We can hope.
Surely Firaxis can't be -that- dumb. I've said that before, and it seems like each time I do it turns out they are but... please don't let Firaxis be dumb enough for that to be the final tech tree.
If so, say bye-bye to Firaxis. They're already having financial issues as it is, the flop of this game will be the death of them.
Less techs doesn't equal less strategy or worse gameplay. The tech tree isn't going to break the game, as certain people seem to think.
That depends. Less techs means earlier units become obselete much sooner. Civ 4 has tons of units they rarely if ever get built. For example, you can skip longbows and go for muskets, you can skip muskets and wait for Rifles, skip HA and knights, etc. Obviously depends on the game but there needs to be a period between discovering something then building the unit and actually being able to use it functionally that should be filled out with techs. With quick jump in ages you may see units not getting built in favor of later units, which could lead to why have a swordmans if a maceman is right around the corner.
That's my concern, not so much the number of techs, but the fact that I like to try and "feel" every age. I play on Epic in Civ 4 to help with this and try to slow down the pace (marathon seems too easy) but even on Emperor I'm going from Axe to Rifles and pretty much skipping everything in between. I don't want this to be the case in Civ 5. IMO, every age should be equally as important or dynamic.
That can't be final. There's no way that can be final...
I don't get that sickfak. While it's true that stuff needs to happen, there will be more 'going on' in Civ 5 to begin with, what with social policies, more barb presence, and city state quests.
My understanding of the Social Policies is that they require Culture not Beakers. So in theory they won't slow techs at all. If you're making 100 beakers it is really irrelevant what your culture is to advance to the next tech on the tree. I suppose it might depend on which hex you work if it is a some type +culture hex and not a +beaker hex. But even in that case I think most people will choose to work the +beaker hex for some type of beeline where they can gain a military advantage or be first to X Wonder or the inevitable first to "this Tech" gets a "free tech" that's in most civ games.
Unless certian Social Policy techs are prerquistes for Science techs or you need X social policy to build Y military unit. That'd be kind of neat dynamic.
But with Gold, Culture and Beakers independent (no slider) it seems like you can do all at once.