bearcat33: For example, the trade map is WEIRD. It seems as if the game is limiting me to only ONE commodity per city/trade route? Do you get to send different goods to a single city by building more docks?

bearcat33: The next question arose when my barracks was reporting that it could not train men because it did not have any weapons. I had an Ore mine, a weapons factory, and a warehouse. HOW, with mouse clicks and commands, do you get goods from a warehouse to where they need to go? Can you skip the warehouse, and just send the weapons directly to the barracks?

frankd3: bearcat33, I'll try to answer some of your questions:
Trade map - may be different for each mission. Different cities will trade, usually, different items. The map will show which items they will buy and sell. There often (but not always) are a couple of items that can be bought or a couple of items that can be sold from the same city. Notice on the map whether the city is connected by land or by sea. You only need one dock to handle all over water trade routes. You only need one warehouse for any over land trade routes although you may need more than one warehouse if you have a thriving city just to handle all your production and your own consumption of the goods.
"The mechanism to tell the game how much to sell is confusing. I THINK that whatever number you plug in, anything OVER that amount in your warehouses will be sold."
- Exactly right.
Troops attack automatically when in the vicinity of the enemy. All you have to do is move your troops (that is, plant the troop flag) somewhere near where the enemy is moving. Your troops will move toward the enemy (the flag you planted) and engage the enemy. Same goes for your tower balistas. When the enemy gets close enough they fire.
The drawback to this is that you have to time your troops arrival to the battlefield. Your javelin throwers are really fast. They run through the city streets to get to the fight. But the legionaries march and take longer.
About your weapon shortage...
You say you have the iron mine and the weapons maker, are they all functioning? Do they all have access to a ready supply of workers? Have you been trading weapons? If so, then this is where you have to tell your warehouse not to selll them all. I won't sell my weapons until I have my initial target number of troops built up (usually 3 or 4) and then I always tell my warehouses to keep 4 units of weapons on hand for retraining. But even if you have sold them all, if your industry is functioning properly it won't take long to make some more.
By the way, don't forget to build an Academy. Academy training makes your troops better and with a better attitude.
Also by the way, one iron mine will supply two or three weapons makers. Otherwise the iron will pile up in the warehouse and wait for the weapons guys to go pick it up. Maybe you don't have enough weapons shops?

bearcat33: Thanks, I appreciate the clear answers. However, I don't understand "the map will show which items they will buy and sell", guess I'll have to go take a closer look.