I'll agree, especially since research structures end up in the civilization tree.  Civilization research at this point seems far superior.  I do think that a certain core of research should just plain be available - houses, etc.

Maybe we'll see some alternatives when the other tech trees come up?

My only other thought is to have convergent research at points.  For example, maybe you can get Mining through Military research, since that's required for arms, or through Civ research.  Maybe there could be alternative structures that are more specialized, like some form of military base that can house a certain number of people based on the number of troops you have stationed there (soldiers' families, essentially).

Not sure how well that would work or even if it could be done at this point.

The key seems to always be to start leveling up Civ right away, and then switch to Warfare.  My issue is there is no other way to start, at least between the two and in Beta 2A.  However, even with the other research paths, you're always going to need to build up your towns, not build up your towns OR do other things.  I maintain that at least some buildings/concepts you should not need to research, but rather "tech up" to by building their requirements.  Or something like that.

I have had the four man adventure party, they died pretty easy and had almost no equipment (3 of them had no weapons, and none of them were particularly interesting).  Having them, I decided to go Warfare to equip them, only to find I had no gold with which to buy anything for them, because my towns were super low end, I presume.  I could be playing wrong though, I freely admit my Elemental skill/knowledge is seriously behind. 

And this is what we want to avoid. The "must have quickly" in any Build order...

How many AI's do you select seanw3? I get attacked quite a bit but it may be just that I Piss Off the AI by attacking them rather early just to see the AI react.

Because it hand-cuffs players after word gets out that you "must have" it.

And "No!" it doesn't have to be that way at all.

Balance is the Art of flexibilty without hand-cuffing everyone into a certain start build and should absolutely be avoided where possible.

You guys are missing the nature of balance in Elemental. Rushing to the advanced civic,  administration means not getting any magic, adventure, diplomacy, or warfare four about five to seven techs. It works in this build, but in the final version there will probably be so many other choices that this strategy only works for a merchant player. We will all want it in the mid game, but few will really need it if the are adventuring and getting money that way. I was merely showing him how to game this build and make things flow a little better. Also, this four tile option is a logical step up from the regular merchant and I really don't see a way around it.

FYI: I play on the hardest difficulty with all players. [e digicons](\(\[/e]

"highly situational" is good -- for example if you're taking the warfare route then X is a good choice, but not Y.  If you're going the diplomatic route then Y is a good choice but not X.  That's a situational best-choice, and thus it's good game design.

What I'm trying to avoid is X always being better than Y for all possible strategies&tactics -- that's no choice and thus bad game design.

How can player skill show if there's a no-brainer best choice in all early game situations?

I'm advocating for there being no best choice for all situations, which increases the number of choices and lets player skill show.

I would hold off on this until we learn just what the Adventuring / Magic trees do exactly. You could make enough money from Adventure techs that not having early markets doesn't matter... you could be able to create research buildings with magic. We don't know yet.