There are several non-late game techs that add bonuses, according to Hiergamenon, but I haven't seen any impact of them.
For Kingdom:
Veteran Troops and Elite Troops techs gives "Health".
City Defenses tech gives "City Defense".
Movement gives "Agility" (with different icon compared to Advanced Tracking, which gives +10% to unit movement speed).
I haven't noticed that any of these effects do anything in the game.
Am I wrong? Are they bugged, or simply obsolete?