Tropico 3 takes the series back to its beginnings between 1950 and 2000. The game, which is more of a remake than a true successor, once again gives the player complete authority over a Caribbean banana republic. El Presidente must develop a thriving economy and keep his people satisfied, as well as the USA and USSR, to complete his tenure effectively.

The player constructs most of the city, including residential buildings and streets. While some buildings require room (such as farms), others require a road link or cannot work without electricity. The only structures that appear automatically are poor people’s dwellings. The gamer will need money to create his city. Money can be obtained in a variety of ways. Every year, the player receives foreign help from the world’s superpowers. A tanker comes by many times a year and transports away export products like oil (the new resource in Tropico 3) or bananas, as well as money. Another strategy to gain cash is to make the island more appealing to tourists and then take advantage of them while they are there. Most of the player’s money comes from his people, who pay leases, participate in available entertainment programs, etc. The player decides how much everything costs. He is also in charge of hiring from abroad if the requisite knowledge is not yet available on his island, which irritates the island’s Nationalists. The Nationalists are one of many groups of individuals that the player must please, in addition to each person.

Furthermore, each citizen is a separate creature with their name, ties with other citizens, goals, and desires. Some people feel compelled to thrive academically, others seek religious enlightenment, and others simply want to have a good time. They even take political ties and use them to their advantage. Citizens do not mindlessly obey orders; they must be persuaded by satisfying their desires or by pure greed or terror, which means bribing or placing a contract on them. The latter is particularly beneficial for keeping the rebels at bay, but if all else fails and the rebels charge, the player’s army and himself participate in an automatic battle until only one side remains. The game is over if the palace is destroyed, the player is not re-elected, or the USA/USSR decides El Presidente has become a pain in the buttocks. Furthermore, the tasks in the campaign include objectives such as having 150 tourists visit the island.

Incorporating a 3D-Avatar of the user inside the game is the most significant difference between Tropico and Tropico 2. The avatar, generated from scratch or using a pre-existing persona such as Fidel Castro, can be despatched around the island, temporarily visiting production facilities or construction sites to improve productivity and building speed. The avatar can also be sent to the palace, where he gives a speech and enhances the inhabitants’ freedom on the list.

The game includes an editor that allows the user to develop a new challenge with its own goals, events, and difficulty settings rather than creating a new island, which is pre-defined or randomly generated. These challenges can then be published to the Tropico 3-server, where anyone can try to beat the map’s high score. There is no other multiplayer mode available.

The Steam edition includes the following extra material (which is also included in the Tropico 3: Gold Edition GOG.com release):