Question about Meta-Creator and Covenants

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi all,
I am in the process of building a new covenant in Meta-Creator and wondered how other people had managed to do the provisions cost.

My new covenant has a provisions cost of 84 and a consumable cost of 34.

Now the covenant is set in a valley and a lot of the food for the place is grown here (crops, sheep, a few cows and lots of goats).
Do I need to set an Agriculture income source to offset these provisions, or is there some other trick? Money isn't actually changing hands as most of these people work for us.
We also have an iron mine as an income source, how can I use this to offset the consumables and the Weapon upkeep?

Thanks.

2

That's how I would do it.
Economy doesn't mean money after all, it's just resource management.

3

I set up half my provisions with laborers, the other half with a combination of cooks, brewers, and butchers (each can cover up to 20% of the provisions budget, laborers can cover up to 50%).