Managing Miscellania


 * For a calculator helping you with determining profits from kingdom management, see Calculators/Miscellania with live data from the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

Managing Miscellania is a quest reward from Throne of Miscellania in which the player is the regent of the nation of Miscellania, and as the regent is in charge of running the island. You can decide what resources your subjects obtain for you, but you must have money in the coffers and your popularity with your citizens must be reasonably high. To adjust what resource your subjects obtain for you, speak to Advisor Ghrim in Miscellania castle. You can also speak to him via the Lunar Magicks spell NPC Contact without having to visit Miscellania.

Approval Rating


Players gain approval rating by helping the subjects in various tasks, if they have the skill level for the tasks.
 * Mining coal (1% / 1.28 coal mined)
 * Woodcutting Maple logs (1% / 3 logs chopped or 0.333% per log) (Spirit Beavers cannot multichop them.)
 * Weeding herb or flax patches (1% / 1.28 weed)
 * Fishing tuna, swordfish, and lobster

Once players have completed Royal Trouble, they can also gain approval on the Etceteria side of the island.
 * Cut teak and mahogany trees (Spirit Beavers cannot multichop them.)
 * Compost, water, and weed a farming patch.

These activities yield negligible experience, so it is not recommended that players use them to train skills. Players can find out their approval rating by talking to Advisor Ghrim or various citizens. Once a player's approval rating is at 100%, the subjects stop the player from doing any more work.

Players lose approval rating, also.
 * Automatically, the approval rating drops (at midnight UTC) 1% per day after both quests are complete (3% per day if only Throne of Miscellania has been completed)
 * Stealing from stalls, the approval rating drops 1% per theft
 * Killing citizens, the approval rating drops 5% per death

Since attacking is the default left-click for many citizens, care must be taken to avoid attacking them. High-level players can kill them in one hit, compounding the problem of accidental clicks. Players may wish to make themselves unable to attack by wielding a bow without arrows or by wielding a snowball while visiting the kingdom. Alternatively, players can use the minimap to click where to go.

Mining appears to be the fastest way to improve the approval rating, but, of course, this may depend on the player's Mining level. If players are just 'topping up' their approval rating, cutting maples or weeding are good ways, because they are on the route to visiting Ghrim. Many players also use fairy rings to access Ghrim (code CIP) as then they can mine coal on the way back to the ring or on the way to the castle. Players who need to gain approval rating, but have no items with them, can use Barbarian fishing to fish bare-handed. Players can also buy a rake from Gardener Gunnhild for 15 gp. Fremennik sea boots 2 (or higher) increase the speed of gaining approval and also speed up trips to Miscellania.

NOTE: Your approval rating may drop to 25% after completing Royal Trouble, forcing you to bring it up to 100% again.

Coffers
The completion of the Throne of Miscellania allows a maximum of 5,000,000 coins in the treasury. This amount increases to 7,500,000 coins after the completion of Royal Trouble.

Every day at midnight UTC, the citizens deduct 10% of the balance (but only up to a maximum of 50,000 or 75,000 coins, depending on which quests are completed) and convert it into resources. The rewards can be extremely good if players have both a high approval rating and high amounts of cash in the treasury. For example, with just over 500k coins invested (50k coins deducted from treasury), each day players could expect to receive 370 coal and 20 herbs by setting mining to maximum and herbs to as high as it will go. All herbs are tarromin or better, making this option a good return on investment.

Players need 500,000 coins (750,000 coins after Royal Trouble) in the coffers to get the maximum deduction for one day. To go seven days without collecting resources, players would need 850k coins (1.275M after Royal Trouble) in the coffers to get the maximum amount of resources. If the player deposits the maximum of 5,000,000 or 7,500,000 coins, he/she could go up to 90 days without collecting resources and still get the maximum deduction for one day (however, the player still needs to go back to the kingdom periodically to maintain a high approval rating if he/she wants to receive a decent amount of resources).

If a player has completed only Throne of Miscellania, it is sometimes recommended not to deposit into the coffers until both quests are complete. Waiting until both quests are complete limits possible ill effects of not topping off approval when approval drops 3% per day.

Workers
After completing the Royal Trouble quest, there are 15 available workers. There is a maximum of 10 workers on any task.

Experiments from players seem to suggest that only the money taken from the coffers and the popularity rating is recorded. This means that just before claiming the rewards, players can switch the worker distribution which will then apply to the entire period.

Best Items and Ways to Collect
Based on the number of workers placed on each task, the time interval players should wait before collecting can vary a fair bit. However, for most 10/5 combinations, collecting once every seven days seems to yield the highest number of 'bonus' items. Players are advised to increase their reputation each day, but missing a day does not result in much loss.

There are several different combinations of items to collect to yield profitable and useful rewards.


 * Herb farming is widely regarded as the best way to profit from the kingdom, since many herbs are worth over 1,000 coins. No matter what resources players may require, they are better off placing ten workers on herbs and using the money from the sale of the herbs for whatever else they need. If players place workers on herb farming, flax farming is not an option, since farming herbs and farming flax are mutually exclusive. If players need flax, in this case, it is still better to farm herbs, sell them, and use the money to buy flax.

With the remaining five workers, there are several good options from which to choose. Players should decide based on their needs.


 * Raw fish is a commonly chosen option, as it is the next most profitable after herb farming. The value of raw fish alone covers all the costs of running the kingdom. The extra gems from caskets received beyond that are then pure profit. Players may also choose this option to train Cooking without the need to spend time Fishing. Cooked fish is an option that really only makes sense if players need food for training combat and don't want to choose the more economical option of selling raw fish to buy cooked fish.


 * Coal mining also covers the cost of the kingdom and leaves extra gems. Players may choose this option as a good alternative to purchasing coal to train Smithing, since the cost to collect coal is cheaper than buying it from the Grand Exchange. Players can also smith even more profitable items. For example, players could buy a quantity of iron ore that is half the amount of the coal received (not using the Blast Furnace, in this example) to smith steel and to make cannonballs. Using five people on mining at 100% approval rating for 7 days yields approximately 1900 coal, requiring 950 iron ore and producing 3800 cannonballs. At current GE prices, that is 0 coins of profit.


 * Maple woodcutting is a good option if players need bird's nests, e.g., for Saradomin brew or for the tree seeds and bird's eggs they may provide. It can also be an option to obtain logs for training Firemaking or Fletching bows without spending the time Woodcutting.


 * Farming is a somewhat speculative option, since the prices of seeds can vary quite a bit. Players who need a rather large number of lower level seeds, several decent herb seeds, and some special seeds for Farming can choose this option, as well. If players need only a few types (or only one type) of seed, it may make more economic sense to choose another option and to use the money to buy the seeds needed.


 * Hardwood cutting (teak and mahogany) provides so little return and so few supplies that it is not recommended. Even if players need planks for Construction, which still requires the cost of the sawmill or the use of Plank Make, they should choose a different option and use the money from that option to purchase logs or planks from the Grand Exchange.

Rewards


The table below indicates the maximum rewards - 75k deducted from treasury a day, with popularity at 100%, and the selected item at maximum.

Trivia

 * If there is money in the coffers and the player's membership ends, the workers in Miscellania (and Etceteria, if Royal Trouble is completed) still continue gathering resources and deducting money from the coffers accordingly. Therefore if the player plans on renewing their membership later, it is recommended to fill the coffers with as much as the player can spare in order to take advantage of the days without membership as well. This is also true for when members get temporary bans. The workers will similarly continue to gather resources while the player is banned.
 * Likewise, if the player plans on not renewing their membership, it is strongly recommended to withdraw all money and resources from Miscellania, as it will become impossible to recover anything upon losing membership.
 * Shortly after the Elite Treasure Trails update on 4 August 2010, players collecting from Miscellania received obscenely large amounts of resources, up to 20 million coins' worth. This is fixed by Jagex, but no rollback is made, therefore players who collected the resources during the period could keep the items they received.