Some random answers. Tropico allows a wide array of strategies, and everyting in the game has good and bad consequences, so answering clearly is not easy.
Tropico is a political sim. So, before you build anything, it's important to ensure that you have the manpower. Buildings themselves are useless if you don't have the correct employees, and if these employees don't want to work.
The clinic for example, requires doctors, who are college educated citizens -- which means you need a properly staffed college to train them .... which means you need a properly staffed highschool beforehand. Citizens evolve from non educated to highschool educated, and then college educated.
But not all of them do. They also need : a) the proper attributes (ie : be smart enough) and b) the proper ideological stance. For example, communists don't like eggheads, so they won't go to school as easily as other factions, and will not want to be bankers, for example.
You also need to set your wages high enough for higher level jobs (HS or college educated), so the Tropicans actually want to follow the studies. They won't go to school if the pay raise incentive isn't high enough in the new job. There are also edicts that can improve the learning rate.
For example, early in game, as wages, you can try : 6$ for non educated jobs ; 12$ for HS educated ; 24$ for college educated. The x2 increase is what is required to encourage tropicans to earn a better wage. Note that this x2 policy is leaning toward capitalism. A communist regime will require something more egualitarian, like 6-9-12 (less expensive for you, but less skilled workers as well).
All of this, of course, provided that you have an highschool to train the workers. The immigration office set on "skilled workers welcome" adds a nice plus.
Tenements aren't adequate housing. They're not that good. Apartments should be the run-on-the-mill housing. If you're a commie, you can get both tenements and apartments at half price by allying with the Soviets. Tenements have only mediocre housing value, and they bring crime and pollution. They're better that shacks, true, but but that's all. If you're an authoritarian despot, you can use them more, but even there, the're not a long term solution.
Early in game, you have no money to build an highchool, so you must rely on low-technology industry : log camps, farms, fisherman wharf and mines. A gold mine is the best thing you can hope now but, like all mines, it brings a hellish pollution. Don't overbuild : it's better to have 2 farms with good and happy farmers than 6 farms with crappy farmers who hate you. Plus, some crops requires a lot of time before they start producing. The fisherman wharf is also a good choice early.
Once you have a few low level industry, start caring about your people. The pub is cheap and will provide some easy relief. Tropicans won't use leisure building is the set price is higher than their wage. The restaurant is also nice here.
Then it's time to care about housing. First, the rent can't be higher than 1/3 of a family wage. Ie : a single who earns 6 can't pay a rent higher than 2. a married couple 6+6 can pay a rent of 4. and so on. By playing with wages and rents, you can more or less decide who will live where. It's easier if you're a hardcore capitalist : with high income disparity, it's easy to set the rents accordingly. With a 6-12-24 wage scale (depending on education), it makes a 2-4-8 rent scale for singles, and a 4-6-10 scale for married couples. It's not the double, because an educated citizen can marry an uneducated worker. Then, it's up to you to decide :
- bunkhouses : not surprinsingly, your peeps will hate living there. They're better than shacks and require only few room, so you can build a few without rent to put the jobless, the orphans and the old people (unless you want to treat them better than that, since they vote too).
- tenement : can be run-on-the-mill for communist/authoritarian regimes, but bring a lot of crime and pollution.
- country house : they build fast and provide decent housing level. Tropicans prefer single home, since they bring less crime and less pollution. Good if you have enough room on your island.
- Apartment : should be run-on-the-mill for any democratic regime.
- blue house : very good housing, but expensive and long to build.
- the two luxury housing (single luxury home and luxury appartment) are excellent but require electricity, which is difficult to get in this game. One you have it, they provide good housing for the doctors, the bankers and other VIP.
a few more random tips :
- If you're a democrat, you only need to please 51% of your citizens. You can't be loved by anyone anyway.
- If you're an authoritarian evil goon, you only need to please your army.
- Keep an eye on faction leaders or/and citizens with high leadership. Obviously, a rival faction leader with excellent leadership means trouble and should be dealt with.
- Bribing if the most powerful political tool, but it requires a bank and college educated bankers (hard to get if you're communist).
- If you're an evil dictator, building and staffing a prison must be your priority. Why ? Because you can put your soldiers in jail -- EVEN WHILE THEY ARE DOING A COUP ! Basically, it means you're using your police to control your army and your army to control your police.
- If you want to be good and you're certain to always hold elections, you can entirely ignore the army.
- the immigration office is a very efficient building, that allows plenty of uses. I let your discover them. If you're evil, "no one get out of here alive" is a must, to prevent your skilled citizens to leave the place.
Well, to summarize it all : don't overbuild. Focus on people, not buildings. Experience a lot of different strategies. Tropico being a very open game, practically everything can work, from stalinism to ecotopia.
