Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Is there a unifying concept that can be named to encapsulate both? This may be a good idea actually.Have you considered merging Earth Oven and Slash & Burn? They're both applied uses of fire at roughly the same time and they're both single-interest techs.
Then again, less used structures like these do beg for more development and perhaps there are some additional things that can happen with these. In particular with Slash and Burn... I can see some possible interesting defensive structures that would be unlocked there once repel is more fully fleshed out, maybe a unit. At that point would it then be too powerful a tech if it were combined with Earth Oven? Perhaps... perhaps not.
I suppose to me it depends on how we'd attempt to blend the concept to cover both.
1) I don't think we should strive to make all techs equal in value at all. The varying texture to this adds some strategic value in evaluating your approach to exploring the tech tree. Some techs SHOULD be more rewarding while others more 'part of the process of getting to something better', others still being completely ignorable so as to punish the inattentive player who is simply selecting in a methodical manner with a distraction to real progress being peppered in now and then.If your optimal tech is to reveal two or three buildings or units, then yes, I'd agree that you have some very over-stuffed techs. My main point about what techs reveal is that each of them (of course) costs various beakers and they provide significantly differing rewards for those beakers. For instance, Chopping, Slashing and Piercing each cost more than either Hard-Hammer or Soft-Hammer Percussion and each provide less for that increased cost.
2) The very techs you mention, Chopping etc... are actually exceedingly high value techs for a clever player. I discussed that effect earlier. The fact that they give value without burdening a city to build more to get that value is actually extremely worthwhile to obtain - buys time to build other things while still growing your city's capabilities with the techs you're obtaining. Sure they could use some more details but in play they prove more valuable than most of the techs before them to the point I spam out into them and have found that extremely effective.
I figured some sort of research was done to find that as the reasonable place to put the access to that wonder...I queried Cactus Hill because its description mentions flint tools (not weapons), but the Wikipedia entry mentions hafted flint tools used for butchering, which admittedly does sound like a very primitive hand-axe.
If the diplomacy screen could sort and filter better would this be much of an issue?My main proviso for resources is relevance - will tree bark, vines and what-have-you be relevant in later eras? If not, they should go obsolete at the very least.