Races who focus on magic... do you still need to start out with Civilization techs?

You probably do want some civilization and military techs. But once you have, say, weaponry from military, and Civics, Restoration, and Knowledge from Civilization, you could go 100% magic for awhile.

If you have a lot of mana, Resoln cast cast their incredible spells and kill just about anything. Things like "Produce Mana," Temple of Essence, Shard shrines help up your mana rate. So focusing solely on magic could work just fine if there are nearby shards.

The more shards you have, the more mana AND demon troops you have.

If you get to Arcane Forge, cast it on 2+ essence cities, they'll build fast. You won't miss the production bonuses from the Civilization tree too much.

You still need pretty much the same level of civ tech. If you have crystal you can use magic weapons instead if iron ones and warfare tech. If you have lots of essence, ie Paridan, you can use magic tech to get alchemist buildings and Magical Forging spell, which can substitute for some civ techs. Although they removed the Revelations spell so that strat isn't as good as it used to be.

Civilization techs is pretty much obligatory for any games. It contains growth, research, gildar and roads. So for me I usually start with a Civilization tech (Knowledge), then get Leatherworking for some early armor on leveling troops, and depending on resources I aim for a military tech in either Warfare or Magic. (You want either Lightning Hammers or the Weaponry hammer to boost your early damage) 

My games usually resolves around how much civilization teching can I get away with before needing to get quality army stuff. Also an issue if I have lots of crystal is prioritizing Rituals sooner so I can get Crystal Mines up asap. Education for Cloisters and Schools are also key to your overall teching pace, so getting that and some conclaves up helps your tech pace greatly. 

And just for reference all races are "magic" races. The map should decide your tech path not your race. (unless it's a fun issue and you aren't being challenged by AI obviously )

Like the other posters wrote, you always need Civ techs. Unless you do not develop cities at all. That's probably not wise, though. You need Conclaves to produce mana and research.

Military techs, on the other hand, aren't really needed. You don't need to build any troops. It's a viable option, but not needed as Resoln. Try to research the second shard harvesting Tech quickly, as the Air and Earth demons are very useful, much more so than their young cousins.

Oh, and in case you haven't found out yet: the Air Elemental summon is very powerful. Necromancy I and II are pretty sweet as well.

I found you still need _some_ army tech, as most (if not all) of the increased army size techs are in warfare. but otherwise, I'm playing a Pariden-based race and almost completely ignoring Warfare.

I pretty much ignore warfare as well.  Enchantment in Magic gives better weapons much sooner than all but the very highest levels of warfare.   I don't find I need anything past that actually.   

Hmm.. wonder if warfare would be better if we swapped the army size into civilization and gave warfare better troops. Shouldn't be that hard, I think I will mod this and try it out a bit. It makes historical sense as well, bigger armies requires a bigger civilization, quality troops comes from warfare tradition/skills.  

I know I tend to skip late warfare techs until I got logistics etc. in place first. 

I find that warfare weapons/techs are necessary simply due to crystal limitations. I always have 3-10x as much metal as crystal and tend to reserve my crystal for other units.