Neo, what finally helped me in Tropico was going into sandbox mode and cutting some of the sliders down or up, accordingly, to make things a little easier while I was learning.
My main problem was going broke in like 10 minutes and getting invaded game over.
I turned mostly away from farms and instead mined minderals, oil and lumber, for whatever reason I started making a profit which eventually turned into nearly half a million dollars with me not even needing to buy anything else. Needless to say, the lowered difficulty at least gave me a chance to learn the game better.
So I went from having 10 gamerscore that morning to earning over 500 extra gamerscore half a day later. I also feel pretty confident I at least understand the game well enough to play campaign mode now.
Also two of the tricker achievements were for finish a game with your citizens having over a 70 percent quality of life and finish a game with all factions liking you more than 70.
Aside from obvious things, entertainment, hospitals, etc. etc. it was pretty easy keeping them happy. I took all of my extra money and starting raising everyones salaries like crazy. I started going broke, half a million dollars worth of spending later, luckily I had an alliance with the US so USSR wouldn't invade me. About one minute before the game ended I hit 70 percent, but note this took paying everyone a crazy amount of cash.
To please all the factions wasn't too hard but the environmentalist were against me because *gasp* I needed real power plants. However I was offered an election and a speech chance right at the end. I just praised the environmentalist and promised to improve our environment. Once again about a minute before the end of the game they liked me enough, temporarily, to get that achievement as well.
Also to get the achievement for having over 250 people but NO shacks. Just build lots of tenements and lower the rent to zero. Instant moving poor people, no more shacks.
Sorry to ramble, hope any of that helped anyone.
