It's on sale on Steam for less than $10, whereas SimCity will be $60 for a while. And I'm really bummed about the city size in SimCity, and not being able to really do everything in one city. On the other hand, I don't know a ton about the Tropico series, and I don't have a great sense of what I should expect in terms of polish and bugs.

I thought about making this topic all day but being the lazy bastard that i am i didn't. Answers to these questions are relevant to my interests.

I've never hit a bug in Tropico 4. It's a well made game, and certainly worth $10. Just be aware that it might not scratch that SimCity itch because it doesn't really do the same thing. I'd suggest checking out the demo first!

If you do not own Tropico 3, yes. If you already own Tropico 3, just play that, they are the same game.

Tropico is AMAZING. Well worth $10! But, like @jazzyjeff said, it's not the same game as SimCity. It does a lot of things similar and they're both great games. But yeah, if you've never played Tropico, $10 is downright criminal if you like your sim games. Despite the server woes, I'd still heartily recommend SimCity to sim fans. I'm having a ridiculous amount of fun with it.

Tropico is a cool game, but it's not really the same as SimCity. CitiesXL is the same as SimyCity though, except you have 100km^2 maps to make your cities on.

Tropico is very good, just know it's more like a Tycoon game where you aren't zoning or anything and are placing all your buildings. I prefer that to Sim City, personally, and really enjoyed it.

I'd buy some quality drinks instead and just sit back in a comfortable chair. Pondering.

I've been enjoying Tropico 4 for a while now.

I bought Tropico 3 when it came out, but never got around to learning how to play. Later bought Tropico 4 with the intention of finally getting into it. Still kept putting it off. That's on me.

It took Simcity to finally whet my appetite for an actual city management game and not just an interactive screensaver. So I finally fired up Tropico 4, went through the tutorials and have become addicted to it. Game ain't perfect, but it certainly scratches that itch.

Thus I haven't felt the urge to touch Simcity since launch week. Server issues aside, I just got turned off by all the design decisions in the game that restrict actual strategic play. It's true Tropico is more of a tycoon game, but it's far more engaging at micro-level management than the neighborhood-level simulation that Simcity purports as a selling point.