I thought Germany was an underpowered civ, but somehow I just started playing and everything seemed to click for me. Funny how Monarch on vanilla is a cakewalk in comparison. Played somewhat cautiously and built up a stable, medium-sized empire for most of the game, then industrialized and went on a massive conquering spree in the late industrial,
I can swear I've heard that story before
From an optimization standpoint of getting the most output from the same input, it makes the most sense to me to just "follow the leaders" and research the techs with the greatest bonus first whenever you're not in the lead and unless you really need something instantly which is next in line to research, then just accept the fact that all of your trade partners are going to get a bonus on whatever you research, since the incentive to keep trade routes (especially late game) far outweighs the tech bonus you're giving them. It makes for an interesting and historically plausible spread of technology, but it kind of dilutes the strategy behind choosing your techs. Thoughts on that?
This is an optimization that means you will rarely found the religion you want, build the wonder you want, be ahead on the military curve, explore the oceans or find and settle critical resources. It's optimizing you for
overall research pace, yes, but is it optimizing you for
winning? Those are two different things. Research in RI is incredibly important, but the importance comes from the techs being a means to an end, not from researching being an end in-and-of itself.
When I play, I tend to switch between times when I'm trying to be the lead in a particular field (say, getting a good 8-strength city attacker before others get longbowmen, or axemen before others get iron working and build up a lot of 4-strength bowmen), or found a religion, or hit a wonder/doctrine that will make a particular strategy viable, etc. I'll focus my research on getting to that
specific tech FAST, dedicating a lot of currency to research, and then switch into a style where I'm playing catch up on less important techs with the bonus from so many other civs already having the tech. During this later time I'm more willing to dedicate currency to support wars, unit upgrades, or maintenance on new cities that still don't produce much.
In regards to the tech tree being linear, I agree, it is. But RI isn't a game about varying tech stories and research differentiation, it's a game about optimizing empire management and strategic decisions. Playing well is about deciding which key techs are most important to your game and getting there first, and being able to maintain an economy that won't collapse under your empire's weight. In this sense I feel that the linearity helps, since it makes research a race rather than a cultural differentiator.
I agree that some requirements are too strict from a flavor perspective, and would be curious to see how the game plays without them (if there even is a difference, which there might not be), but I don't think that means the status quo for tech needs improvement. It does what it needs to do well for the purposes of the game, in my opinion, at least.