $50 000 in your Swiss Bank account

    See Filthy Rich.
  • Have over $100 000 in your swiss Bank account

    Best way to do this is to issue the Building Permit edict as soon as you start a map BEFORE you do anything else. So you will get 10% of all building costs straight away. The next best source of income is from Banks which can be used to slush money from the island balance. The more cash you have in the economy then the more you can swipe – also try and have a lot of skilled employees in the bank on good wages – as that will help a lot. The more banks the merrier. Certain buildings and tourist attractions can also bulk out your account such as the Childhood museum and turning the Ancient Ruins into an excavation site. For speed, I would suggest the edict, then build up a good economy as normal then build four or five banks. Then concentrate on expensive buildings for big bucks.
  • Finish a game with overall Happines of your citizens above 70%

    Citizens Happiness, press A on that and it will show you what to work on. To increase food quality build farms and use the Food for the People edict, good housing is about basically having plenty of condominiums *maybe a few apartments) and very few shacks, for religion you need plenty of churches/cathedrals, entertainment will require caberets, restaurants, nightclubs etc, crime requires police/army posts, health requires a lot of hospitals/clinics, for liberty build a TV/Radio station. Job quality is linked to wages and you can obviously boost this at any time, if you are close to completing your mandate then set all factions wages as high as you can to make this soar. Respect comes down to keeping all of the factions happy and can be done be pandering to their whims, you can also use the Tax Rebate and Papal Visit edicts for a quick boost here. Not you must be at least 71% when the game ends for this to unlock.
  • Finish a "Rebel Yell" Sandbox game.

    From the Main Menu select New Game and then select Sandbox mode. Turn the Rebel Yell option on (along with Free Elections to kill two birds with one stone) then change the other settings to make conditions favourable for you. Change the time to only ten years to speed things up and then play as normal. Try to concentrate on building farms and houses to keep your people fairly happy, then just play out time. DO NOT activate God mode or these will not unlock.
  • Construct 3 different industry buildings in one game

    Industry building are all in the same tab, though be aware that they actually need to PRODUCE something to count. So if you have no gold mines and build a jewellery factory you will get no credit (or at least I didn’t). So the easiest are a cannery (with pineapple/coffee farms), oil refinery or a furniture factory (with a lumber yard).
  • Issue 200 edicts

    This is cumulative over all of your games so don’t feel the need to rush through it. Should you be a few short, or strapped for cash, then here is the fastest way. Build a police station and then issue the Secret Police edict. You will now have the Wiretapping option. Just hold RT down and press A for edicts then continually activate and deactivate the Wiretapping edict. It will not cost you anything and you can do it until the achievement pops.
  • Win 80% of the votes in Elections

    This becomes a lot easier later in a game, when you will have built a lot of farms, housing, entertainment etc and thus have more satisfied citizens. In case of emergency though you can use edicts to your advantage (assuming you have the money). The best ones to do are the Papal Visit (needs a Cathedral) or Tax Rebate – both of which give big boosts to all factions. Basically the more satisfied your people are then the more votes you get. Go to your almanac (RT and Y) and check the needs of each group.
  • Make an alliance with the US

    Build a Diplomatic Ministry, then try and get relations with the US up to at least 75. You can do this buy having capitalist tendencies (free elections, industry etc) and through edicts. Then you can select this edict from the menu. Be aware that you cannot ally with the US and USSR in the same game, so save first if you want both at once.
  • Make an alliance with the USSR

    See Nephew Sam, but try to encourage USSR relations with good food/housing and get them up to 75 relations. Then it will be available on the edict menu.
  • Survive 10 Hurricanes and Earthquakes

    This is NOT cumulative. You need to have ten earthquakes/hurricanes (can be a mix of the two) during one game/mandate. The best way is to play the Cursed Island campaign game, as you get a number of scripted disasters. Save your game as soon as you start and then build your economy as normal (to prevent rebellion etc while you wait). You should get a disaster within a couple of years. If not reload your save - at max speed a couple of years should only take ten minutes or so. When a disaster does happen it will usually destroy a building or two, so search around to replace what was lost and save your game. Then repeat the process. I was able to get ten disasters this way by 1970.

    Other tips:

    Early on you will be approached by a voodoo lady offering a lucky medallion, boot her off the island to get a guaranteed earthquake.

    Later on a group of cultists will approach you, as they believe the island will witness the end of the world, allow them to settle on the island and you will get a guaranteed hurricane.

    Another tip I found to help (strangely) was to NOT have the game installed to your harddrive. I did and when I uninstalled it I seemed to get disasters far more often. Oddly.
  • Suppress a Military Coup

    Basically you will need to upset the army. Try not to have any military buildings and then make sure your soldiers are on rubbish pay. It would help if you kept the level of rebels down while attempting this (otherwise if they have an uprising you will be in trouble) so keep other citizens as happy as you can. Once the military faction drops below 20 then the coup should occur and you will have to successfully fight them off.
  • Deal with a bomb threat

    Build some farms and switch their production to pineapples. Then build a cannery from the Industry section. Once this has production up and running you can then try to upset everyone. Don’t build good housing, issue nasty edicts and generally don’t help out. They will then try to bomb the factory once enough people have become rebels.
  • Resolve a hostage situation

    See Red Wire, Green Wire. Only this time you will need a Tourist Dock or an Airport and a Hotel of some kind. Again antagonize your people to make them rebel and this should occur.
  • Establish Secret Police

    Build a Police Station, then activate the Secret Police edict. You will need to select a HQ for the Secret Police (which can even be the initial police station you made).
  • Survive an assassination attempt

    Upset one of the Superpowers to below 20 respect and they will try to kill you off. Best way to do this is to use bribery in the elections, not have enough food/housing and not to issue and foreign policy edicts.
  • Address the people from the balcony of your Palace

    Select your avatar (RT and B) then move the cursor over the Palace and press A. He will go to make a speech – once done this will pop up.
  • Fulfill an Election Promise

    When elections are announced you will be given the option to make a speech, press A to confirm that you want to do this. You then have three choices. Select what you like for the first one, then select to praise yourself on the middle option (for High Praise) then select the promise you wish to fulfil. It is easiest to pick a promise that requires you to build something as you can make that happen instantly. Or you can choose a promise that requires you to enact an edict as they are also very straightforward.
  • Earn $100 000 from Oil export

    This is actually amazingly easy. On the Where is the Beef? challenge there is plenty of oil on the land and sea. So select an oil derrick and place it on the black oil patches that show up (be sure to put a road to it). Or build a refinery close to the sea based oil, you can upgrade the refinery for extra production too. You get credit for oil once it is shipped from the dock so make sure you have plenty of teamsters to ensure this happens.
  • Become a leading exporter of tropical fruits

    Complete the first campaign mission – on each mission you will be given a specific mandate to accomplish (like exporting so much fruit etc). Once you achieve this task you can move onto the next island.
  • Finish your mandate on 5 different islands in Campaign mode

    Complete five different islands and their mandates.
  • Build a Power Plant

    Simple as. There are no pre-requisites but make sure you have enough money (the US Trade edict will halve the cost). As with all buildings you can send your avatar over to speed things up.
  • Have population of over 250 and no Shacks

    First of all you need a large population, so you need to do some ground work. Build farms/ranchs etc to ensure you have a plentiful supply of food and if there are any built up areas without a farm nearby then you will need a marketplace. Next up build an Immigration Centre and set it to Open Door policy - so you have plenty of people coming into the island. Then it is a case of expanding your island until you have enough people. Once at 250 you will need enough housing - I would suggest only building Apartment (holds six families) or Condo's (holds four families) as this will help towards Tropican Fiesta. The Russian trade edict will have the cost of apartment building and be aware that Condo's require a power plant. Go into the building menu and change the rent to 1 or 2 to ensure full occupancy. When you have enough housing to hold your entire population check the Overlay menu for Shacks (Hold LT and X then go to the Occupancy option) it will say how many shacks you have and highlight them on the map. Now go around and demolish the remaining shacks which will force the occupants to move into your housing. Achievement unlocked.
  • Arrest 20 citizens in one game

    You need to build prison in order to have this as an option. Once that is done you can start randomly arresting people by selecting them with X and picking the required option. The arrests can be sped up by having multiple police stations/prisons but you will not get the points until all 20 have been physically arrested.
  • Finish a game with respect of all factions above 70

    Hold RT and Y to examine the Almanac and then go to the politics tab by using the RB. This page shows you the respect levels of the various factions and what they want in order to raise those levels. You must be at or over 70 with EVERY faction when you meet your mandate for this to count (as opposed to an average of over 70). Build an economy as normal in order to appease people and make sure you have enough jobs, food and good housing. Entertainment buildings help with everyone, churchs help boost the religious, army buildings help with mititants, schools help with intellectuals and building an Immigration centre then closing off Tropico to immigrants boosts the nationalists. If you use the Social Security, Food for All and Papal Visit edicts you can boost all factions. You can also boost one faction by ten points at every election and use TV, newspapers and movie theatres to impact each faction too.
  • Lead 10 different islands to prosperity in Campaign mode

    Complete ten different islands and their mandates.
  • Finish a Sandbox game in God mode

    Start a Sandbox game and turn God mode on, then reduce the time to ten years and do what you will with the other settings. You CANNOT get any other achievements when you are going for this - so do not try too hard to create the perfect island. Just play out time and do just enough to keep people happy.
  • Finish an online Challenge

    Go into Challenges from the Main Menu and select the Where’s the Beef? option. This is the perfect task for you to accomplish a lot of other achievements so I will create an in-depth guide to go along with it. Suffice it to say that you want to start with a lot of ranch buildings (upgrade them when you have the cash). I had about twenty upgraded ranches going and completed this mandate with forty years to spare. Be sure to build housing, churches, entertainment, construction offices garages etc alongside your ranches so that people are kept happy. Save often if you are unsure.
  • Finish a "Free Elections" Sandbox game

    See “Viva la Revolucion!” for details.
  • Construct 1337 buildings

    See Metropolis. Use the same decoration method and keep on going, you do not need the exact number so once you go over the 1337 it will pop up.
  • Earn $1 000 000 from industry in a single game

    This is remarkably easy to do if you have two or three oilfields with good workers. You can add to that total with any industrial buildings, so be sure to build mines on ore deposits and canneries of you are producing pineapple, fish or coffee. Only build a jewellery factory if you have gold and a rum factory if you are making sugar – otherwise they are worthless.
  • Win a battle against the Rebels

    The best way to do this is to build an Oil Refinery on the coast, as it always seems to upset people. Then build an Armoury and maybe some Guard Posts. Upset enough people and they will attack your refinery, send your avatar over to kill them (with backup) and this is yours.
  • Suppress an uprising

    An uprising is when the majority of your population turn on you. So deny them food/housing, give them rubbish wages and even kill them off. Be sure to have plenty of army bases to defend yourself though otherwise your palace will be destroyed and it will be game over. Try this (thanks to Macho M - I've edited it slightly).

    *start a sandbox game with:
    • Minimum political stability
    • Max game length
    • Minimum population (30)
    • Average chance for random events
    Leader stats: War Hero, Installed by KGB, Athletic, Diplomatic, Paranoid, Womanizer.

    First build your free Diplomatic Ministry (send over your avatar to speed this up) and once it is done immediately go to edicts (LT and A) and set up an alliance with the USSR. Then build an Immigration Office (again speed it up) and set it to Tropico First. Next up build a Fisherman’s Wharf. Now you can destroy both farms and all of the housing. Set all wages to 1 and then lock the worker spots in all buildings (press A on the building and go to the worker page then highlight to worker and press X to fire them and X again to block the spot – make sure even the unfilled spots are blocked too).

    The only people you should keep (for now) are army guys. Now highlight random citizens with X and select the kill option. Keep doing this until you have under ten left. Now fire all the soldiers and block their spots too. When your people get down to about 4-5 you can open a couple of spots on the Fisherman’s Wharf so they do not starve. Monitor the build up of resources in the Wharf and when it gets over 400 you can fire and block these workers too.

    In all of this time your reputation will be dropping. When it starts getting down to about 30% or less you will start getting reports of unrest. You can check the uprising threat level in the Almanac (LT and Y) under the Politics tab.

    It will take some time for the uprising to occur, so watch out for your people ending up dead from starvation or ill health. If your population gets down to 1 just change the Immigration Office to Open Door until some more people turn up. Then close it again straight away.

    To speed up the process do the following things: Refuse to have any elections (press X when the option for elections pops up), demolish Shacks the second they are built, never have any soldiers in the Palace after you have finished killing people otherwise a coup is likely.

    Keep checking the Almanac and eventually the Uprising threat should be at High – a year or so after this happens the revolt will occur. I suggest saving before hand and reloading if you lose.
  • Rush the construction of 5 buildings

    Whenever you are constructing a building, highlight your avatar (RT and B) then press A on the building. Construction will then be sped up. Do not move your avatar until the building is done. Do this five times and the achievement is yours.
  • Make 10 official visits to buildings

    When you complete a building (other than housing) you can send your avatar you visit it in order to increase production or service. When he arrives at the building a bar will pop up to show how this boost is progressing – once that is full then you have one official visit towards your total. You can use the same building multiple times – but there is a cooldown time between visits when he will have no effect so send your avatar between a variety of buildings until this is done.
  • Praise yourself in an Election Speech

    See Honest Politician.
  • Construct at least 1000 meters of roads and 4 Garages

    This should come in time, as you need roads to link all of your buildings and you will need garages to facilitate travel between them. Try not to build garages too close together as that will provide minimal benefit. If you just want the achievement then build the garages first – after which you can just lay road everywhere until the achievement pops.
  • Decorate a soldier with a medal

    Build an Armory, then simply highlight your avatar (RT and B) and send him there. This will pop up once he has visited.
  • Construct 200 buildings on one island

    This should come on pretty much any Sandbox or Challenge map. The easy way to do this is to build up a good economy first (so you have a large bank balance) and then save you game, then just build row upon row of $50 decorations, as they count towards this. The achievement will not pop if the game is paused by the way.
  • Have more than 20 soldiers and generals in one game

    You can have four soldiers at the palace but after that you will need to build Armouries (3 Generals max), Army Bases (3 Generals max) and Guard Posts (3 soldiers max). Be aware that you can only build one Guard Post for each General you have.
  • Earn $1 000 000 from tourism profits in a single game

    A lot tougher than industry as tourists never seem to arrive in big numbers. Therefore build an Airport (be sure to upgrade it) and a Tourist Dock, also be sure you have a power plant nearby as most tourist building will require it. Next build the Skyscraper Hotel and some luxury hotels. The real gem though are the beach villas (be sure to link them with roads). After that you can focus on building a lot of entertainment venues and attractions nearby. Be sure to add a garage so tourists have cars and a police station to keep crime down. I would also recommend having a good economy beforehand as the money from tourism can never compete with that from farms/industry. There are a lot of edicts that can help boost tourism but ONLY use these once all of your attractions/hotels are in place otherwise they will be wasted.
  • Build all Tourist Attractions on one island

    You must first build a Tourist Dock/Airport and a Hotel, then you can construct all of the items in the attraction menu. Be aware that a number of them require power and some can only be placed in certain locations (near the sea, in beauty spots etc). They also cost a good deal of money so be sure you have a good economy going beforehand.

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