Noticed in a few mods that people have added a lot of trade resources to regions in the descr_regions file in an attempt to increase the income of poor regions. Some notes on this:
1) If the resource icon is not present on the map as well as listed in the regions file then the trade won't happen. (There is some inconsistency here but it is generally true.)
2) If gold or silver is listed in the regions file without a resource icon on the map then the game will let you build a mine but it will have zero income when built.
3) Regions trade when the two regions don't have the same resources. So adding iron and timber to both of two neighbouring regions will have no effect. Add timber to one region and iron to the second region to get the trade.
e.g the vanilla game has all the regions along the silk route with silk. These regions will trade silk with the regions north and south but not actually along the historical path. To simulate the value of the silk route better, *remove* the silk from alternate regions. That way silk trade will occur all along the path.
edit:
4) Obvious thing but i only noticed it today. Farm income (average harvest) is 80 per point of fertility/farm upgarde. So with 7 fertility and one farm level you get 800 per turn in that settlement. Useful for tweaking your economy