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Well, if you take that to its extreme you would only have one resource (and I'd find that a bit boring, but there are certainly other games just using one or two resources). Or on the other hand you could probably argue that there are reasons to split the existing resources up in a ton of different ones. But for 0 A.D. it was chosen to have wood, food, metal (which includes both currency and raw material), and stone, and at this point I really don't see why we should change that (especially since there are always going to be people who want fewer/more resources and arguments as to why). Four is a middle ground between having so few resources that there's no variety and so many that it's impossible to balance the game (or for the players to keep track of them for that matter).

Hi Vlad123. You are correct. There is no "money" resource in 0 A.D.. Since at this time money was somehow similar to gold you could see money as part of metal. IMO there is no need to add it because you cannot build anything with money but only buy the material you need to build something. Traders used money for the easier exchange of goods. Example: City 1, Woodstock: - The city lies within a forest thus wood is easy to access thus the people of Woodstock doesn't value wood that much. - They don't have access to stone to build longer lasting buildings thus the people of Woodstock value stone very much. City 2, Quarrypebble: - The City lies within rocky hills with many natural quarries with some grassland arround thus the people of Quarrypebble have easy access to stone and don't value that much. - The thin layer of earth on the otherwise rocky ground does not support trees so the people of Quarrypebble value wood quite high. Merchant: - A merchant with some money goes to Woodstock and buys some wood. - He brings it to Quarrypebble and sells it there. Since wood is valued there more he likely gets more money back than he spend initially. - He uses some of this money to buy stone, again quite cheap. - He returns to Woodstock and sells the stones there, again likely with some profit. Now check what has changed: - Money: Towns -> Merchant (Represented ingame by the cost of metal to produce the merchant. He'll spend some of the money to get e.g. food and shelter so the money might go back to the towns) - Wood: Woodstock -> Quarrypebble - Stone: Quarrypebble -> Woodstock Assuming the player manages Woodstock the main change for him is he exchanged wood for stone (and that's exactly what happens ingame). Note: - The access to resources have risen for everyone (That's the real gain of trading). - There is no gain in value (both towns value the resource brought to them less the more trading goes on which cancles out against the slight increase of value of the resource they produce by beeing able to sell it) - There is no money generated (Who ever plantet that into the brains of people, I heard that several times now) - If one of the parties realizes what's going on and just slightly changes it's behaviour to at the end of the loop come out better all money will end up at this party