Actually, re-reading the excerpt about Vizier Djinn had me realize a flaw in the Simulacrum Djinn plan. A vizier djinni grants wishes to anyone that captures it, but only up to 3. After that, there's no more wishes untill they recapture the djinni. Now, for a simulacrum, I'd say that the act of creating one would count for capturing. But, once you use up your three wishes, that'd be it and suddenly, you have a simulacrum djinni that is useless to you. I suppose you could simply give that djinni to someone else, but would that really be considered as capturing it?
Sounds like we are trying to describe a post-scarcity society powered by magic. Instead of being powered by oil or solar it is powered by valuable gems.
Entire consortiums would need to be created that have permanent portals to the elemental plane of earth in order to keep a constant supply of the necessary minerals for spell components. You would likely have a very few, very wealthy parties controlling all of this since there are no anti-monopoly laws in the standard setting.
Sounds like a very interesting alternate dystopian fantasy world!
A Staff of Wishes would be good for the long run, though you'd still have to make a decent amount to feed and clothe the populace. I kind of like the idea of combining the two, using the disposable Djinndentured to grant normal wishes (since they are cheaper to make overall and easier to control), while the staff of wishes is more of a back up tool incase there is a Djinn shortage. Or, one could switch that around. Either way, it's a good method of granting wishes to continue with resource making if the djinn were attacked (or conversely, if a set of staves were destroyed or stolen).
Keep in mind that background fluff says people abusing Djinn and treating them as slaves is basically the origin for the Divs. I would say using Djinn as free wish machines could really really backfire on a civilization.
There is death in Pathfinder for the same reasons there is preventable death in the real world: Economics, apathy, stupidity, etc.
Frankly it seems odd to assume it would be otherwise.
Keep in mind that background fluff says people abusing Djinn and treating them as slaves is basically the origin for the Divs. I would say using Djinn as free wish machines could really really backfire on a civilization.
While that is true, these aren't real djinni but clones of one, so they wouldn't really transform. Perhaps the wizard-king has the consensual assistance of a friendly Vizier Djinni to make clones and staves of wishes. Although it would be quite the abnormal djinni, as most of geniekind would be against this manner of what they'd consider "wish-abuse". Certainly, other djinn would be horrified at the concept of cloning their own kind to use as slaves and I could see a great genie invasion to destroy the clones and staves. And that's just one member of geniekind. I'd imagine Ifreets would use this as an excuse to lead a planar incursion into Mageopolis. I'd have to read more about Wish Magic in Legacy of Fire.
Now for wishes, I think there are different levels of wish we could allow. There is one where the wishes are strictly limited and used to create necessary resources and people have to buy them. So, instead of farms, we have food that's wished for, but people still buy food. Buildings are also wished for, but people still pay for maintenance. This kind of system would work out better than wish wages or just giving it out to the populace, avoiding the second and first dystopian scenarios respectively. I'm sure there would be a growing movement of people demanding less restrictive laws on resources that can be wished for, citing that the city has the power to wish for riches for the people but are purposely keeping them poor. Which, in this system, there would unfortunately still be poverty.
Although I wonder how expensive the cost of living would be, as the initial cost of Djinndentured and Staff of Wishes is high, but maintenance on the djinn would be the only constant cost. Staves cost nothing to recharge, but there is the danger of the staff getting stolen. Staves are cheaper to to maintain but hard to replace and you can't cast as many wishes per day unless you really shell out the dough, while djinni are easier to replace but harder to maintain and is limited to only three wishes per person. Although, I am unsure if the creator of the Djinndentured could simply continue to give the clones to other people to have their wishes granted. But at 2500 gp a pop (1.5 BP, assuming 1 BP = 2,000 BP for buying "Magic Items"), the Wizard King could afford to continue making more.
So in regards to healthcare (i.e wands of remove disease, periapts of health), I think between them, it would be more cost effective to simply give the populace the periapts. It's 5625 gp to craft one wand, so it is about 112.5 gp per charge on the wand. While the periapt is permanent and gives immunity to all diseases, mundane and magical (but not infestations), it'd still be good to have some wands on stand-by in the event of infestation, periapt tampering, or just simply not having enough periapts to give to the populace.
Imagine a place like Quantium in Nex, with about 300,000 people. You'd need to have enough simulacra to craft the periapts for all of those people (1,125,000,000 gp or 562,500 BP, assuming 1 BP = 2,000 for buying magic items). Now, you wouldn't need to craft wands for every single person, but you'd at least want to have enough to cover those that may not even get the periapts. Again, this can come down to wishes, although how much money worth of magic items you can buy with one wish is up to the GM honestly.
Something scary to wonder is, fighting this city-state would require another wizard of great power. Something like Nex and Geb. I'd say this because I feel that it would be dangerous to have several mage's disjunction bombs strike the city, followed by a terrifyingly virulent plague.
That would admittedly get dangerous. It's why to have this kind of resource, you'd have to have a great deal of security, both manned and magic, guarding the djinn. Essentially, with my first method, the populace would have no contact with the djinn. Instead, the djinn are just production units and told what to create by their creators, while wizards with teleportation (or just teleportation circles to districts) would be the shipping method for food and such. Again, it would have to be heavily guards to prevent attacks and subversion.
Of course, no security system is perfect... and would make a great adventure in sabotage :)
The place the Djinn are stored would be kinda like a nuclear power plant in the real world. High security with only approved specialists allowed inside.
Oh yeah. Djinn factories and holding facilities as well as Staves of Wishes would be heavily guarded by elite security teams and magic traps.
Which brings us to what I actually love to hear about; military. I wonder, would the benevolent wizard-king rather use constructs and/or simulacra to wage war and protect the city? I could see something like Nex's two Quantium golems as protectors of the city-state.
I think undead make better guards. They are far more expendable. If you give them the bloody skeleton template they are also self healing. Constructs and/or simulacra are expensive and don't heal easily making them good shock troops but poor soldiers.
WIth the large amount of wealth that such a city is producing, however extra planner mercenaries could be hired on as the need arises.
Of course the coolest thing would be to make the entire city a construct that flys so any enemies would have to catch it first.
Or the entire city could be in a it's own private demi plane. With all of the high wealth generating things going on in this city these options become feasible.
Of course that might be why we never see any such cities. They are all in their own private demi planes.
You run a good point on the constructs in terms of expense, although they aren't hard to heal if you have make whole. Simulacra would be out of the question, but as far as elite guards go, Iron Golems would be able to crush the average rebel and thief. For an altruistic wizard-king, undead might erk him a bit as evil and he may have issues with it. Plus the populace may not be into that either. But you have a good point about extraplanar allies. Angels, elementals, and other creatures from beyond would be great allies and army units.
As for demiplane, that is possible, but I avoided that possibility to allow for people to walk in and out of the city and also keep it a major player on whatever planet it is on.