Copper is a strategic resource historically, not bonus

[Boris Gudenuf]

Double-edged sword. It decreases productivity by increasing the number of
addicts, but it also contributes to long-term productivity by allowing people to
overcome some illnesses.

It could also be seen to increase the overall "wisdom" of a society by
increasing the number of grandparents who can pass on their experiences and
observations to the younger generations, as well as acting as cheap child care.
OTOH, those same old people and their beliefs can stifle innovations and social
progress through their unshakeable beliefs in the "old ways".
On the gripping hand, as Larry Niven put it, they help maintain lawns by keeping
young people offa them.

"I want a one-handed Economist, because whenever you ask them a question, they always say, '-on the other hand" - H. Truman

So, 'on the other hand', the Opiates made a big change in medicine, especially Battlefield Medicine, because they made it possible to perform surgery without needing 4 - 6 big men to hold the awake and screaming patient down while you cut him up. Unintended Consequences were an estimated 250,000 Opiate Addicts coming out of the American Civil War as wounded veterans, because the doses they were given were 'guesses' and almost invariably too high and too often.

On yet another hand, as the Octopii would say, virtually every human society has had 'substance abuse' problems of one kind or another: alcoholism is not new, nor is 'over indulgence' in other substances: the Greeks referred to the 'Smoke Eating Scythians' because the Scythians had a ceremony in which they let a large bonfire burn down to coals, threw 'plants' onto the fire, and danced through the smoke 'until they saw visions'. Modern archeologists doing pollen-count analysis of the southern Russian/Ukrainian steppes have found that a large percentage of the vegetation there was not only grasses, but hemp plants...

We recognize today the 'extremes' of addictive substances: tobacco, opiates, etc, but throughout history distilled alcohol, wine, hemp, coffee, tobacco, chocolate, cocoa/cocaine, opiates - just about anything with a psycho-active component has been identified as an addictive substance, with which their respective societies/cultures had to deal.

 

[Karpius]

"I want a one-handed Economist, because whenever you ask them a question, they always say, '-on the other hand" - H. Truman

Gotta love Harry!

 

[Karpius]

Mainly, I was thinking of the use of opium in China and China's attempt to ban all imports which the British took serious exception to.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Mainly, I was thinking of the use of opium in China and China's attempt to ban all imports which the British took serious exception to.

I assumed as much, since the 'Opium Wars' were probably the most notorious Drug Interaction in history.

It also brings up an interesting point, though: how would you represent that (assuming you wanted to) in the Game? You are essentially fighting to force another country to accept a Trade Good that the government of that country does not want, in order to have something to trade them for something you want (in this case, Chinese Tea, to which the English were almost as addicted as parts of the Chinese population were to Opium). This would be an interesting diplomatic option, but is it worth it? How many times did something like that come up in history? Off hand, I can't think of any other examples. Certainly not in comparison to the number of times a country made inconvenient trades to get something that their own population, for various reasons, desperately wanted, and not always for 'addiction' reasons: Gold was a very asymmetrical trade good or trade gift from ancient times (Egypt made a very good thing out of having access to gold mines in her dealings with other Bronze Age Middle Eastern Empires). Coffee, Tea, Tobacco - the addictive substances - but also Silver, upon which Chinese coinage was based, was a very lucrative trade good for the Spanish, who shipped most of their takings in silver from the New World to China (via the Philipines) in exchange for porcelains, silks and other high-value goods for Europe. Another version, if you will, of a Triangular Trade.
Another potential diplomatic/trade option for the game. During World War Two, Germany's only source of Chromium was Portugal. Chromium is a necessary component for modern Armor Plate, so it was something more than a 'nice to have' item for them. The USA cut off their supply by simply out-bidding them, and buying up all the Chromium that Portugal produced, so that by 1944 Germany was unable to get any Chromium at all.
So, is there a need for an Expanded Economic Option in the game, in which Resources can vary in value according to how many different Civs or City States need or want it? Do we want to try to model, even in an abstracted way, International Economics? I think we can at least add some more options: right now, and ever since Civ IV, the Trade System in Civilization has been a completely artificial game mechanism bearing only the slightest resemblance to anything ever seen in reality. I think the game can be better served by a slightly more realistic and vastly more dynamic Trade System, but I may be the only one who cares - you don't see a lot of comments on trade and how it works anywhere on the Forums...

For one thing, I can't see picking up many new players by advertising:
"Civilization: The Game of Macro-Economics!"