Wasn't research supposed to be random?

It's somewhat random.  If you notice, some techs appear shaded more brown or red.  These techs have a less than 100% chance of being available when you level up in a research field.  The Empire tech tree has more of these than Kingdom, especially in the Adventuring tree.  The way it plays out, the Empire adventuring tree does feel pretty random (while still having a defined progression).

The problem is that there are so few techs overall that there isn't a big pool to randomize from.

There's a good number of techs in this game, not counting the repeatable techs.

My guess would be between 80-100.

We do need some more rare ones though.

By my last count, the Kingdom tree contained 106 techs and the Empire 95.  For reference purposes Civ IV's tech tree contained 92 distinct techs.

There was also going to be techs that were only available if you encountered certain resources or completed certain quests; rare techs you might only see once every dozen games or so. I'd still like to see those.

Again, though, I'd like to see them after magic and tactical battles get the overhaul they're due.

Sometimes I finish a research and get nothing for it - the options are rare enough none kick in. That feels a bit like being cheated, possibly at least one research should be granted no matter what?

I also find that lost libraries (+5 tech research ones, anyway) are pretty vital to get a reasonable tech advance rate. A start without one is a very big handicap. Possibly, the first town should contain a 'Palace of the Sovereign' or some such for a starting gilden and research income...

You can build a Palace once you research administration which generates 7 Gildar and 7 Prestige. I don't think there's a building that produces research though. IIRC the Mint also generates Gildar too. Would be nice to have similar royal or world achievements that generate Arcane and Tech research points too though (unless they're already in. Can't remember if the current tech and arcane achievements apply a bonus or generate)

I would love to see more of these

Rare arcane techs:

that allow us to make elemental weapons (may be so rare that at most one or 2 per faction per game)

Rings of various resistance

New rare spells

Rare diplomacy techs:

other rare allies both existing and new.

tech trading (maybe)

Rare warfare techs:

Cross bows

lances (+1 range to melee for cavalry)

shield bonuses

special weaponry (halberds and so on)

etc and so on..

I updated my Tech Trees PDF to include some grey shading to indicate rarity (light grey is >= 50% chance, dark grey is < 50%):

http://cid-7d2aef4a0e3e3711.office.live.com/self.aspx/Elemental/TechsTrees.pdf

There ARE tech bonus within the civilization tree. You have to start building schools and universities, in my one city game I had a like 150%-300%+ tech (Eh whatever was the max).

My guess is that Civ's tech tree is much more streamline - any given tech leads to one or two other techs and there's really only a handful of ways to get from beginning to end (not counting going back). So it's very deep. You're only able to research (generally) a few techs at a time; it's very focused.

Elemental however is very wide. Since techs are basically levels, each tech opens up more and more techs. It's a lot of short trees but there's many to pick from. It gives the impression that there's a lot to research at any one time but that you're not researching deeply since most of the trees only drop perhaps 5 techs deep (Deepest I've seen so far is reaching housing for Kingdom). 

yes the difference is between branching and intertwined tech trees.  The fundamental issue is designing the tech trees so that they need more than a single requirement.  In civ you can have a choise of perhaps 6 to 10 techs at any point, in elemental this is closer to 20 to 25.  Certainly in Civ III you had to research almost every tech to get some of the last ones, in Elemental you only need to do 20%.

Once you build in techs requireing more than a single tech, and perhaps some options on that then you can have techs like ring crafting that only show up if you have built links with the elves, reseached shard capturing and basic forging. 

the next thing would be to have the same tech show in multiple trees and then the computer picks from the list of techs available - but that's a pretty radical shift.

I would LOOOOOVE it if they gave us a selectable option to make things truly random. As in, I would select Diplomacy as my research, but it'd randomly pick which one of the options I'd get when research is done. It'd add a lot more "oh cool" or "Oh shit!" to the game which is sorely lacking.

And please.. please please introduce truly random events. I'd love to get that message at the beginning of turn saying, "sorry dude, a fire burnt down the XXX in your city"... or "sorry chump, theives made off with 20 chrystals" from your vaults... now THAT would rock.

That's exactly what I was hoping the random research was supposed to be.

Doesn't seem that should be too hard to implement (this coming from a guy with Zeeeero knowledge in coding/game making! haha)

Yep, it's working like this.

Agreed.

One of the issues with making it less random is that research in one area seems to increase the odds of finding things in another. Like if I have a red Civics tech on the list and go to research five Warfare things, by time I come back it's turned yellow.

The end result is making it pretty easy to go through seeing nothing but green techs the entire way, which largely defeats the point.

That would suck, actually.  I hate random events that arbitrarily punish the player.  It would be somewhat acceptable if the events were preventable, but then you run into the problem of forcing the player down the same path every game (for instance, having to build a fire station in every city to prevent fires).  However, I could see something like putting lots of really nice resources at the base of a volcano knowing that there's a good chance the volcano could erupt and wipe out any city built at its base.  That would strike a nice balance between risk and reward.

The problem is generation, not bonuses. The bonuses are useless unless you have an ancient library in the city.

agreed.

While the volcano/resource idea is neat in gameplay terms, it's so many kinds of wrong geologically.
Around volcanos you find basalt, which is only good if you want crappy glass or glassy rocks.
No metal veins, crystals, food, or anything... useful.

But bonus points for magma.
There is no problem that cannot be solved by liberal application of magma.

Robet Hentscke actually near Volcanoes is one of the best areas for farming crops (Volcanic ash makes really good fertilizer) also volcanoes do bring up rare metals etc from the earth (So gold and iron should also be far more common here them as well).

Yes there really does need to be away of getting more basic production of some resources in towns, +200% of 0 is zero.

What about the suggestions talked about in this thread, especially the one where base generation is dependent on city level?

Best regards,
Steven.

That's all that matters.

In comparison, I've hit Elemental's 'future techs' -- the 10% bonus generic techs -- quite often, and fairly soon in a game (late early stages, or early middle game).

It seems that I'm blowing thru techs relatively faster in Elemental.  Adding new, unique techs would be nice, but perhaps tweaking research rates to slow them down a bit would be also a solution.

I really disliked Civ4's 'future techs' but I realize they're necessary in an open-ended game.  I feel the same regarding Elementals'.  Good game balance to me would be having them very rarely reached in a 'normally' played long game.