The six auras are Crime, Tourist Appeal, residential appeal, governmental respect, governmental repression and pollution. Buildings contain settings that allow players to control wages, service fees, quality of service and other features within the game. Some buildings are upgradeable into entirely new structures. Dozens of edicts can be declared that will change life for the Tropicans, and the player's abilities grow with each new structure. Streets also play a role within the game.
Players are able to design their own cities from the ground up.
The outside world makes an incredible difference within Tropico, which uses a Cold War setting and takes place between the 1950's-1970's. Both America and Russia will try to pull Tropico over to their side and agenda. While Tropico may never help the Americans or Russians in a military conflict, it's nice to have strong allies on your side in the event that things go downhill in a hurry. Using the editor, players can create their own maps and scenarios, adding anything they want to the already existing game. Maps, characters and buildings can be downloaded from the Internet and installed into already-existing files.