I try not to think of it as wining a game . . but as building a civ.  Research what makes sense to you.  It'll work out . .or you'll die and have to start something new.  Thankfully, it *IS* is game and you have do-overs.

There is no such thing as a recommended research item. It's up to you.

I personally think this is another area that needs some balancing, but I want to play some more before I commit to that belief.

My initial impression is that research comes far too quickly in comparison to my character growth. It seems like all techs take the same amount of time to research, where I would expect advanced research to take longer than more basic technology. Sure it depends on how much research you have allocated, but advanced techs should still take some time.

Is this a reality or is my impression completely off? (I haven't been counting the turns.)

Techs take exponentially more points to research.

On the what to research front I do have a question for the Devs.

I know some R&D doesn't show up till later and some techs don't show up until you research ones before them. But are any of the techs restricted by the tech level? The reason is I find market places (the 2x2 +6 Gildar building) is one of the most important buildings to get up first and trying to figure out how to unlock it faster.

I've figured out some items progression like Housing, leads to Vilas, leads to Estates. Both in upgrade order but also in unlocking for the tech tree. Well the thing is even though you have 5 Different tech trees it seems each one also has several "mini" trees inside them. And it would be helpful to know how they are layed out like most games do. Such as Gal Civ and SOSE.

Not being aware of this layout makes it harder to get a grasp on things for new players and only really benefits experianced players who have played enough to memorize the "hide tree" layout.

I can't exactly choose the tech that I want when the game already makes that choice for me. This is not a game where similar techs take a similar amount of time. I can't focus on one research type due to the exponential amount of points it takes. I get penalized when I want to take advantage of the different food production bonuses that my cities can have. I HAVE to focus on military and magic due to the amount of aggressive creatures all over the map and belligerent AI.

The tech-trees look roughly like this right now (this was gleaned from the XML in Beta1Z, and looking at the XML now, it doesn't seem to have changed too dramatically, mostly more stuff!):

https://forums.elementalgame.com/383598/page/1/#2644565

To answer your question about how to get super quick markets?

Civics (Green) --> Economics (Yellow).

However, remember that markets need Settlement Lv. 2 before you can build them, and 50 materials, so the straight tech beeline might not give what you want it to.

Economics has a rarity of 80, so it may not always be there the first time you break-through.

Although I like a lot of this research system I think some refinements are necessary as well.  With so many tech, randomness, ever increasing costs and hidden requirements it is hard to make good decisions on what to build.  In my first game in Beta 2 I started right next to a bee hive but after lots of civilization teching I never got the tech for it.  Did I get unlucky?  Did I need to research farming first?  It's unclear.  One suggestion is to have in the tech description a "Leads to ..." so you have an idea how this will benefit you in the future.

Also with randomness and many techs I am worried that persuing certain goals may be difficult.  I may want a rich kingdom but just never get the right techs (or at least too late to matter).  It's still too early for me to know if this is the case but it is a fear. 

I have to say that the blend of Empire building with RPG in Elemental is excellent in its essence.

However, the tech tree should be clearer and de-simplified. I'm not particularly fond of the indiscriminate exponential amount of points for each main branch. It makes game progression more penalizing than it should. Each tech should take an established amount of time to research with similar tech levels taking a similar amount of time. There's already a lot of research with different gameplay elements. A more classic approach in this area would serve the game better so that it can reach a greater audience. Otherwise... it's a damn good game for hardcore players.

Pop on over to the Elemental Ideas subforum and take a look at some of the threads on tech system stuff.  Weigh in on the ideas being floated, throw in some of your own and lets get it done.  I think we need more minds taking a good hard look at this particular part of the game.

It's OK that I need to research a tech to unlock a bonus. However, to unlock a second/third type of food bonus, I'd need to research another two or three techs with progressively increasing cost, even if I had only a single one of those resources.

Thanks. Will do.

Mmm, I agree that having a proper techtree as part of the UI is a necessity. I don't think it's remotely true that there's "too much research", however. I also think that the call for "better, intuitive research" is a little puzzling, given that the proposed solution of just having a single food production research fulfils neither of those criteria.

I do agree that in certain specific cases, there are some techs that could be consolidated. For instance, in the OP's example, if bees and fruits and wheat were rarer than fertile land, then I could see the three of them being condensed into a single research. However, fertile land would not be condensed in. That way, the basic farming tech is the one that everyone will most likely eventually research, even if they're playing with a heavily warfare-oriented research strategy in mind. Whereas the advanced farming tech would have enough stuff in it to make it worth its high cost, since it isn't exactly early in the tech tree, when you factor in that you pretty much have to branch out into other civilisation techs before going that far.

Of course, the other alternative is to do as Civ4 does, and have all the food resources each with their own tech at roughly equal point in the tech tree. However, this is less well suited to Elemental, since the exponential tech costs makes a broad techtree significantly less feasible.

I have to say, I have yet to run into any issues with the exponential costs. But thinking about it now, would I prefer to have fixed costs? I think that might just be the case. Having fixed costs allows you to go back and cover the long-obsolete techs that you miss by specialising, with only a minor detour to your current tech progress. Which is exactly as it should be, since these are long-obsolete techs, after all, and you've already suffered the drawback of not having those techs when they were actually useful. Whereas reaching parity in this neglected branch of the techtree would require a substantial diversion of time, but could still be an interesting strategic choice.

Compare that to the current system, where generalising in the civilisation tree makes it less worthwhile to get orchards. Or beelining for beekeeping leaves you pretty well screwed when it comes to resource production, and iron production, and consequently troop training, as well as housing, and prestige, and... You get the picture. And sure, you could argue that that's supposed to happen. But really, what's supposed to happen is that you get something useful from having specialised to that degree, not end up just having more of what you started with.

Actually, I think this is possibly leading me to conclude that it's too early to make too many sweeping statements about the techtree, given that three of the trees aren't even in yet.

(Oh hey, I didn't mean to write an entire essay )

Great that's just what I wanted to see. But the thing is this kind of information should be IN GAME for players to use. Being able to display the tech tree in this kind of way in game would also help modders. Since one of the trickiest things to learning how to play a mod of a 4x game is figuring out the changes they made to the tech tree. Even if mods simply expanding on stuff that's already there it would be great to know the whole tree so you can better plan out which branches you wanna go down.

Actually the very first tech I get is construction and build a Lumber yard to have its 4 materials per turn coming in. Relying on workshops just isn't enough for the agressive city building strategy I undertake. I may build 2-3 total in my first 2 cities plus a workshop or two. Followed shortly their after by market places. I have very little problem building several very early on.

As for the tech order I must just be getting really bad luck on that rarity roll cause I do research civics most times as my 2nd or 3rd tech but it doesn't seem like economics shows up until like 6-7 techs in. And I've only played 4 games in Beta 2 thus far so not sure if they changed it but I recall having an easier time getting in back in Beta 1Z. 

I've just played my first few games (and lost them for reasons I could spot - the best kind of losses!) and I think the research complexity is fine, but it needs to be more discoverable through the UI. The current implementation took me a little bit to grasp (and I am some some complexities elude me still) but once it clicked I have to say it was a beautiful moment. I love in-depth and big tech trees!

The biggest problem currently, as is touched on in a few posts above, is the lack of visible tech tree. I think a UI visualising what is a prerequisite for what would be a big step forward. If you want to keep some element of suprise perhaps having limited visibility (see the currently researchable techs and the next step) or allow some way to focus on currently existing resources that can not yet be used (bee hives, farmland, et cetera).