I strongly agree with the OP. The whole research system needs a lot of love.

I also have another suggestion. Not sure its a good idea, but I still would like it to be discussed. Make research take longer after each breakthrough, not only in one of the 5 techtrees, but overall.

So, if you get a breakthrough in civilization, and the next tech costs like 50% more researchpoints, then the next tech in the other 4 techtrees cost like 20% more points too.

I dont like the fact, that I can change to another techtree and get the first techs in 1 turn each.

Right now that isn't really possible because of the way the system is setup. You need cities with lots of R&D buildings to get R&D done. I think they could add a few things to help decrease the need for the jack of all trades to let you earn R&D from other locations.

For example:

Military

If you are playing the mostly Military route then the typical setup of you have a chance of getting their tech seems quite obvious. This is very common mechanic in 4x games. To make sure it favors the Military player more the percentage chance of taking a tech could be based off of their Military Tech Level. Thus players who focus on the other 4 trees won't have as high of a chance of getting a tech when the seize a city. And of course they already get more cities thus more R&D buildings from being heavily aggressive but this helps their R&D growth.

Magic

There is already a spell that increases your R&D output on the magic line but it seems to be rather low and easy to get. I think some other methods would be a nice addition as well that perhaps tie more into your magic level. I'm not sure if this kind of setup is possible under the current system but a unique building in the magic line that increases your R&D by a percentage based on your Magic Tech level. So if you have Magic level 10 that building would give you a 10% Boost to R&D in any city that it was built in. The exact % bonus and such would be an issue for balance but some mechanic that allows them to gather R&D other then Civics route.

Adventure

Honestly I think the who Adventure route could use a little more work. But as far as someone taking the Adventure route while still having food R&D I think there are some ways this could be achieved. First off I think it would be nice to have tech rewards for goodie huts, ruins, and quest. Now a full tech might be a bit much but finding say a scroll that gives you X amount of R&D in either your current R&D field or one of the others at random could work. It would be nice to see R&D points carry over though as right now it sucks to being like 2 points away and your producing 40+ a turn knowing that 38 go to waste. That would only increase if your finding R&D scrolls that give you say 100 points and your only 2 away from level. Unless they are an item you can use when you want which could work very nicely. 

Also the ability to perhaps recruit scholors which when they join you on a dungeon exploration increase your chance of getting an R&D reward. And perhaps your Adventuring level could increase the chance of getting something. That way pure adventurers are more likely to benefit from this unit's ability.

Diplomacy

This one is kinda the hardest to play up because honestly it feels more like a side play style then a main one. I mean how many 4X games have you played where it's all about Diplomacy? Usually diplomacy is there just to do your relations with the other players while you focus on building your cities, raising armies, and doing research. And once you get the basic Peace and Trade treaties setup there isn't much left to do unless you wanna form an alliance down the road but even then mostly you spend your time minding your business while they mind theirs, unless of course a war breaks out.

That being said I'm not completely void of ideas on this part. First off I haven't really played with this tech tree much since there was no AI really to make treaties with until recently. But I know some games have, and I think I even recall seeing it listed in Elemental, the old Research Treaty. This of course would give you some extra R&D based on the R&D output of your empire and that of the other nation's empire. To really make it fair I think the smaller empire should get a larger bonus out of it because the larger empire already benefits from larger with more income. So if one empire produces 50 R&D and the other produces 100 R&D the larger one would get maybe an extra 5 and the small would get 10 thus their new totals would be 60 and 105.

Along with the treaty itself I think some tie in on the treaty's output for the diplomacy player should be tied to what level your Diplomacy tech is at. That way it again benefits people who specialize more and can't just be grabbed up by jack of all trade players which is how most unlockables in the tech system are setup now.

Also perhaps a unique building which increase your R&D based on the treaties you have setup in that city. So perhaps they generate 10% extra R&D you get from your trade treaties. Thus like in the previous example the small empire that produced 50 but was getting 10 extra from the treaty has maybe 5 cities each with this unique building then they would get an extra 50% from treaty thus bringing their total up from 60 R&D a turn to 65. Again the actually amounts would have to be something to figure out in balancing.

I haven't checked the Diplomacy tree in a while but I think some things that would go great in it would be Espionage type stuff. Perhaps some stealth units unique to the Diplomacy tree that can do all kinds of spy things including stealing tech points or full techs from the enemies would be a great way for the diplomacy tree to run R&D. Also the option to build Espionage type buildings that slowly steal R&D from enemies both that you have treaties with and hostile ones who refuse to engage in treaties.

Conclusion

As you may of noticed a bit of a reaccuring theme with some of the ideas is to tie the payout to the tech level. I think this is a very important setup because right now there does not seem to be much reason to specialize in something. It seems just grab what you need from that tech tree then move on to the others. After you got what you need just work on fluff items like the OP mentioned.

I feel there could be a lot more emphasis on making each of the paths not only feel truly unique but also make them viable options in their own right. Right now it seems like Civics is a must have and the others are just secondary choices, with the except of Diplomacy which feels like a last choice. So options to help with the Neutral factions could help develop it into it's own play style though, but again haven't looked at it lately.

I'd also like to sum up how I view each play style which may or may not fit with what the Devs have in mind but it's to help you know where I'm coming from how how I think they should be more "unique".

Civics (Economic Powerhouse Style): Few large cities, Lots of Production, Great defense, Lots of weak units supported by their massive economy

Military (Over whelming Force Style): Lots of Medium cities, Decent Production, Strong Offense, Medium amounts of fairly strong units, defense a bit lacking but countered by the fact they are usually the ones attacking.

Magic (Versatile specialist Style): This kinda depends on what spells the player researches along the way but because of that they can kinda change their focus quickly in terms of offensive, enhancement, summon, or etc spells. Mostly Medium cities though, Decent Production, Decent Offense/Defense (Depends on summons), can be very powerful with overland abilities.

Adventure (D&D Play Style): Few small cities, low production, few very powerful units, mainly earns money/resources/items from quest and raids, has some unique tricks up their sleeves with unique units. Also fairly heavily in recruiting mercs to fill out the ranks give their low unit amounts.

Diplomacy (Back room dealer Style): Even here on a what I think diplomacy style should be like I have trouble seeing it as a truly separate play style. I think the obvious friendly treaty options are there but also some back room espionage type stuff should be there as well kinda like in SoSE where you can bribe pirates to attack other players. That's because you still need something to build the back bone of your empire on. I mean what do you do for the first 100+ turns of the game if you don't find another player to work your unique abilities off of?

yes we need something like this

the point is "why research first adventure using 100 turns while i can research first cities, get better buildings, more money more research more mana more everything and then research adventure in 10 turns?

yup agree

I know what you mean. Typically by turn 100 I have 6+ cities and about 50+ R&D per turn rolling in. I'm also in the mid 20s of the Civics tech and in some case manage to finish it by about turn 150 or so. Granted each build has had varrying degrees of success as they change things around a bit but the first stats tend to hold pretty true.

I tend to be an economic city builder type player so it's only natural that I go that route. But even when experimenting with some of the other tech trees I often find myself struggling in both money and R&D. The biggest problem is the cost of units in the game. Heroes aren't worth the cost and even decent units aren't worth their price when an army of peasents can easily out do them for much less cash. So you end up not only with R&D at a crawl but your ability to fund anything at a crawl as well. Which is the reason I suggested some of the R&D earning changes and in another thread suggested some money making changes along similar lines, though not just confined to money as metal/crystal/etc are important as well.

These are some screens from some of the eariler builds to show what I mean by how fast I go through the Tech Tree.

In the first 2 you can see by turn 100 I've run through much of the Civics tree already. While those were taking in late Beta 2 it's still fairly representative of what I've been able to build in Beta 3 (haven't had time to try Beta 3A yet). And the last screen is also from Beta 2 as I recall. As you can see I'm racking in 148 R&D per turn at that point and I don't recall what level I was but I was just doing the unlimited techs at that point for more food/housing/etc. It was mostly cause during that beta the last 3 techs were locked.

Both of the screens are fairly representative if a typical game for me. At some point like in the last screen I get so much cash flowing in I just starting hiring every hero I can for the fun of it. When I try to run the other branches though I just can't seem to get the same amount done. I think the 100 turn test is a good one cause it's a lot more time then you think and you can get a lot more done in that time then you might think. Plus I have the problem my game often crashes around turn 120-150 most of the time. Probably thanks to my large build up.

My main fear is they will take the approach a lot of developers do which is to simply increase the cost and nerf the production (aka R&D output). Well the increase cost helps it last longer for slower paced games which is nice. But making Civics have less R&D wouldn't really fix the problem as it still is the main source of R&D. Failure to make the other paths equally viable in games is something it seems a lot of developers fall short on which is something I hope doesn't happen here. After all making the only path less productive doesn't correct the problem it only makes overall pacing slower.

There's a few things about the technology system that are worth discussing I think.

1. The current general system is there to stay. we're obviously not going to change it in Elemental 1.x.

2. The general balance of the tech system has NOT been implemented.

3. There are only two tech trees in the beta (as opposed to the 3 for v1.0 and 10 for v1.01).

4. Beta 3B will have a significantly different tech tree.

5. The GENERAL view of city building is moving towards greater specialization of settlements. Right now, everything flies out the window because you can get crazy amounts of resources because you can build crazy stuff in every city.  This is moving towards Royal and Imperial achievements where you have to choose a settlement that will have such and such building in it.

6. We are migrating towards a system where control of resources is more and more important rather than cranking out powerful cities. The cities will magnify what you gain from controlling resources but we're trying to generally move away from the cities themselves conjuring resources out of thin air.

I think #6 is the key issue from a design point of view.  Right now, the cities simply still let you conjure too much stuff.  In galactic Civilizations, we could obviously limit things by planets.  But in Elemental, there really isn't anything stopping you from just popping down bunches of cities and producing crazy amounts of gold, materials, spell research, tech research, etc.

Worse, the current system flies in the face of the game's setting.  But I'll talk more about that soon.

The pieces are coming together, it's just a matter of balancing it out in a fun way.

I had no idea that was the plan!

Thanks for the feedback Frogboy, it's good to know you guys are still working it out and most of the issues that have been raised largely come down to the fact that despite the stage we're at regarding the game, it's still a beta we're seeing. I think one of the big things that the success of the research system overall is going to come down to is the city building, which is still changing even to this point (thankfully away from the dreaded snake system currently in use), and of course this all comes down to balance and once again to the fact that this is a beta. 

The major thing with regards to the fun of whole system is balanced variability, and I know by vanilla, and definitely by v1.01, this will be exactly what we get.

Thanks again Frogboy and everyone else who has posted so far, 

Paradoxical

yeah ofc, like i said the problem is not in the system, system is good, its what you research (at this point) the problem

what you mean by 10?

its not clear

sounds nice, it has been discussed already and most ppl loved this idea

yeah its very clear now

all sounds interesting and well thought, it should give the game a good boost in strategy and fun (building 55 libraries and temples and markets isnt fun but tedious sometimes, even civ and mom suffered that problem sometimes)

looking forward to next beta (even if im still testing few things in this)

Real wars are often fought over resources, so it's good to hear wars in Elemental will also be resource-driven.

Nice.  This was one of the complaints about Civ4 - if you couldn't get your hands on a resource, you were completely screwed.  A civ/kingdom/empire should always be able to produce at least tiny amounts of something.  It will never replace having a proper source, but it at least gives them a fighting chance of trying to secure such a source.

yeah civ ai also suffered from that, they were all espansionistic in the end, even if traits were different, and player was forced to build and build to produce a comparable amount of culture/research/gold

civ online was slightly better for the reason you pointed, there resources were far more important than base stats

the strategic value of an horse or iron or oil was far superior the the raw amount of production/food etc

elementals is going to offer more gameplay and solutions through champions and exploration though, thats a good point as soon as you can compete for the victory not just outproducing more paesants than your enemies but also conquering some important artifact/book in a dungeon and stuff like that

well first of all i find good if the game in some way make the players think what is best for the given condition/territory

ofc it shouldnt be totally limiting and forcing the player to a single solution, i agree on that

between one and two i prefer two but its a long shot from the point we see now in beta, its really important to understand how is going to work magic and its job in tactical combats and stuff like that