The only element I typically have a hard time finding is metal (not materials), sometimes I go over 100 turns without metal, luckily it's not used as much to build units & things because I haven't had problems with the lack of it.

It's absurd you can't trade resources on the market.

I really like the idea that the Adventure tech would open a screen where you could pick what resource you need each time you open a new "step" in the tree.  Great idea!  It would allow a LOT of flexibility and make the game FUN instead of frustrating plus offering flexibility in play styles.

Hope SD picks this up!

Have not had an issue getting materials, crystal and metal tend to be harder to find, even with high levels of material. Have had to pay a lot more attention to food too, had some troops dessert over  negative food / gold after conquering a city. I now tend to raze cities I capture often and just start new settlements if I need to expand.

At about 200th turn I have tons of materials and I don't really know what to do with them. In every game. I can sell them once to minor faction but what then? I agree that the metal and crystal are hard to get in 1.08. Last game I've got my first metal mine after about 400 turns by research of ventri mine. 

I don't mind specific resource scarcity, it makes you adapt rather than play the same every game. If low on materials you have to bias away from materials expensive buildings and troops, same with metals and crystals. Naturally you pick your military/expansion targets accordingly

Playing as empire, who only get 1 material through buildings, I've had plenty of games with no special material resources for a long time - I used the creatures available through the Negotiation branch as they only have gold cost.

This is a pretty good point.  I got nothing to add other than to agree.

Currently, I don't think there's an issue.  So long as you have enough essence, you can make due with any amount of shortages on the other resources.  With essence alone you can maintain a big army, conquer foes, and capture new areas.  Go a few steps up the magic tech path to get an essence bonus and you're in business.  If you're low on resources and feel crippled, this is the way to go.

Theh developers have made clear they're going to iron this out, and that presents some issues.  I've never had material shortages (save for some early-game hiccups), but I've had severe gold and metal problems before.  The big problem with gold is that all the decent military units are exorbitantly expensive here, but once you do have them they pretty much decimate all the cheap low-end stuff.  Once summons and channelers can no longer carry a faction, I'm actually afraid gold could very well become the end-all resource.

Metal is pretty bad if you're missing it, but I've found that usually I can lean on archers and get away without it.  Food is also pretty nasty to be low on, but I've found that this just makes me be more careful about where I place my cities, and I can almost always get by.

I think we need some options for more material-intensive units in the early-game to present an alternative to the gold-intensive units like archers and metal-intensive units like armored swordsmen.  Right now there's simply no way to put large amounts of materials to use, so people who do have excess of them can build up obscene amounts like 1000 materials and still be unable to buy anything because they have maybe 20 gold.

I've found the rarest resource to be mounts.  My last three game maps have been completely devoid of any mount resources.

Hope it doesn't work for you in real life, though

Asmodean