Looking at the "mock-up" of the new Research Screen and seeing that one of the branches is actually "magic" i´m wondering if we still have two divied research mechanism.

I am VERY sure that tech research and spell research are seperate. How seperate, I don't know, but that won't even be implimented until beta six or so.

Presumably the magic tree in the tech research is for magical "techs" like whatever crazy temple you need to build to harvest from a node, or other magical enhancements/buildings/units etc

Well, the resource that drives tech research is population, which makes alot of sense. It makes less sense for spell research though, which makes me curious as to what the currency of spell research will be. Anyone want to speculate?

I'd like the mechanisms for spell research to be different from those of tech:

+Tech buildings different from +Magic buildings.

Automatic tech growth from population, no automatic magic research.

We might use units to do the magic research, but Dominions proves that it can become quite tedious and heavy on the micromanagement side.

If it turns out to be unfun, the beta is there for changing that.

Well, in the case of MoM and a few other games, 'tech' is really just spell research. There is no tech beyond your spells.

There was no tech research in MoM. You built infrastructure like temples and libraries, but didn't research techs, only spells.

I disagree. If you compare with Civ, techs are civ-wide and allow you to build new buildings. In MoM, all buildings are allowed from the start. Dependencies between buildings are also not tech-dependant in Civ. Units needing buildings is what most closely looks like tech requirements, but again it is very different because buildings are local to a city while tech is global to the empire.

There were 2 aspects in MoM, city development and magic research whereas E:WOM looks poised to have city development, tech research and magic research.

This really is irrelevant in regard to the point of my original statement, so if it's okay with you, I'd like to drop the peripheral semantics.  Like I said last post, regardless of whether you want to call it tech or civilian development, I would like to see magic separate from them.  In MoM, a rational player never built their way up to a cathederal for the magical power it granted them before they built some other economic and production bonuses--- it was almost physically impossible (you'd go bankrupt or it would simply yield too few rewards early on to be a viable strategy).  In Elemental, I would like to see magical growth be only loosely linked to "tech."

Well, everything that you've said about many classic fictional settings is true... but Elemental--- and it's tech system--- seems to fit perfectly fine.  The world of Elemental was recently destroyed by an apocalypse, with plenty of old do-dads lying around from ruined civilizations.  And there is no "end of the tech tree."  Research continues indefinately, so that's not an issue either.

In MoO there was no end to the tech tree. Weapons 100+ gave you a reduction in weapon size which was very meaningful. If shields 4323 allowed you to pump out small or even tiny ships with black hole generators, then it was a very worthwhile tech. And if researching more made it possible to have tens of powerful weapons on a small ship, then you were happy to go for it, and there was a choice as to whether pick smaller weapons, engines, or shields for instance.

So, if well done, there may be a point in researching farming 4323 too.

@ Chong Li ... play Fall From Heaven II, a mod for CIV IV BTS. Its replayability, its unique tech tree .... definitely a war-focused game, tho I do admit some can eventually build guns or cannons but other than being "mass producable" their not that good, and come far too late to be "winners".

If you wan't to find interesting research (although some people have certain rush strategies depending on map size and game speed), I would suggest it ... if nothing else than that the Civs are so different, its rare for you to want the same system over n over again. For instance, Elves can build in trees, so going mysticism and education is the best investment (and going FOL religion) while dwarves and vampires do well with large populations (in different ways) so Aristocracy + farming is the best... AKA Calendar and Code of Laws beeline.

Meanwhile, the Kuriotates have the biggest cities, but their cottages (education) also have the highest potential ... so while Aristofarming could work, a well protected cottage industry could be so much more.

It just goes on and on. That was just mentioning the "commerce" goals for tech ... saying nothing about the warfare which is 80% of the game or so.