Uesugi-dono wrote up a blog recently, Impressions: Sengoku (PC) – His personal experience with the game is pretty intriguing, enough to make me go check it out. I found the demo online at the dev's website, and true to Uesugi's word, the game does indeed move at a slow pace, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if the political intrigue aspect of say, Civilization, was your favorite part. It's got kind of a steep learning curve – there's no tutorial to be found, you just have to pay very close attention to the pop up hints that accompany each window. (They can be disabled with a click once you're familiar enough not to need it) Once you've got the hang of it though – even though the game is moving slowly, there's a lot going on – improving relations with one province, having an all out battle with another, grooming your heir to take your place, raising/losing honor, building castles and villages, granting land titles to your more successful generals, all in the interest of gaining more and more control of feudal Japan. It's definitely a big bite to take, even if you're a huge RTS fan… but if you're up to the challenge, check out the demo and see what you think.
Playing the demo definitely got me wanting to play the game, but it's a little too heavy for me right now. I haven't had an RTS to play around with in awhile, and it got me pining for something a bit more in the build-a-something type of RTS, much in the way of the Bullfrog's SimThemePark or Maxis' SimCity. I own both those games; however the mere thought of getting them running on modern hardware was more than enough to put me off trying. Instead I checked out Steam, and wouldn't you know it – Tropico 4 was right on the front page boasting a weekend sale!
Having never tried any of the other games in the series, I downloaded the demo first. All of the tutorials are there and the first island less several of the buildings which are locked out, a pretty substantial demo, really. I found it immensely entertaining and purchased the full game the same night.
This game is quite a bit more easy going than Sengoku – You're "President" of a series of islands collectively known as 'Tropico', each island represents a mission, 20 in all, each with its own set of goals and challenges. You can try to be a good leader, but the people's needs are incredibly diverse – and they're all filtered into various factions; of which there are numerous and have their own collective needs. Keeping everyone happy is very difficult. Despite my best intentions, allowing elections, and being re-elected twice - keeping everyone happy had become near impossible, and I had to adjust some numbers in order to stay in office.
As I was officially a dictator, rebel numbers were rising - so I had to start bulking up my army to quell riots. Guard towers went up around the palace and strikers and criminals alike were shot in public to be made an example of… it was actually pretty easy for me to slam down the iron fist now that I think about it.
You generate income through exports and tourism. The trade system is actually pretty deep; you can export raw resources, like salt, gold, iron, etc. or crops such as tobacco, sugar, papaya, etc… later on, with the proper facilities you can refine them into more expensive products, thus netting more profits. Likewise you can import goods to be sold to your people at a premium to supplement your income between export shipments. It's a pretty deep economy simulator underneath the humorous twists.
If you're into RTS games at all, I recommend it.