Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6876 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Take 2
• Released on: 2003-04-25
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove is the sequel to the award-winning fun in the sun Caribbean simulation, Tropico. As a pirate king, rule a secret pirate island full of despicable 17th century sea dogs. Fuel your economy by plundering wealthy merchant ships and taking prisoners back to the island as captive workers. Keep your scurvy buccaneers satisfied with rowdy gambling, jolly feasting, and barrels of rum! World powers fear you, brigands respect you, captives obey your every command, and don't forget about the wenching! Argh, thar ain't nuttin like bein' a pirate king!

To keep your followers happy, you'll need to supply them with wine, women, food, and a few other essentials like gambling. If you aren't a good provider there are plenty of other buccaneers who want your job and your fancy palace. But how can these things be paid for? The island has no industry or agriculture or anyone living here willing to do an honest day's work. The obvious answer is piracy.

The seas off your little isle are teeming with unprotected and foolish merchant ships just waiting to be plundered. Piracy makes your continued rule possible: it gives you funds to spend on expansion; it brings back captives to work in your taverns, gambling halls, industries, and farms; and most important, it puts money in the hands of your buccaneer followers. As long as they have money to spend, and a bar to spend it in, they'll continue to do what you order--most of the time.

When you command enough pirates, the great powers of the 17th Century may bid for your services in a war. Be careful. Some of your pirates might not feel secure working for the nation that made them outlaws. Other pirates might decline to serve against their homelands. And of course, all pirates fear an encounter with a well-trained naval vessel of England, France or Spain. These battles are risky and some pirates won't return. On the other hand, defeating a naval vessel means lots of new pirate recruits and probably new cannons and other plunder.

Customer Reviews

Rhyming and Stealing in a drunken state…
Ignore that negative review below...

This is actually a lighthearted strategy game with lashings of atmosphere and humor. Playability wise, Tropico 2 is a joy to play. In fact I haven’t enjoyed one of these resource management type games as much as this game for quite some time. Indeed any game featuring "anarchistic shrubs" should be featured in everyones collection!!

The gameplay is similar to other games of this type however -- it just happens to be so much more enjoyable. You start the game as a tin-pot pirate king with a small island and a few captives at your disposal. From this you must strive to become the most feared and richest pirate king on the seven seas. To do this, you need to manage your resources, keep the pirates happy and the captives under control, and plunder riches from the surrounding ocean. Basic stuff really, but with enough depth to keep you glued to your monitor.

Graphically, this game is good but not great. However the excellent but fairly cheesy piraty music and the (occasionally annoying, occasionally amusing) sound effects add to the atmosphere significantly.

Overall this is a superb strategy game and at 10 to 15 ponds you can’t really go wrong. If you like this type of game then this is a must. Get It!

Excellent but lacking in longer term playability
Tropico 2, if anything, is even better than the original Tropico. Exploring and sending ships on missions adds significant interest and the same sense of humour apparent in the original Tropico shows in this game too.

Tho main downside is the repetetiveness of the game. Like the original Tropico, there are forces working against you - and you need to put up various buildings to keep on top of them; you need to keep Pirates happy and captives subdued to stay in power. Sure - you can vary the starting conditions so that in a game you don't have to worry too much about something and you can change your objectives - try to build a large fleet instead of trying to hoard as much personal money as possible - but I found that after I'd won a couple of times, I was loosing interest in playing because it was a bit repetetive. For example, any new game from scratch is going to start with building up your wood industry followed in any order by your iron industries, ship-building industries and buildings to keep your people under the thumb. The scenarios and map editor introduce a little bit of variety.

Overall - an outstanding game - great fun. I was bored with it after about 10 hours of game play.

Great fun.
This game really took over my life for a few weeks. I found it really entertaining and challenging. I have to admit that I did not complete all the campaig scenarios, but I did complete most of them, before finally becoming tired of the game. But that was after a long long time.

I think the game is great and would recommend it. I found it specially entertaining to see the pirates go round the various establishments i built for them before going off to sea to refill my coffers. But the best bit was at the end of each mission. For me, this game has got the best animation to celebrate winning a scenario I have ever seen. It is the same every time, but I loved it and never got fed up of it.