Tobacco? For Shame Firaxis!

[peterfharris]

Umh, We may indulge in slavery, ethnic cleansing, genocide, nuclear holocaust, pillaging and piracy and yet we have some one indignant that we might have a tobacco resource????

It seems that in the real world we have a never ending political correctness resource to piss everyone off and reduce culture. Should this resource be included in Civ3 for added realism???

[Aramis]

Of course! Then we can have Holistic Medicine as a small wonder, as well as Labor Unions, and Eye Care Specialists. Then we could have an option to educate our citizens about the health dangers associated with obesity. Perhaps Lyme disease should be addressed. Firaxis really failed in not making cholesterol an issue in the game.
Maybe a new resource could be fat-free foods.
Of course my biggest complaint is the total lack by the game designers to even touch on the issue of bus fumes.

[brianshapiro]

pipes, no i think tobacco leaves will be the icons

[Chieftess]

hehe, technically, on CFC, tabacco would be against the forum rules.

Of course, it's just a game (and tabbaco was a major local export - by local I mean my state of Maryland - USA). Maybe we could call them Cuban Cigars?

[alva]

Accoring to the press release here, Firaxis is including tobacco as a luxury resource. While this is historically correct, I find this inclusion appalling. Tobacco consumption amounts to a world-wide health disaster.

But you have nope problem with,ohh say, nukes?!

[Kuciwalker]

Go back to the OT forum where you belong.

[MrWhereItsAt]

With Coal, Oil, Uranium etc boosting prodcuction through the use of improvements that have pollution risks associated with them, perhaps an alternative to stopping tobacco from being used is to have it as a strategic resource (it's easy to add them in - just look at the Double Your Pleasure mod), and make its happiness benefits arise from buiding an Improvement, say a Tobacconist (thanks Colonization!), which also has either a high maintenance cost or imposes some other cost.

Surely nuclear power is a far more controversial and dangerous issue than smoking. Yet I see no-one annoyed at Firaxis for including nuclear power plants, which happen to be perfectly safe and only beneficial, unless you happen to have a city in disorder. This is even further from the truth than smoking's only effect being happiness. Yet both of these exist and have a very large effect on modern society (and in tobacco's case, on past society too), so what we see is merely an approximation of a real-life effect from that item.

Or does someone now want to protest the inclusion of Nukes and Nuclear power in Civ3?

[Willem]

Originally posted by statusperfect




cheers

No, no, not those kind of pipes.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Willem


No, no, not those kind of pipes.

We could MOD it

cheers

[Willem]

Originally posted by ALPHA WOLF 64
i already use tobacco as a luxury and I gave it a -1 shield to reflect decreased production from cancer deaths. the penalty only takes effect if its a bonus grassland or the tile is mined. i do wish that luxuries could become obsolete. I made tobacco available with industrialization and would like to make it obsolete with longevity or some health tech. (same concept would be nice for other luxuries).

Yes, I like that idea too. It's a little sillly that your people want the same luxuries for thousands of years. What I would like to see happen is a Luxury resource becoming a bonus resource with a certain tech. For instance with Ecology, Furs no longer keep your people happy, but there is still some benefit to the resource itself.

[TheStinger]

Tobacco didn't start killing people until people stoppped dying of other things, war, cholers, typhoid etc.

Tobacco is a huge trade good and should be in the game, should we get rid of whales.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by TheStinger
Tobacco is a huge trade good and should be in the game, should we get rid of whales.

why should it only be in the game if we get rid of the whales?

explain

cheers

[Louis XXIV]

Whales were a huge production center (you can take a lot from a whale)

Most of it becomes luxury goods, but making it shields is good

Any chance that they'll add costal or sea strategic/luxury resources?

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Louis XXIV
Any chance that they'll add costal or sea strategic/luxury resources?

They would have to make a new way to connect to them. Maybe the harbor would suffice, or maybe this is one of the new buildings.

[Spiffor]

Louis XXIV
As long as we can't build imrovements on the sea, I don't think so...

The Templar :
As much as I loathe tobacco, it clearly deserves to be a luxury. There is already wine and incense (which covers every exotic fragance, including hallucinogen ones), I don't see why Tobacco would be any different.
My only concern with these new luxuries is the ability to have more than 8 simultaneously, i.e to have more than 20 happy people per city thanks to lux. I wonder if it won't imbalance the game. But maybe there will be less individual luxuries on the map to balance it out.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Spiffor

My only concern with these new luxuries is the ability to have more than 8 simultaneously, i.e to have more than 20 happy people per city thanks to lux. I wonder if it won't imbalance the game. But maybe there will be less individual luxuries on the map to balance it out.

No, it doesn't work that way. Once you have 8 Luxuries in your city list, any further ones have no effect. In fact they don't even appear in the window. They basically are only good as a trading resource at that point. And I doubt whether they'll change that with Conquests.

[Spiffor]

Thanks Willem for the info. Glad to read that

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Willem


No, it doesn't work that way. Once you have 8 Luxuries in your city list, any further ones have no effect. In fact they don't even appear in the window. They basically are only good as a trading resource at that point. And I doubt whether they'll change that with Conquests.

Not sure I like this idea. It makes monopolies less strategically meaningful. Say I want to attack the Romans but they control all of the wine (and none of it's nearby). I have to weigh whether or not the disruption caused by the loss of the good will be small enough to forego wine. Now, I just have to ask the Carthaginians for another 8th resource and off I go.

[GodKing]

If you want to accurately reflect the health problems, make a mod that reduced the food produced in the square with the tobacco. Just my 2 cents is all... modding small things like that for your games is easy. Although I personally despise smoking and have lost relatives because of it, I feel that as a commodity in this game it is important enough to include it. I just wish they had included chocolate as well...

[bobbo008]

let it go...

i think despotism, monarchy and communism should all be taken out because they aren't democratic systems of government and don't rule with the people's interests in mind, blah blah blah.

why dont you have a problem with ivory?

[Tiberius]

I can't believe it that no one has asked for coffee luxury resource until now!

Think about it how many people drink coffee!

I want coffee

But then, I want beer, too

[Fried-Psitalon]

While you're at it, remove Knights! No one thinks about the inhumane treatment of horses by those evil people! No more cavalry or horsemen either! Leave the horses alone! Save the horses!

/me looks around for another pointless Civ-cause.

[nbarclay]

I wish they'd found something else instead of tobacco, but I'm not inclined to make a big fuss about it. Tobacco's historic importance as a luxury certainly justifies its inclusion, but the idea of having to either seek out tobacco for my civilizations or do without a potential happiness benefit doesn't exactly thrill me.

As someone else noted, tobacco's negative health ramifications weren't all that big a deal until people stopped dying of other things first so much of the time. And even today, lost productivity due to tobacco use is almost certainly small enough to be negligible in game terms.

I'm also a bit skeptical of the anti-tobacco lobby's cost claims. On one hand, yes, tobacco-related illnesses cost a lot of money. But on the other, a person who dies of a tobacco-related illness will not incur other costs related to other illnesses later in life, and no longer collects benefits such as Social Security. Focusing on the costs to society and ignoring the savings to society can present an extremely skewed picture, and my impression is that that's how opponents of tobacco tend to operate. (No, I'm not trying to defend tobacco; just trying to defend truth. I'm skeptical regarding claims of how much smoking costs non-smokers, but the costs smokers often pay in their health and perhaps their lives are not in doubt.)

[Panag]

Originally posted by The Templar
Accoring to the press release here, Firaxis is including tobacco as a luxury resource. While this is historically correct, I find this inclusion appalling. Tobacco consumption amounts to a world-wide health disaster. And while tobacco has been historically important, coca has been historically important to the Andean peoples. But don't expect to see coca featured in an American-made game. The argument against coca would be a moral one - despite its historical correctness. No doubt Bill O'reilly or Bill "high roller" Bennett would complain that Firaxis is promoting drug use and should "think of the children" if coca found its way into the game. (BTW Andeans who use coca for personal consuption do not use it in the form of cocaine or crack. They chew the leaves or make tea. This is the difference between drinking a beer and drinking Everclear.)

If Firaxis is going to include tobacco, I recommend some of the following.

* Reflect the actual health costs of tobacco by cutting productivity or taking a financial hit from each city that gets the happiness benefit.

* Have tobacco expire in the modern age.

* Tobacco selling countries could take a reputation hit or have to pay a tax.

These things would reflect the costs imposed by tobacco and make tobacco trade a real trade-off.

hi ,

the use of oil is an ecological disaster , ......

diamond dust aint good for the lungs , .....

ivory is also in the game yet the true owners of the animal kingdom dont like to give it , ....

come - on , its a game , and it reflects history more or the less , among one of them is the fact that tabac consumption is getting higher and higher with the year , ..... so why should it expire in the modern age , ....

have a nice day

[The Templar]

Originally posted by panag

ivory is also in the game yet the true owners of the animal kingdom dont like to give it , ....

Forgot about ivory (I thought this was a bad inclusion as well). No one uses ivory anymore. This is why I was saying luxuries might just as well expire and new ones appear.

This would also create the strategic situation where a land filled with luxury resources could become worthless when new ones are discovered - allowibng for interesting shifts in the balance of economic power.

[Panag]

Originally posted by The Templar


Forgot about ivory (I thought this was a bad inclusion as well). No one uses ivory anymore. This is why I was saying luxuries might just as well expire and new ones appear.

This would also create the strategic situation where a land filled with luxury resources could become worthless when new ones are discovered - allowibng for interesting shifts in the balance of economic power.

hi ,

instead of being shot and driven to near extinction ( okay its just an little bit better now ) for the sale ( to generate money ) there are now safari's , ..... they also generate money , .... one of the reasons ivory should stay in

as for getting old and new lux , ..... , ... nah , they shall not do that , they would prefer to add more units or buildings before doing that , .....

including new ones would be great

have a nice day

[TOUGHUSAGUY]

I DONT HAVE PROBLEMS WITH TOBACCO! WHY? BECAUSE YOUR A STUPID LIBERAL NAZI AND YOU DONT LIKE IT?????? THEN GO TO IRAQ!

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA!

[Glycerius]

Slaves are a trade item in Europa Universalis II and I have not seen anyone in the forum raise an objection. People cannot change history. West and East African states as well as Arab traders there before the coming of Europeans generally made their money that way.

[bobbo008]

"I DONT HAVE PROBLEMS WITH TOBACCO! WHY? BECAUSE YOUR A STUPID LIBERAL NAZI AND YOU DONT LIKE IT?????? THEN GO TO IRAQ!

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA!"

you want "you're" not "YOUR"

[Rommel2D]

Comparisons to other 'shady' elements of Civ aren't as relevant, because a politician's wife can't make a crusade out of teenagers leaving their PCs and going to the convinience store to pick up a six-pack of ivory or a nuke.

Would an 'M' (or whatever) rating have enough impact to influence cost?