Today I noticed a very interesting thing. When you use the exit save trick to overwrite AI opponents to end up in the permanent ??? money state, all of your citizens will stop to use resources like food, spices and tobacco. This even includes new houses you build afterwards. So as long as each island has 1 ton of every required resource for upgrades and food, you can easily build an empire of aristocrats for no more than stones, wood and tools.

Edit: One limitation seems to be that they also won't notice new goods. So if you used the glitch prior to having spices, they won't take note of this, even after supplying them. So it would be best to build a settlement that is as small as possible, get 1t of every good and then expand over the entire island quickly. Should speed up getting a cathedral for example.