Wow. I love these two ideas. Getting rid of the Civics tree, but giving us a Civics breakthrough for every X breakthroughs we make in the other trees is an excellent idea! The downside is that you lose some freedom in developing your economy (you cannot choose to focus on your economy as much), but the upside is that developing your economy first and then working on the rest is no longer the be all and end all strategy on larger maps. I am a fan.

And having different buildings produce research points for different tech trees is also intriguing. Whether it allows you to research multiple trees a time or not, it would definitely introduce an interesting dynamic. It would also solve the problem that Nick-Danger pointed out - that the lines become progressively harder the farther down you get encouraging generalizing your tech instead of specializing. If your research proficiency in each line depended on your own choice (in this case of which buildings to build), then specialization would have its place again.

I think that some combination of these two ideas could make the research system as much better than the current system, as the current system is better than the original.

Right now we can only talk about the tech tree we have, which has the problem and presumably will continue to.

Besides, if the Fallen have four "go down this line towards a way to win" trees and one "economy" tree, they'll have the same problem too. The problem is simply that economic techs are so powerful compared to everything else in the early game that it creates a right way to do things, and a wrong way to do things.

I honestly don't mind how the basic system currently works together. I think that adventuring and magic will be strong enough to relatively hold their own vs more economical civs ... while I see Warfare and Economy as inextricably linked.

As in, if your army is small, your gonna go Adventuring (and maybe warfare) techs ... while a large army will be economy + warfare.

Combined with completing quests or finding new magical books giving you a onetime boost to Adventuring or Magic RP points respectively, I think you would be able to have a relatively balanced play-style between lone-wolfing it and going empire.

In general, however, I don't have a problem with the idea of the Civics line in general and don't think it should be removed. After all, when you don't consider mining and farming ... the only "useful" tech in Civics is the one that unlocks schools, however schools are far enough away that its not a "MUST BUILD" strat, and actually carries a lot of risk to beeline for Schools without first getting some techs in your desired field.

Still, in most small or medium map sizes ... the specialization person can kick the school guy's ass. Its only in the most peaceful (or large) of games that the School is the obvious choice. Of course, this assumes that the specialization person invades before the School guy's schools start to pay off (or even before he builds his first school on small maps).

Its very much a Potential vs Here n Now question ... and doesn't have a definite answer. Certainly schools are preferred if your going to wait until you have a legion for your first conflict ... but more likely people may attack you with just a Champion + Party.

Quoting pigeonpigeon

"won't be content until I can play on any sized map and still have some choice into how to start. Can specialize on large maps, can Econ small maps"

See, I don't see this happening. And the reason is ... is that at that point its just "common sense." The real plague of some must builds is if its too specific, cheesy, and always wins in ANY situation. Econ strats working on large maps, and specialized starts working on small maps ... to me is an indication that the system WORKS.

One thing where I might agree with you, however, is that Large(ish) and Small(ish) empires should be equally viable on any mapsize ... of course how big a Small(ish) empire is probably has a lot to do with "relative to map size."

So on a small map, 1 might be small and 5 might be big, while on a large map 5 cities might be small and 20+ cities might be big. (and I don't mean ALL cities, but just settlements in general)

TO REITERATE: a "trend" of having to get "some" civic techs before getting other things is perfectly acceptable.

What is NOT acceptable is having to research A, and then B, and then C, and then D, and then E ... or else you are hopelessly lost, and it has to be in that exact order ... and then you have to follow a perfect build strategy, combined with the immediate switch to teching X, Y, and Z implementing expansions 1, 2, and 3 in that order ... etc etc etc.

See, HAVING to do a very specific set of things to be viable is bad, as its cheesy and non-intuitive. However, needing SOMEWHAT of an economy before doing other things is LOGICAL and therefore acceptable.

If EVERY mapsize beelining Schools was the key to victory, that would be lame ... however consider being attacked, either by players or by bandits. If you don't have any means of fighting them off, then your school beeline wasn't optimal.

I think the key here is to not make ANY ONE thing optimal ... and even if SCHOOLS end up being the single required beeline in the game, its agreeably quite silly ... however its better than having Magic completely dominate Warfare and Adventuring, thereby being the only possible specialization choice (or vice versa for Warfare or Adventuring).

I mean, knowing what works for each strategy is just part of learning to play ... but having one strategy as the only winner is lame (cough Chalid and Firebows, cough cough)

Which is why I removed the Civics tree. Problem solved, there is no "specialize in economy" option anymore. You have to pick which method of winning you want to start working towards, and all four of those should be viable on any map.

One thing to keep in mind is that currently we cannot lose what we take on the Map. With Beta 2, and the introduction of visual battles, I assume that will change so your power base can\will become way more fluid.

For example. I now can go out and hold all the Shards, even if I don't get credit for them right away. But I know my Magic research will be useable, and as such I build SP buildings to build up my SP bank.

Well, when the enemy AI or other players can take them away, and I cannot get them back easily, along with all the other Pioneer capturable resources, then many otherwise "beeline" type builds will have to be much more fluidic and even trying to lock yourself into one Track may not be really advisable.

I also had this problem in my board game design.

Players had access to let say 20 different unique buildings which were each on a card. All the players had the same building list. Player could build any building they wanted.

- So the first problem is that players will find the optimal path of building to construct and will do always the same thing.

Solution so far, Buildings are acquired randomly from the deck of buildings and players have a bit of control over the luck.

- the 2nd problem is that the player could need a certain building to do something and if he does no have acces to this building it can break the game and prevent him from doing anything.

for example: Need a port building to travel on the sea, and the player start on an island.

Solution so far, make sure that the buildings does not allow a player to do something he could not do before but rather improve what he could already do.

Which lead me to the idea of situational bonus. If you make a building that increase production, sure all people are going to build it. But if you have a building that increase the production of forest tiles, now there will be situations where a player that has little forest on his territory would have little interest in this building. In fact, researching and building it would cost more than what it would bring.

I think that is the solution to the problem, in order to force the player to used various path, you must make sure that all building and technologies are not always good in all situation. So player will chose their tech according to their situation.

Situation could be determined by terrain location, special resources, spell configuration of the wizard, size of the empire, race of the empire, etc.

The goal should be not merely having no 'must build starts' but also having the 'best' tech pathing reflect one's specific situation (map/goals/etc.).

If going for a small empire, that should change what is the 'best' tech pathing.  Little food in your area? -- then better emphasize food techs more than you otherwise would to get the most out of that limited resource.  Few forests? -- then better find another way to get building materials (tech to allow stone to replace wood in buildings?).

Situational 'best' tech pathing increases the opportunity for player skill to shine.

Never "FORCE" a player to have to do anything they don't want to.

Maybe the term forcing was wrongly used. It should be stated as: Strongly convince that this is a good or bad choice for him.

Note that player are not forced to take a path, it's just that some path are less useful than others. But players still have the liberty of taking the wrong or ineficient path.

I believe I understand the idea here, but, why would someone, who desires to "win" ever take the "less useful" path regardless of circumstance?

There can be various reasons. For example, let say the foresters guild add production from your forest.

If you have little forest around your cities, it wont be a good choice. Some other buildings could benefit you more.

But let say in your game, you want to place focus on production and that other building which is better for you increase your magic power instead. You might say, I will select this production boost builing even it it does not worth much for me because I want to focus on production and because I have a project X that requires a lot of production.

That's pretty much forcing them. If you have five choices and four are wrong, anybody who plays to win has zero choice. You get cookie cutter games and everybody doing the same thing.

This is why balance is a good thing. If the game is balanced, you have five choices, and two or more can be right. That lets people do different things for various reasons.