12. Economy

All nations share one production model: land + labor + tools → goods. What differs is the allocation layer: who owns, who decides, and how goods reach citizens.

12.1 Resources

12.2 Allocation by system

12.3 National currencies (v0.3 – replaces the element attribute)

Every nation issues its own currency, and the currency behaves like the nation’s economic system: a capitalist float that can crash, a socialist band, a pegged and controlled party-state currency, a non-convertible ration economy, a gold coin a king can debase, money under faith rules, a dividend currency, and shareholder bank money. Citizens feel the system every time they are paid, shop or travel. All names are original working names pending the trademark search (Section 1.4).

Design note. These regimes are stylized analogues of broad real-world monetary arrangements (floating, banded, pegged, commodity-backed, non-convertible), simplified for play. The faith-finance rules of the Prism are invented for the Lumen Canon and are not modeled on any real religion’s law.

12.4 Money supply, printing powers and inflation

Each nation has one money-supply lever. Who holds it, and how far they can pull it, is part of the immutable system; since v0.7 every printing authority below is an AI body, and the caps are hard limits in its legal action set (Section 8.18). Inflation follows a deliberately simple, visible rule: the national Price Index drifts toward money supply ÷ real output with a lag of a few game weeks [ASSUMPTION – tune in bot simulations]. Fixed-price systems (Korund always; Confluence staples; Varkand at Red Alert) show the same pressure as shortages, queue times and a widening black-market premium instead of price rises.

• Hard ceilings (Charter Limit, confirmed v0.4): no nation can create more than 15% of its money supply in one game month by any route, and no more than 30% in a game year [ASSUMPTION]. A full hyperinflationary collapse therefore cannot happen: no currency becomes worthless, is abolished or has to be replaced, and there is no ‘currency collapse’ event.
• Reckless printing still hurts (v0.4): printing at the ceiling year after year compounds – 30% a game year is roughly 2.2× in three game years (about three real months) – and brings painful, visible inflation: wages, rations-in-cash and dividends lag prices, savings erode, the exchange rate and Currency Confidence fall, import prices and the black-market premium rise, Unrest grows and World Reputation drops. It is a political disaster for the rulers who chose it, not a broken server.
• Currency reform: if the Price Index rises above 3× its Age starting level, the authority may hold a redenomination (drop zeros; new notes art) – a purely cosmetic reform that restores a little Currency Confidence; balances are converted exactly and nothing is wiped [ASSUMPTION].
• Currency Confidence (0–100) falls with inflation, reserve losses, debasement, devaluation, sanctions and lost wars; it raises or lowers the exchange rate’s ‘fundamental drift’ (Section 12.6), the black-market premium (Section 12.9) and feeds Stability.
• Money sinks (critical for a persistent economy): taxes, upkeep, construction, decay of tools and clothes, war losses, market and exchange fees, temple building and charity. Every source of money must be matched by sinks in balancing reviews.

12.5 The Tessera and the Commons Clearing House (neutral reserve and trade unit)

A world of ten currencies needs a neutral yardstick that no player government controls. The Commons Clearing House is a system-run, neutral institution (like the World Registry that sells Wildlands) seated in the Commons. It issues the Tessera (TSR) – named for the small square tiles of a mosaic, echoing the map’s squares.

• What it is: a unit of account and reserve asset defined as a basket of the convertible currencies, weighted by each nation’s share of settled world trade over the previous Age, re-weighted at each Age boundary [ASSUMPTION]. Korund’s Labor Note is never in the basket.
• How it is created: only when a treasury, licensed bank or chartered company deposits basket currencies with the Clearing House (and destroyed when they are withdrawn), plus a small issue backed by royalties from jointly developed Commons rare nodes. No nation can print Tessera.
• Who holds it (decided v0.4): treasuries, central banks, licensed exchange dealers, chartered companies – and ordinary citizens. Any citizen may hold Tessera and trade currencies through licensed exchanges (licensed dealer desks, bank counters and Clearing House kiosks), within their home system’s limits: only the verification-tier limits in the free-floating nations, quotas and caps in the controlled economies, and none in Korund, whose non-convertible system is fixed (Section 12.8).
• What it is used for: quoting every currency (one order book per currency against TSR), settling cross-border trade, pricing treaties, land sales, reparations and aid, and holding national reserves that a single rival cannot freeze.
• Neutrality: the Clearing House has no officials at all – human or AI – and runs on system rules only; it cannot be captured in war; Commons conquest does not give control of it. It can only be restricted by the multilateral rule in Section 13.3.

12.6 Exchange rates and the World Exchange

12.7 How trade settles

1. Contract: buyer and seller (companies, cooperatives, state bodies, chartered companies, the State Trade Bureau) agree goods, quantity, delivery and a settlement currency – the seller’s, the buyer’s or Tessera.
2. Escrow: the buyer’s payment is locked at the Clearing House; tariffs set by both nations are calculated on the contract.
3. Delivery: goods move by road or sea lane (interdiction, blockade and piracy risks apply; Fulmara underwriters can insure them).
4. Net settlement each game day (about every 2 real hours): the Clearing House nets all deliveries between each pair of nations, converts at the day’s rate through TSR, pays sellers, collects tariffs for each treasury and writes everything to the double-entry ledger.
5. Special routes: Korund trades only through the State Trade Bureau, by barter (goods valued in TSR) or with Tessera it has earned; Meridian onshore firms need a quota or an SEZ account; Varkand at Red Alert settles only in goods or Field Scrip-backed state barter.
6. Treaty tools: trade agreements can add swap lines (treasuries lend each other currency to defend pegs), a payment union (settle in each other’s currencies without TSR fees) or a fixed-rate clause for a fixed term.

12.8 Citizen wallets

12.9 Black markets

• Why they appear: whenever the official price of money differs from what people would pay – non-convertibility (Korund), pegs set too high (Varkand, Meridian onshore), ration coupons, debasement (Aurelle, for full-weight coins), sanctions and embargoes.
• How they work: private cash-bundle trades between players at a negotiated street rate; the system publishes a rumored rate from recent illicit trades (deliberately noisy). Gray-market dealers, smugglers and moneychangers are careers – legal in some nations (a licensed moneychanger in Fulmara), crimes in others.
• Risk: each illicit trade adds Suspicion where it is a crime; checkpoints, informers and audits can seize cash bundles; punishments are capped like all others (e.g., Korund’s Correction Duty ≤ 7 real days).
• State response: a regime can crack down (more Suspicion and seizures, Grievance rises), legalize partially (SEZ accounts, licensed moneychangers), devalue to close the gap, or tolerate it as a pressure valve – a real policy choice.
• Foreign smugglers (decided v0.4): foreign players – e.g., a Fulmara smuggler or licensed moneychanger – may buy and sell Korund Labor Notes and other cash bundles at the street rate, under the same per-citizen illicit caps, checkpoint seizure risk and the rule that street rates never enter official settlement. This keeps smuggling a cross-border career and the street rate a real signal.
• Bounds: per-citizen daily illicit volume caps and a risk premium keep the black market a thrill and a signal, not an infinite arbitrage machine (Section 12.10).

12.10 Anti-exploit rules for money

12.11 Planning (Korund) – how the plan works

1. Every 150 real days the AI Plan Commission sets national targets per resource: the utility model proposes feasible targets from capacity data; the AI Chairman’s deliberation picks the ambition level (Section 8.3).
2. Targets break down into quarterly quotas per city and work unit.
3. Human and AI citizens’ shifts fill quota bars; human over-fulfilment earns medals and Standing and is the strongest signal the AI Chairman reads; under-fulfilment triggers inspections of AI managers and lost bonuses for work units.
4. Rations are drawn from plan output; a shortfall cuts rations and Stability.
5. Gray-market activity rises when rations fall – illegal but stabilizing in the short term (a deliberate tension for the AI security organs).

12.12 Taxation and budgets

Each nation has a budget screen with the same categories – defense, infrastructure, welfare, culture/propaganda/faith, administration, reserves – but different AI authorities (citizens see the budget per their nation’s transparency rule, Section 8.6; Veldwood’s budget is still subject to human referendum): the Assembly (Kindle), the Politburo and Premier (Confluence), the Standing Committee (Meridian), the Chairman (Korund), the Monarch (Aurelle), the Assembly of the Faithful with Synod sign-off (Ilmar), the Moot on the Cabinet’s proposal (Hoarvale), the Directorate (Varkand), the Federal Assembly subject to referendum (Veldwood), the Council of Ten with Grand Council approval (Fulmara). Rates move only within system bands (e.g., Kindle income tax 0–50%; Veldwood 25–60%; Fulmara excise 0–15%; Ilmar tithe 5–15%) [ASSUMPTION].