Well, Tropico is about modern world (save the pathetic pirate-something expansion pack. Which sucks.) as you're the ruler of a small island in the Caribbean during the cold war. Of course, your diplomacy includes only the Yankees and the Soviets. City management is worse than CoTN (though farming is easier, as they can do it anywhere, and money takes precedence) though it's fun in its own way. You probably won't like it. I just notice another similarity, in fact, as Tropico's workers often needs extra education - just like CoTN - to work in more complex duties. And you can either get some immigrants with education, hire foreign specialists, or establish schools and a college to educate your workers.

I pretty much agree with everything you said about CoTN, though the fact that gold takes the backseat now really irritates me. And CoTN, in many ways, is a pure city-building game. It has no dynamic characteristics of Zeus, or the expansive diplomacy of Emperor. There is also a loss of pattern, and your city will be a mess, despite best attempts at city-planning, later on. I'd think that the game's military should be much better if it's like pharoah, where you use forts and armies actually fought battles, or even better if it follows Emperor's way of limiting forces with nobles. Since food is already based on the size/number of nobles' estates, why can't the military?