The more diverse resources needed to build a town, the more effort is required to find or capture the corresponding mines. Now, ore and wood will be mined automatically, then we find one gem mine, and that's it. We have a steady flow of all the resources needed to build a town. Isn't this a simplification?
Well, perhaps you won't be able to quickly set up everything if it all costs crystals, so you'll still need 2-3 crystal mines!