Let us consider, if you will, black marketing metal in key regions so that the troops can't get trained...
The original concept Tom described was that various actions would require certain resources. Building lvl 1 walls would take wood, level 2+ would take stone/metal, RCs generating new recruits would take metal, cities/townslands would consume "goods", etc. If these resources were not available, then you could still do these things, but it would be significantly more expensive. Acquiring the resources somehow would therefore be desirable as it would make many things less expensive.
I like it. It would make the Balance Mountains in Dwilight less of crap regions (as well as others like it). Hopefully they would produce metals which can be traded. Right now they produce so little gold and food that they aren't worth capturing at all. If they produce metals to supply the east of Dwilight however...
I understand that was the idea behind setting up some of the regions on Dwilight. Well, that and from some of the things I've seen, I also think that Tom intended that some regions were deliberately made to be difficult and/or unprofitable to be captured. But if the region is a key source of metal/stone, then taking it might be highly desirable, even if its raw gold output is minuscule. That should be more than made up for by the stone/metal production.
Edit: editorial garbage...
