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« on: September 09, 2018, 01:52:32 pm »
MILITARY EDICTS:
Matters of military hierarchy, philosophy of war and development of military tech.
Modernize Siege Engineering Principles:
With proliferation of Fireblood as destructive military component, there's a need to modify and strengthen our forts to better protect against it - some are mentioning star-shapes and sloped walls - as well as develop measures to make bombardments more accurate to minimize damage to the valuable buildings, goods and potential subjects behind the enemy walls.
Adopt Fireblood Skirmisher Tactics:
Fireblood weapons are currently slow to load and rather inaccurate, but smoke and thunder they make alone can shatter morale. Some believe that if the hand-held Fireblood weapons are given to highly mobile units (cavalry), they could strike terror into enemy's ranks, allowing massed spear-and-sword infantry to advance afterwards and decimate the demoralized enemy troops.
BUREAUCRATIC EDICTS:
Matters of administration and government.
Issue the Bill of Rights:
A standarized code of basic laws of the common peoples. Even if peasants will have nothing else left, they will always have their basic freedoms, helping ease their minds in times of emergency - and perhaps allow the spirit of liberty and humanism to blossom (for good or worse).
Establish Passage Tax: (once in effect: 1142 - 1169 AD)
All those travelers, adventurers, merchants and others are moving through the country for free! Let's establish a tax for those entering and leaving our country - this will earn us nice profits each year, although it might slow down immigration and convince some merchants to seek passage through elsewhere.
Establish Scaling Tax:
At the moment, people are taxed on per-household basis. Let's squeeze extra money from those who earn a lot; noblemen with holdings, successful craftsmen and rich merchants. Of course, all of these might not like the idea of having to pay more than a lowly peasant working the fields.
Introduce Fireblood Tariffs:
Fireblood, as well as its components, are both valuable, important, and traded in large quantities. While a royal tariff on the mineral and Fireblood traders would surely hamper our trade and possibly lower amount of the precious black substance available for the Army, it could bring invaluable yearly profits to the Treasury.
Establish Imperial Trade Commission: (once in effect: 1167 AD - 1186 AD)
To ensure stricter and better control of trade in the Empire and through its borders, an imperial guild of trade and commerce should be created. Its officials will keep an ever-vigilant eye on market trends, supply and demand, as well as establish and maintain favorable tariffs and taxes on goods, and help our merchants gain upper hand over foreigners. Hopefully, they will avoid price gouging, corruption, favoritism and other nasty things.
Implement the Vault System:
Introduce the 'Vaults' to the current Treasury system. Vaults are places where dwarves store money of their clients in exchange for stamped writs, which can be then taken to a Vault at a different dwarven domain and safely exchanged for cash in with only a small 'processing' tax handed to the dwarves. With a lot of wealthy clients, this could earn the Treasury a lot of money in the long run, especially if professional dwarven 'Vaulters' can be recruited.
CULTURAL EDICTS:
Matters of religion, culture and art.
Proclaim Religious Equality: (once in effect: 1135 - 1172 AD)
Travelers, merchants, immigrants; they all bring new beliefs and philosophies into the country. Rather than fight those foreign influences, it might be best to allow all peoples free worship on equal level no matter the size and beliefs of the congregation, to help all different worshippers achieve a certain degree to harmony and peace.
Enforce Religious Unity:
Strengthen the nation and culture of the Empire by disallowing foreign faiths to preach freely in the Empire, as well as prevent rise of sects, zealots and fanatical schismatics amongst the clergy by declaring heresy a crime against the Empire, the Emperor, and his subjects.
Promote Missionary Orders:
Promote our faith outside the Imperial borders with monetary and political support from the Crown for the preachers and missionary groups. This will surely strengthen our state religion, on the other hand, it will probably upset religious minorities within the borders and our 'heathen' neighbours outside them.
REVOKE EDICT: Revokes a previously implemented edict, either to cut spending, appease some disgruntled subjects, or both. On the other hand, it might tick off some other peoples, potentially causing a deadly cascade of discontent.
Late Spring, 1135 AD: Established the Fireblood Court:
Creation of a specialized military branch devoted purely to development of Fireblood arms to ensure they are aplenty and of best designs around. This will allow to centralize the production, research and budgeting of Fireblood weaponry rather than having some errant alchemists and engineers running around, trying to make things happen.
End of Year 1139 AD: Established Recruitment Offices:
Mandatory training for youths is a good thing, but after bloodier-than-usual wars, there might be shortage of men to replenish the ranks. If we were to expand on the royal bureaucracy to include offices for traveling civilian recruiters and offer citizenship grants for mercenaries and travelers looking for a new home, our Army could refill its ranks much faster.
End of Year 1140 AD: Established The Council of Statesmen:
Creation of a small council of governmental officials who will be tasked with helping the government run smoother alongside traditional advisors, and, of course, the monarch himself. This will help strengthen the Imperial Authority, even in dire times, and help pass edicts quicker, although giving even more political power away from the throne than in the past might become a source of troubles one day.
End of Year 1146 AD: Established Diplomatic Corps:
Creation of a small but highly professional cabinet of diplomats and ambassadors that would visit neighbouring countries on regular basis to strengthen ties with nearby rulers and their nobles, and maybe even develop favorable treaties with them.
Summer 1152 AD: Issued the Codex of Training Regimen:
A set of efficient (and slightly draconian) requirements and practices of training to ensure that the Army gets only the best recruits of them all. This will make the Army much better in combat, although there might be a problem to fill yearly recruitment quotas sometimes.
End of Year 1153 AD: Established the Shadowranks:
Politics often involve underhanded tactics. A castle full of commoner staff and visiting foreigners just asks for a disaster to occur. Let's have the military form a professional division of most loyal of soldiers, who would protect the Emperor, his family and important state officials, during the day, night, war, peace, revelries of festivals and monotony of daily life.
End of Year 1156 AD: Expanded Primogeniture Law:
A string of bad luck can render a monarch without a male heir or cause succession debates. Rather than risk some unpleasant consequences of such a situation, it might be better to allow a skilled female to ascend to the throne, especially if she is as good at matters of the governance as any other ruler.
End of Year 1158 AD: Enacted Settlement Policy:
Guarantee that those willing to settle in previously undeveloped lands or territories yet unclaimed by any nation will be given a certain amount of money to help further their effort. However, this might cause a severe drain on the Treasury, especially during times of sudden, mass migrations to the countryside.
End of Year 1159 AD: Introduced Elective Succession Laws:
Sometimes a firstborn might be below average in terms of his skills to rule the nation, but there might be no other alternatives left, even amongst females. Elective Succession will allow the monarch to select the most skilled to inherit the throne, even a distant (or foreign!) relative of the successor, although this might cause problems with less gifted yet highly ambitious relatives of the next ruler, as well as local nobility.
Late Autumn, 1160 AD: Proclaimed Dissolution of Cloisters:
There are some faiths that are living and dwelling in estates and keeps that once belonged to the Crown, hoarding wealth within! We should force them out, restoring the important buildings to our governance as well as profiting from the stored treasures. Obviously, the worshippers of the faiths in question will be angry about this.
End of Year 1164 AD: Established The Royal House of Learning:
Scholars scribbling down books in secluded libraries and scriptories should be a thing of the past! Let's instead establish a centre of learning, where those of intellect can exchange ideas and educate those willing to learn. It will help the nation develop technologically, although maintenance of this beacon of enlightenment will obviously require yearly costs.
End of Year 1166 AD: Adopted Fireblood Infantry Tactics:
Fireblood weapons are currently slow to load and rather inaccurate, but even one in dozen of shots is bound to hit someone. Some believe that infantry should be given hand-held Fireblood weapons, which would be fired en masse against the enemy before melee combat, while horsemen equipped with melee weapons attack the flanks in glorious charges or mows down those who were lucky to survive the rain of hot iron.
End of Year 1174 AD: Endorsed State Patronage of Arts:
To help develop the nation culturally, set aside certain amount of budget money to sponsor sculptors, poets, musicians and painters. It will be a constant drain on the Treasury, but think of how prestigious your nation will become, what with those masterpieces of art popping left and right!
End of Year 1176 AD: Established Royal School of Cartography:
People come from near and far, yet we know little of the places they visit, the royal scribes clinging to rumors, hearsays and random tales of strangers. A proper society of cartographers and scholars at the House of Learning could help expand our knowledge about the region, and the continent - who knows, maybe entire world in the far future!
End of Year 1191 AD: Adopted a State Religion (Pantheonism):
Pantheonism has become a major religion amongst our subjects. To foster unity of our subjects against foreign religious influences, we should establish Pantheonism as the state religion, with all others nowhere equal to it. The Pantheonist clergy will sure view it in a good light, too.
End of Year 1195 AD: Established Calendar of Festivities:
Rather than throw a festival every few years to celebrate a bontiful harvest, let's instead establish a cyclic and stable calendar of state-sponsored festivities for the whole year. This will cause a drain on the Treasury, but hey - people love festivals!
End of Year 1199 AD: Passed Advancement of Religion Act:
To ensure that the state faith continues to remain strong and undivided, we should sponsor religious studies and schools as well as institute calendar of theological councils to quickly address changing times in the country and influence of foreign cultures and religions upon our Imperial subjects.
