Never saw any difficulty in getting resources - build more, slap a bigger buff on or just get from TO.
So I only saw the silly situation where in a game of rock-paper-scissors for some reason rock costs 5 times less. I agree, this price change is another lets do as little as possible type thing to get ppl off their back.
I find the fact that only iron is used ridiculous. They could have used bronze or even gold somewhere..
For me PVP seems like one big missed opportunity. They could have introduced new resources had separate prod building for each weapon or at least type of weapon (even sidestuff like science has that!) or if they absolutely had to stick to only iron sold endless iron mines etc..