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Tropico 3

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Tropico 3
Tropico 3 cover
Developers
Haemimont Games
macOS (OS X) Feral Interactive
Publishers
Windows Kalypso Media
OS X Feral Interactive
Engines
Sol
Release dates
Windows October 20, 2009
macOS (OS X) January 27, 2012
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Point and select
Genres Building
Themes Comedy, Cold War
Series Tropico
Tropico 3 on HowLongToBeat
Tropico 3 on MobyGames
Tropico 3 on Wikipedia
Tropico
Tropico 2001
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove 2003
Tropico 3 2009
Tropico 4 2011
Tropico 5 2014
Tropico 6 2019

Tropico 3 is a singleplayer bird's-eye view building game in the Tropico series.

General information

Official forums
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SecuROM 7 DRM.
Windows
Developer website
CD key
Requires online activation
Can only be used x times
Gold Edition. Five machines limit.
macOS (OS X)
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Steam Special Edition. Gold Edition also available.
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Steam Special Edition. Gold Edition also available.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Gold Edition. Includes bonuses of the Steam Special Edition. Serial key provided in game's library entry, but serves no use.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Gold Edition.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
CD key
Steam Special Edition. Gold Edition also available.
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
DRM details are not known
Windows
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Gold Edition[1]
Windows
Mac App Store (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Gold Edition.
macOS (OS X)
Download mirrors for the (Windows-only) demo is available at the official site.

Version differences

The Steam Special Edition has two exclusive maps and two additional avatar costumes. Its contents are included in the GOG.com release, however.
The Gold Edition includes the base game and the Absolute Power expansion.

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes a new campaign, buildings, writs, faction disasters, street types, character attributes and more.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Absolute Power Expansion
Windows

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\config.lua[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/23490/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\Tropico 3\Saves
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/23490/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Visual settings
Visual settings

Windowed

Download Decompress Config[citation needed]
  1. Download Decompress Config.
  2. Run the program, find config.lua in <path-to-game> and press "Open with Notepad".
  3. Change config.IsFullscreen = 1 to config.IsFullscreen = 0.
  4. Close Decompress Config and launch the game.
  5. Set the resolution in-game.

Input

Input settings
Input settings

Controller support

Download Decompress Config[citation needed]
  1. Download Decompress Config.
  2. Run the program, find config.lua in <path-to-game> and press "Open with Notepad".
  3. Change config.XInput = 0 to config.XInput = 1.

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
SFX, Voice and Music
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian
Local retail version only. The "Absolute Power" Expansion is not translated, but the translation of the base game is available to download.
Italian
Polish
Local retail version only.
Spanish

Issues fixed

Windows Vista/7 multi-monitor crash

There are 3 ways to fix this crash.[4]
Disable all but one monitors before playing
Disable Aero/desktop composition for Tropico3.exe[citation needed]
Play the game in windowed mode, which should work even with Aero[citation needed]

The main menu does not appear after watching the intro

It is possible that the game configuration was corrupted by a system crash.
Delete %APPDATA%\Tropico 3 folder and allow the game to recreate it automatically (make sure to back up the Saves subfolder).[5]

"You need a supported DX9-compatible video card"

Delete Userconfig2.lua[6]
  1. Go to %APPDATA%\Tropico 3
  2. Delete UserConfig2.lua.

Notes

The serial key will need to be re-entered afterwards.
Run the game in windowed mode[7]

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.
Note:Game is quite unstable on some systems.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.6.8
Processor (CPU) Intel 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 7 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/23490/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (23490) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References