Tropico 4

Firstly, to view the happiness details of your island you need to select your Almanac (Hold Right Trigger and then press Y), navigate to the Overview tab using the shoulder buttons and select 'Overall Happiness', now on the right hand page you will see the happiness ratings for each criteria.

When you start your island, be sure to focus on building a very solid economy, when you have a steady stream of cash rolling in, build even more industry. Don't forget to get a customs office built and set to stimulate exports to earn even more cash. If you have lots of money you will find this achievement pretty easy.

Don't try to run before you can walk, be sure to make everyone 'content' before you start focusing on drastically improving specific criteria. Once you have no rebel threats etc. and a strong source of income rolling in you are ready to start making your Utopia. A nuclear power plant can be a big help to save you worrying about power needs.

Food Quality:

Here we want both quantity and variety of food, so build lots of farms (Corn, Papaya, Pineapple and Banana), Ranches (Beef and Goats) and Fisherman's Wharves. Make sure that the area is suitable to farm the relevant product, don't worry if there is nowhere suitable for a particular crop. You want lots of markets built so your citizens can easily get their food. Finally you have the 'Food for the People' general edict which will dramatically increase food quality, however it also DOUBLES food consumption so make sure you are prepared or just put it on at the end for a final boost.

Housing quality:

Ideally here you want to have no shacks on the island and everyone living in either houses, condominiums or mansions. Don't forget, this is your end plan, using lower class housing earlier in your game will be necessary just demolish the bad quality housing later on. Apartment blocks can also serve your needs here, just be sure to both set the apartment to Normal Maintenance and give them the Climate Control upgrade ($1,000 and 2MW of power)

If you hold Right trigger and press X to go to the overlays, select 'services' then select 'Occupancy' you can easily see important details like the number of shacks (also they will get highlighted green), occupancy levels of your housing and of course your average housing quality.

If you have an unemployment issue then consider using the 'Free housing' general edict so even the unemployed can live somewhere, but beware because this can be a huge strain on anything less than a booming economy and as such perhaps a final push move.

Religion quality:

Build more churches and Cathedrals to keep raising this stat, the more expensive cathedrals will have more of an effect but also take up rather large amounts of space which can sometimes be an issue, if so churches will suffice.

Once you have your foreign affairs minister, you can use the Papal Visit edict to dramatically improve this stat for three years. This can only be issued ONCE and will only last for three years, so again save it for your final push.

Entertainment:

Focus mainly on the more expensive types of entertainment but it is good to have all types built. This one shouldn't be too much trouble especially since these building generate profits too.

A few edicts that can help under 'Economy and Tourism'; 'Mardi Gras' which can be used every three years but will increase crime. 'The Headliner' and 'Pan-Caribbean Games' should be saved for your final push, they both last 3 years but can only be used once.

Health-care Quality:

Hospitals, hospitals, hospitals! Just keep building more as you need them.

Crime safety:

Hold Right Trigger, press X then select 'People' for an easy visual overview of your crime safety.

A few important things to note here, firstly is that shacks are a huge contributor to bad crime safety. So essentially adequate housing = good crime safety.

Build police stations in any problem areas (yellow or red on the overlay) and be sure to build prisons too which I recommend you set to 're-education'.

Policeman will arrest criminals but I recommend you do it manually: Hold RT and press Y to open your Almanac, navigate to the 'Lists' tab then scroll down to 'Residents - Job', select 'next' on the right page until you find the 'Criminals.' Select each one with A and select 'Arrest' on the 'Job and House' tab, you'll need a free prison slot and $1,000 for each one.

Environment:

Firstly, have lots of Garbage dumps built, set them all to recycling and purchase their upgrades. These do take some time to take effect, so build them early. Horticulture stations can also reduce the impact of logging.

Be sure to activate 'Pollution Standards' and 'Anti-litter Ordinance' edicts.

Many of factories, mines, logging camps etc. will have upgrades and/or work modes that can help reduce pollution i.e. lumber camp set to 'selective harvest' work mode and have the 'horticulture shack' upgrade. Note that many also have upgrades that increase pollution i.e lumber camp set to 'clear cut' work mode and have the 'Tool Shop' upgrade, try to avoid these.

Finally use the 'Landmarks and Beauty' section of the building menu for a wide range of building that can improve environmental happiness. Never underestimate what an impact having lots of gardens, trees and fountains can have. The Palace also has a nice upgrade.

Liberty:

Hold RT, press X, select 'People' and then liberty for an easy overview. We want to have no Red and as much green as possible here.

Newspapers, Radio stations and TV stations will dramatically increase liberty, be sure to select the best settings for these buildings like 'BBC' for the TV station.

Activate 'Sensitivity Training' from the 'Education' edicts so your military and police reduce liberty less. Also the more police and military buildings you have built the worse your liberty will be, so bear that in mind and later game you can often remove some you needed earlier.

Job Quality:

I would focus on this towards the end as it can be a drag on your economy to have high.

Hold RT, press X, select 'services' then select 'Job Quality' for an easy overview of the job quality. As usual we want to get rid of the reds and get as much greens as possible.

Many building have upgrades like 'skylights' which can improve job quality, again be wary of upgrades that can reduce it. When your ready for your final push setting buildings work modes to 'Easy does it' rather than 'Sweat-shop' will increase the quality by 10 but also means they only work 75% of the time they normally would.

Quite simply though, the more you pay someone the better their job quality will be. When you select a building where people work, there is a slider where you can adjust pay, it will also tell you the job quality for that pay level. Once you select the new wage there are also two very useful buttons to the right which will allow you to set the new wage for either all employees of the same type i.e. all farmers, or for all employees of the same education level i.e. all high-school workers.

Respect:

This will mainly go hand in hand with everything else you are doing, the happier people are the more they will respect you.

Arresting, executing etc will reduce individuals and their families respect towards you. Unfulfilled election promises will also have a negative effect.

Various edicts can have various positive and negative effects, sometimes both i.e. 'Contraception ban' will increase religious peoples respect but decrease intellectual respect. Some buildings can also be used to increase respect when set in the appropriate work mode i.e. TV station and Blimp ride.

In general though, the respect happiness will probably be quite high for you anyway given all you have done from above.


Conclusion:

So those are the factors affecting your 'Overall Happiness', don't forget that you need an average of above 70% from the above factors and as such you don't need to get all of them over 70.

Bear in mind that as you continue to grow as a nation you will need to continue to maintain the needs affecting these stats i.e. enough cathedrals now probably won't be enough in 10 years time.

When you hit 70%, keep trying to work it higher, the last thing you want is to be at 70% and in the last few months of your game for it to drop to 69%.

DON'T play on God mode in sandbox, this apparently locks all achievements.

It is up to you whether you want to play on sandbox mode with some nice easy settings and then just keep that happiness up until the end of your service or if you want to do it in a campaign mission. The advantage of the campaign is that there are often very specific actions you need to do to end the mission, as such you can play until you are ready to do that action, get your happiness up to 71% and then complete the action to end the game. The final mission of the campaign also offers a good setting to aim for this.

Sorry for the long guide but there was a lot to cover, is you have any questions or something you think I should add/change please leave a comment and I'll do my best to get it sorted.

I made this video to show people that you don't need 71% for this achievement just 70%.

On level 12 where you are hosting the Olympics wait for the two radio stations objective then build one and then simply wait for your population happiness to rise as you tend to their needs.

Then the second it hits 70% save it and quick build your final radio station and BAM!

The guide by English Ender is fantastic and tells you all the gruelling details of how to get this far which is basically submit to all the factions needs and give the people good housing, lots of liberty, crime safety and healthcare. Oh and food............

Video below showing that 70% is the catch point and its hard to miss it if your fast.