Supplies and Records

Is someone keeping track of how much food, coal and wood, weapons, and other supplies each city has? How about the supplies in a castle? Winter supplies?
A lot of these things are the most essential portions of running a domain. To be honest, I do not even have a concept of the local population.
Are the STs keeping track of things like this? What happens if someone tries to hurt a city through influences, do you know how long it can hold out without any way to export their products?
As another options, should the players be keeping item cards representing supplies? Maybe at the start of a session you must be able to produce enough food to feed your domain, and enough clothing to keep your people warm, etc. This may not apply to everyone, but for those that keep domain this would actually create a sort of system and help to take it out of ST hands.

Meh, leave it up to ST discretion.

There are supply cards where resources are tracked, but as for standard supply rates... the biggest domain is what, a town? And while you are the lord of that town all other things being equal you can assume the population can take care of themselves. This won't always be true. If another PC attacks the town in some fashion (Influences, Millitary Forces W/E) or if something happens environmentally (famine, plague, NPC Military forces ect) then you should have to expend resources or lose temp points of the domain background. But that's the exception not the rule.

Now maybe you should have resources costs for Military force, since it's implied that bribes ect are required before they will act but that's on a per use basis. Are there any other backgrounds that require expenditures before they can be used, or should?

I wouldn't mind some suggestions, apart from crafts, on what resources can be used for. Like, say I have 10 units of iron.
I can trade it for other resources using commerce.
I can sell it locally or abroad, although how much it sells for is still kinda fuzzy
I can craft something with it, or trade it to someone else that wants to craft with it.
Can I use it to improve my domain, say improving its fortifications or the stability of its buildings? Maybe increase the domains stats, eg the max commerce weapons it produces?
Can I build new infrastructure using resources, like a university, or a lumber mill or a church? What, if any, crunch mechanics will those things have?
Can I increase a domains population so that it is easier to feed there? Maybe the domain gains a free level of heard or something.

I think a lot of fun things can be done with this system, but they don't all need to be spelled out. The important thing is that we have some public general guidelines that can focus expectation.

Domain is kind of like resources, if you've got it, it's being taken care of. The people have just enough to get by. Now there are some plot lines that people may see in the future who have commerce where things my be getting short, and rumor mill or contacts will be abuzz with this information if you have the right backgrounds on your sheet to see it.

However, if you're attacked, the Normans invade your lands, slaughter your cattle, burn your fields, and destroy your silos then you have a huge problem. Plot isn't always going to be about the newest monster of the week, or angering the antediluvian next door, the human element of running out of food, which in turns means vampires run out of food can be a big thing. It may not always be food, silver supplies for the mint (merchants want coin, and get angry when they can't get it) or iron to help in Mithras' war etc could be a problem in the future.

For now, Domain is like a pet cat, it pretty much takes care of itself, but every now and then it's going to want belly rub/hand claw to get better.

One thing to make clear, the ST staff has a map that the players don't have access to, with all the resources on it, and a whole lot of other plot like info. It's three sessions in, and some people are starting to discover what their domains have in the realm of natural resources, or influence bonuses just for living where they live. (Provided they have access to the appropriate backgrounds to see these things) I'm not saying players may want to start looking into these, but a little domain research never hurt anyone.

I think it would be more interesting if your lands did not take care of themselves. It makes the influence game more dynamic when things are always happening. If you know that everything is fine unless someone is attacking you, then you automatically know the first time something goes wrong that people are attacking you. Bad shit should just happen. And people should be able to prepare for those things. Maybe an early frost kills the late crops and people die, unless you had already been hoarding food. Maybe there is a double tax year and people are in trouble unless you set up soup kitchens. That way if and when you are attacked you wont always assume its a PC doing it.