LoL yep!  Worse is the trifecta fail of no copper, horse, iron.  And ultimately just as bad, is not finding rubber or oil within reasonable reach.  Some of those games were epic fun though.   Others were just a pain in the arse.  Some were simply a lost cause and reason to roll a new map.  Overall, I liked the variety of the RNG resource placement.

I think I had a different experience.  I successfully set up 4 growing cities before running low on food.  This isn't much of a surprise, as I played Empire and they have difficulty finding food.  However, low and behold, my opponents had food.  Conquering time.  After culling those conquered cities down to only a few houses, I was able to expand one of my cities to Level 5, and two others to level 4.  The rest I kept at 3.  You only need one Level 5 city.

Metal was difficult.  I am of the opinion it should be.  You use it to make a couple catapults and you'll walk all over your opponent.

I had 3 Lost Libraries.  At the end game I discovered 2 more.  I had 30+ research and flew through the tech tree.

I actually like the scarce resources.  It makes you feel some desperation when you overextend yourself.