Luria Nova/Dwilight University Economic Syllabus

First Semester - Dialogue between Dean Ciarghuala Dubhaine [Grand Panetier of Luria Nova] and Principal Staedtler la Stylo

What would be the primary concerns for orchestrating a productive region and maintaining its health?

I would say that the first and foremost concern is the welfare of a region's commoners. It's perennially fashionable amongst the upper nobility to look upon peasants as a resource to be exploited and little else but just as a healthy blend of love and respect will bring a hound to heel of his own free will, so too will a just Lord be well served by those who fear the loss of his respect much more than by those who fear the overseer's whip.

There are many ways to build such love, from the widespread practice of holding regular courts to the gentle reassurance a diplomat can bring a concerned merchant or other prominent member of the gentry. And conversely it can be easily lost if circumstances sour. As such it is always wise to keep an eye on how the peasantry respond to the perfectly reasonable taxes we levy to pay for their defence, and to the state of their stomachs. Long periods of rationing can be sustained where necessary but always at a cost.

One should also not overlook the benefit of maintaining militia. We all experience periods when peasant unrest - whether due to religion, taxation or hunger - necessitate the use of force to blunt dissent. There is nothing shameful in this. The interests of the commons are inchoate at best and only the forceful reminder that we the nobility serve the interests of all, not just one segment, will maintain public order. Not that the purpose of a well-regulated militia is to impose tyranny - at least not in the Lurian Empire!

How best would a Lord manage food storage, trade, and movement in the name of maintenance of prosperity?

One of the privileges the office of Grand Panetier confers is the ability to track changes in production and demand across the Empire not only on a daily basis but also year-on-year, though to be honest this has often been a most sobering experience during my terms of office. The uncontroversial finding from analysing these daily reports is that regions really divide into three broad categories: rurals which are good food producers; townslands which generally produce some food as well as gold; and cities which rarely produce much food except perhaps at the height of the Autumn harvest but are reliable sources of gold if well managed.

The situation is actually somewhat more complex than this as no two regions are entirely comparable due to climate, location and population. However the complexities are normally fairly easy for a Lord to identify if they pay attention to their daily reports.

For convenience let us also assume that realm policy on food is to encourage reasonable efficiency in production and storage without requiring perfection. For the Grand Pantry this is a practical position to adopt as there are no realm-wide accounts of food spoilage and losses due to catastrophe have to be gathered on an event-by-event basis.

Firstly, any Lord who aspires to economic competence needs to ensure their region has at least one granary. Without granaries to protect them from the elements any food stores will be subject to noticeable spoilage, whereas for each granary up to one thousand bushels of food can be stored with only modest spoilage. It makes little sense not to have one granary even in quite harsh climates such as deserts or ice fields.

The commoners are normally fairly unconcerned about food if there are somewhere between one and two weeks' supply in the region's stores and my own rule of thumb tends to be to maintain at least 10 days of supply at full rations where possible. This is not only to assuage the peasants' concerns but also to allow for misfortune or illness which might interfere with otherwise well-regulated management routines.

Cities need food and rurals produce food so once a surplus of food is stockpiled it's only natural to consider the trading possibilities. In an ideal world all trade would be handled by Lords without any need for government intervention however there are numerous practical difficulties which often interfere with this, not least physical distance. Very few nobles make trade the focus of their endeavours and consequently most will find their trading activities restricted to a range of 250 miles or so and in an Empire the size of Luria that's very much a local market.

Trade can therefore necessitate frequent travel to marketplaces in towns or cities and this can obviously conflict with both military duties and region maintenance. For this reason it's advisable to either appoint a steward or establish automatic trade offers.

Are there any changes that I, as Lord of a region, could undertake now to improve it's prosperity that I would not be aware of upon immediate observation?

Assuming the region is already stable you should raise the tax rate to the maximum the peasants will support before trade and production are damaged. Whereas if the region is in poor condition slashing the tax rates will greatly ease restoration efforts.