Buildings

In Tropico 3, part of your responsibilities as El Presidente is the planning of the island. There are multiple types of buildings that can be built and many of them require workers to operate. As a general rule, the more workers you have in any building, the more efficient it is. To construct a building, you right-click on the screen and choose from the list of options that pop up at the bottom of the screen. Your choice of buildings are divided into nine different groups.

Housing
Housing is an absolute necessity for the population of tropicans. If you find a lot of Shacks on your island, you need more housing. Housing quality is an attribute to your populations overall happiness so you should not cut corners when building housing if you want to keep your job.

Shacks
Shacks cannot actually be built by the player. Instead, they are built by the tropicans when they can't find better living arrangements (either because of the lack of better living arrangements or the lack of income to afford them). If you see a lot of these shacks around, you should look into building more housing or lowering the price of your current housing. Housing quality for these are only 10.

Shanty
Shantys are the next step up for housing. They cost $150 to build, provide housing for 1 family, and housing quality is only 15.

Bunkhouse
Bunkhouses are cheap housing. They cost $500, can provide housing for 3 families, and housing quality is 25.

Country House
Country Houses are average housing. They cost $1,000, can provide housing for 2 families, and housing quality is 50.

House
Houses are nice housing. They cost $2,000, can provide housing for 2 families, and housing quality is 70.

Mansion
Mansions are really nice housing. They cost $4,000, require 4MW of electricty, can provide housing for 2 families, and housing quality is 95.

Tenement
Tenements are cheap housing. They cost $4,000, can provide housing for 12 families, and housing quality is 38.

Apartment Block
Apartment Blocks are average housing. They cost $5,000, can provide housing for 6 families, and housing quality is 60.

Condominium
Condominiums are nice housing. They cost $6,000, require 6MW of electricity, can provide housing for 4 families, and housing quality is 85.

Farms & Mines
There is two main paths to earning money in Tropico 3. Farming/Mining and tourism. Players will find farming/fishing to be required even if they go the tourism route as they feed the population.

Farm
Farm's are one of the standard building blocks for an island's economy as well as survival. Along with exporting crops, farms feed the tropicans. A farm creates jobs for 6 uneducated people and cost $1,500.

Ranch
Ranches are one of the standard building blocks for an island's economy as well as survival. If no land is suitable for farming, ranches are a good alternative and the food generated can be used to nourish the tropicans. A ranch creates jobs for 2 uneducated people and cost $750.

Fisherman's Wharf
Fisherman's Wharfs are one of the standard building blocks for an island's economy as well as survival. The resulting fish can be used to feed the population, exported as is, or canned using a Cannery before exporting for increased profits. A Fisherman's Wharf creates jobs for 4 uneducated males and cost $3,000.

Logging Camp
Logging Camps are used to cut down trees for logs. The resulting logs can be exported as is or sent to a Lumber Mill to be turned into more profitable lumber for exporting. A Logging Camp creates jobs for 8 uneducated males and cost $1,500, making it an ideal construction if the player is having problems with both unemployment and income.

Mine
Mines are used to gather iron, bauxite, and gold from the ground. Mines can only be built on top of deposits. Iron and bauxite can only be exported as is, but gold can be sent to a Jewelery Factory to make much higher profit Jewelery. A mine also has a garage built into it and as such does not need a garage built beside it for the workers and teamsters to get to and from it. A Mine creates jobs for 5 uneducated males and costs $3,000.

Oil Well
Oil Wells are used to gather oil from the ground. Oil Wells can only be built on top of deposits. Oil can be exported as Crude Oil or can be sent to an Oil Refinery to make much higher profit Oil Products. An oil well creates jobs for 2 college females and costs $8,000.

Industry
Industry buildings are a great way to take a working economy and increase it's export earnings. All Industries are reliant on other buildings in the Farms & Mines, as they use the resources they gather to create more valuable resources. While Industries require a rather signifcant, upfront cost to build and educated employees to operate, the increase income gained from having them makes the risk worth it... so long as you can fill the jobs!

Lumber Mill
Lumber mills take logs and convert them to lumber. They cost $5,000 and create jobs for 5 high school Tropicans.

Cigar Factory
Cigar factories take tobacco and convert them to cigars. They cost $10,000 and create jobs for 8 high school Tropicans.

Rum Distillery
Rum Distilleries take sugar and convert them to rum. They cost $22,000 and create jobs for 12 high school Tropicans.

Jewelery Factory
Jewelery Factories take gold and convert them to Jewelery. They cost $13,000 and create jobs for 6 high school Tropicans.

Furniture Factory
Furniture factories take lumber and convert them to Furniture. They cost $17,000 and create jobs for 8 high school Tropicans.

Cannery
Canneries take Fish, Pineapple, and coffee and convert them to their respective canned counterparts. They cost $15,000 and create jobs for 8 high school Tropicans.

Oil Refinery
Oil Refineries take Crude oil and convert them to Oil Products. They cost $15,000 and create jobs for 4 college females.

Accommodations
While your Tropicans may be willing to live in Shacks, your tourists will require Accommodations before they decide to come. Before any accomodations can be built, a Tourist Dock or Airport must be constructed. Accomidatons should be built in the beautiful areas of your island for maximum effect. It should also be kept in mind that tourists won't come if they find all accomidations are booked. If your accomodations are at maximum capacity, it would be a good idea to build more.

Bungalow
Bungalows provide average accommodations for tourists. A Bungalow costs $400, creates jobs for 1 uneducated female, and provides accommodations for 1 tourist family.

Motel
Motels provide below average accommodations for tourists. A Motel costs $3,000, creates jobs for 3 uneducated females, and provides accommodations for 5 tourist families.

Hotel
Hotels provide average accommodations for tourists. A Hotel costs $5,000, creates jobs for 3 uneducated females, and provides accommodations for 6 tourist families.

Luxury Hotel
Luxury Hotels provide above average accommodations for tourists. A Luxury Hotel costs $8,000, requires 15MW of electricity, creates jobs for 6 uneducated females, and provides accommodations for 10 tourist families.

Skyscraper Hotel
A Skyscraper Hotel provides the best accommodations for tourist, but only one can be built on an island. A Skyscraper Hotel costs $12,000, requires 30MW of electricity, creates jobs for 8 uneducated females, and provides accommodations for 16 tourist families.

Beach Villa
A Beach Villa provides some of the best accommodations for tourist. A Beach Villa costs $1,500, requires 3MW of electricity, must be built on a beach, creates jobs for 1 uneducated female, and provides accommodations for 2 tourist families.

Attractions
Tourists won't come to your island to see your lumber mills or your docks. They came to be entertained! Building Attractions is how you help improve your tourist rating and bring in more tourist. Just be sure to build them in the beautiful areas of your island for maximum effect.

Tour Office
A Tour office is used to give scenic tours of your island for tourists. Only 1 can be built at a cost of $1,750, but it will provide jobs for 2 uneducated males and can entertain up to 8 tourists at a time.

Souvenir Shop
A Souvenir Shop is perfect for tourist who like to shop on vacation. A Souvenir Shop costs $1250, provides jobs for 2 high school females, and can entertain up to 10 tourists at a time.

Beach Site
Beach Sites can be a good source of income from tourists. A Beach Site costs $500, provides a job for 1 uneducated male, and can entertain up to 10 tourists at a time.

Scenic Outlook
Scenic outlooks can be a good source of income, even if minimal. A beach site costs $1,000, provides no jobs, and can entertain up to 6 tourists at a time.

Ethnic Enclave
An Ethnic Enclave costs $10,000, provides jobs for 4 uneducated Tropicans, and can entertain up to 16 tourists at a time.

Pool
A pool costs $4,000, provides jobs for 2 uneducated males, and can entertain up to 16 tourists at a time.

Spa
A spa costs $5,000, provides jobs for 3 uneducated males, and can entertain up to 9 tourists at a time.

Botanical Garden
Only one Botanical Garden can be built on an island. A Botanical Garden costs $5,000, provides a job for 1 college male, and can entertain up to 9 tourists at a time.

Zoo
Zoos can be built to entertain both Tropicans and Tourists. A Zoo costs $7,000, creates jobs for 4 uneducated males, and provides entertainment for up to 15 people at any given time.

Entertainment
Entertainment buildings are great for Tropicans as well as Tourists. While attractions are mainly for tourist amusement, Entertainment buildings can also be enjoyed by the populations. These buildings help satisfy one of Tropican's needs and are useful to keeping the population happy.

Pub
Pubs are a cheap way to entertain your population. A pub costs $800, provides jobs for 2 uneducated females, and can serve up to 8 patrons at a time.

Restaurant
Restaurants are more expensive than pubs, but the service is better. A restaurant costs $2,000, provides jobs for 2 uneducated females, and can serve up to 8 patrons at a time.

Gourmet Restaurant
Gourmet Restaurants provide very good service,but require electricity to operate. A gourmet restaurant costs $3,000, requires 5mW of electricity, provides jobs for 4 uneducated females, and can serve up to 12 patrons at a time.

Childhood Museum
Childhood Museums are a good way to entertain both population and tourists and can even be used to increase visitors respect for you... or just to increase your Swiss bank account. A childhood museum costs $2,000, provides jobs for 2 high school females, and can entertain up to 6 patrons at a time.

Casino
Casinos can be cash cows for an island, but the construction will anger the Religious supporters. It also requires electricity and lots of it. Still, with the proper infrastructure, it can be a great source of income. A casino costs $10,000, requires 25mW of electricity to operate, provides jobs for 4 high school males, and can entertain up to 9 patrons at a time.

Night Club
Night Clubs can be a reasonable source of income, but their construction may anger the Religious supporters and requires electricity to build. A night club costs $4,000, requires 8mW of electricity to operate, provides jobs for 4 uneducated females, and can entertain up to 15 patrons at a time.

Cabaret
Cabarets are a good source of income and entertainment for starting islands. A cabaret costs $4,000, provides jobs for 3 uneducated females, and can entertain up to 9 patrons at a time.

Movie Theater
Movie theaters provide not only entertainment and income, but can also help improve your respect amongst factions. A movie theater costs $3,000, requires 2mW of electricity to operate, provides jobs for 3 uneducated males, and can entertain up to 15 patrons at a time.

Sports Complex
A Sports Complex can be a major source of income, but requires a massive amount of real estate, costs a lot up front, and puts a significant tax on the power grid. Your economy and/or tourism should be very strong before attempting to build one of these, as it can quickly turn into a money pit without proper planning and infrastructure beforehand. A sports complex costs $25,000, requires 20mW of electricity to operate, provides jobs for 6 high school males, and can entertain up to 24 patrons at a time.

Infrastructure
It would be impractical to expect your island's population to walk everywhere they need to go. Not that they can't or won't, but the time spent walking is time they aren't spending sleeping or, more importantly, working! Under the Infrastructure tab is also important buildings needed for your economy to function and your population to grow through immigrants.

Road
Roads are necessary for the population of Tropico to get between work, home, and wherever else they wish to go. Road design should be built with [Garage]s in mind, as the two are necessary for a proper transportation infrastructure. Roads are different from regular buildings as they are built instantly as you place them. Roads cost $20 dollars for every 50 meters.

Garage
Tropicans don't have their own cars, so if they wish to drive somewhere they must grab a car from the garage. Because of this, it's important to build garages close to where Tropicans live and work. Remember that garages need to be near housing as well as workplaces for the transportation infrastructure to be efficient. Some buildings, such as a Mine, have garages built into them and do not require a garage be built near them. A garage costs $2,500 and creates jobs for 2 uneducated males.

Dock
Docks are the backbone of the economy. They are so important they are one of the first buildings you are given no matter the mission. Docks are used to bring immigrants in and to send exports out. A dock costs $2,000 and creates jobs for 4 uneducated males.

Tourist Dock
A tourist dock is one way to bring tourist to the island (the other being the Airport) and either is a prerequisite to building accommodations. A tourist dock costs $2,000 and provides jobs for 2 uneducated males.

Airport
An airport is one way to bring tourist to the island. An airport will bring in more tourist than a Tourist Dock, but is much more expensive and requires more real estate to build. Unlike a Tourist Dock, there can only be one Airport on an island. Either of the two is a prerequisite to building accommodations. An airport costs $16,000 and provides jobs for 2 college females.

Powerplant
For many advanced buildings and even some non-electrified building upgrades, electricity is a requirement. Powerplants are used to create the electricity that will drive your island into the 20th century, even if you're over 50 years late to the party. A powerplant costs $17,000 and creates jobs for 8 college females.

Electric Substation
When a powerplant is built, it creates a radius around it that it can provide power to. If that new building you want needs power but can't be built inside of this radius, you can build an electric substation to increase the radius in the area around the substation. These can also be daisy-chained to provide power all over the island while leaving the power plants far from town. An electric substation costs $2,000 and requires no workers to function.

Teamster's Office
Farmers, Miners, and Lumberjacks are far too busy farming, mining, and deforesting to take their created resources to wherever they need to go next. This is where the teamsters, who are stationed out of Teamster's Office's come in. If you're finding your buildings are storing a lot of Output, you may need to create more teamster offices so you'll have more teamsters to pick up the resources. A teamster's office costs $2,000 and provides jobs for 6 uneducated males.

Construction Office
No buildings can be built without construction workers, and there are no construction workers without a Construction Office. If you find you have a lot of buildings on backlog to be built, you should consider building more construction offices. A construction office costs $2,000 and creates jobs for 8 uneducated Tropicans.

Demolish
Demolish is used to destroy buildings and roads. To use it, left-click on items you wish to destroy and right-click when you are done. Note that buildings that are not completed yet will give you a 100% refund and will be destroyed instantly. Those that are already built will require a construction worker to come out, set charges, and blow up the building. Roads will instantly be demolished when you select them.

Government
It's not enough to give the people of Tropico a place to live and work. Order must be kept and foreign powers must be kept from invading your island. The items under this section help reduce crime, juggle foreign relations, increase your army's size, and can even help earn you a little bit of money.

Immigration Office
While you can have immigrants without it, the Immigration Office (which you can only build one of) is useful in controling the amount of education level of the immigrants that enter your island. With the Immigrantion Office you can increase your immigration numbers, stop immigration altogether at the joy of the nationalists, or only allow educated immigrants to enter. An immigration office costs $2,500 and provides jobs for 2 high school females.

Diplomatic Ministry
As a small island during a cold war, you are constantly juggling your relationships between the US and the USSR. Building a diplomatic ministry will help you control which way your island goes and, consequently, how big a check the two powers send you. A diplomatic ministry costs $5,000 and provides jobs for 3 high school females.

Bank
A bank is a wonderful asset to have for a player as it has 3 different uses. It can be used to get a discount on buildings, increase your Swiss bank account, or increase your revenue through offshore banking. A bank costs $8,000, creates jobs for 5 college males, and when set to offshore banking can help up to 16 patrons at a time.

Police Station
As your island grows, so does the amount of housing needed. As the amount of housing increases, so does crime. A police station built near the worse crime areas will help reduce crime at the cost of reducing liberty as well. A police station costs $5,000 and creates jobs for 5 high school males.

Prison
When someone has been a bad Tropican, you can choose to send them to prison. Actually, you can send anyone you want to prison for no reason, but you wouldn't do that, right? At prison, they can either be reeducated to raise their respect or used for force labor to help add some black to the island's accounting books. A prison costs $3,000, creates jobs for 2 high school males, and has a maximum capacity of 8 prisoners.

Guard Station
Guard Stations are a way to increase the amount of soliders you have on your island. You are only able to build one Guard Station for each general you have (which you get from building an Armory or Army Base). A guard station costs $1,500 and creates soilders out of 3 high school males.

Armory
What's inside the armory? Well, weapons of course... and generals apparently. Building an Armory is one way of increasing the number of generals (and, through guard stations, the size of your army) in Tropico, the other being an Army Base. An armory costs $3,000 and creates generals out of 3 college males.

Army Base
Army life is tough. You just trained these guys to fight and gave them weapons to kill, shouldn't you make sure they're happy with you? Army Bases allow you to have more generals as well as provide good health care and nice housing for your military. An army base costs $10,000, creates generals out of 3 college males, and provides housing for 16 military families.

Decorations
Feel like making the island a little prettier in a certain area? Placing decorations will help increase the beauty in that area. There are multiple decorations to choose from (use the [ and ] to switch between them), but each of them only costs $50.

Statues
Feel like lowering crime and liberty in an area? Sounds like a job for statues! Statues will help decrease crime in an area but at the cost of decreasing liberty too. Guess it's hard to steal when a bronzed el presidente is staring at you. Each statue (there are a couple of selections, use the [ and ] keys to switch between them) will put you back $200.

Human Services
Human Services are used to help improve the wellness of the population. With human services, you can increase the education of your population, the health care, ease of accessing food, faith, and even liberty.

Grade School
Grade Schools are useful to raise the intelligence level of Tropican children. You may also set the school to give the children a random trade skill, give them a chance to turn into loyalists or decrease their courage upon graduation. A grade school costs $4,000, creates jobs for 2 high school females, and can sustain at most 12 students at a time.

High School
High Schools are useful to raise the education level of uneducated to that of high school level. As your island grows, you'll find some of the more lucrative jobs and buildings require workers with high school diplomas. A high school costs $8,000, creates jobs for 6 high school females, and can sustain at most 12 students at a time.

College
Like high schools, colleges are useful to raise the education level of high schoolers to college level. As your island grows, you'll find some jobs require college experience. Hiring foreign experts with college degrees is extremely expensive, so it's wise to build a college so you don't have to. A college costs $12,000, creates jobs for 6 college males, and can sustain at most 16 students at a time.

Clinic
The people of Tropico expect good health care. In fact, people will die from poor health care if gone unchecked. A clinic is a relatively cheap way to provide health care to the population. A clinic costs $3,000, creates jobs for 2 college males, and can treat at most 8 patients at a time.

Hospital
Clinics are nice, but Hospitals are better. They provide better care and can see more patients at a time, but they're not cheap and require electricity. A hospital costs $12,000, creates jobs for 4 college males, and can treat at most 12 patients at a time.

Marketplace
When a Tropican is hungry, they will seek out a place to get food. If you do not have a market, they will go directly to the farms to obtain nourishment. A marketplace allows for your population to grab the food they need without having to take such a long trip to the farms. A marketplace costs $500 and creates a job for 1 high school female.

Church
Tropicans are religious people and will expect a Church for their faith. Building Churches will also net you points with the religious faction. A church costs $6,000, creates jobs for 4 high school males, and has room for 12 members at a time.

Cathedral
Cathedrals are bigger churches with better service. A cathedral costs $20,000, creates jobs for 4 college males, and has room for 16 members at a time.

Newspaper
A newspaper is a great way to increase liberty when a Powerplant hasn't been built yet. Its size however does make placement a problem often times. A newspaper costs $7,000 and creates jobs for 3 college females.

Radio Station
Radio Stations are better than newspapers for the radius size that they increase liberty in, however they do require a Powerplant to operate. A radio station costs $10,000, requires 10mW of electricity to operate, and creates jobs for 2 college females.

TV Station
TV Stations are better than radio stations in the same way radio stations are better than the newspaper. A TV station costs $15,000, requires 15mW of electricity to operate, and creates jobs for 3 college females.