For the three questions above, I vote for:
By the temples rather than the coast
Magical aura
I'd like an aura of 4 or 5.
For resources:
I suggest 68BP on the lab texts which will later be compiled as "Roamer's book" as seen at [url]https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/what-spells-should-every-covenant-have-arcane-connection/7833/99]
(Me and CJ had fun running down the popular spells, and this makes a good basis to start from.
I suggest we have vis stocks of 50 in creo and corpus (to allow for 4 or 5 people to use 7 pawns on their longevity rituals when the time comes, plus a bit for aging crises or magic healing), and 50 pawns of vim (in case we need a stronger aegis, need to boost casting of Perdo Vim spells cast on curses or deleterious magic, new items). That only costs 20 BP.
I suggest a few build points go on housekeeping items from Covenants, like 3 BP on an Abluere Magica or a magic oven or a magic broom - it offers the chance for apprentices to practice finesse while keeping the number of housekeeping staff down.
Covenants p56 mentions you can buy starting money for the covenant at 1BP per 10 mythic pounds - I suggest we buy a modest reserve in case of financial disaster in the first year or two.
Specialists - we will need a teacher so our apprentices learn Latin + Artes Liberales + maybe some academic skills. We will need 18BP on a scribe, bookbinder and percamenarius so we can write those books we want to.
Can we buy a spare scribe and teach him Magic Theory in play so he can go copy summae from the Tribunal library, or do PC magi have to do the copying?
I suggest we spend a big chunk of our build points on vis sources as well managed from 1100 to 1220 we will build up a decent amount (whether in personal stocks or communal).