Now I know everyone and their mother on this forum wants unique techs for each faction and that would certainly be nice but lets talk about something that would be a little simpler and easier. If you've noticed each faction in the game gets a starting tech. So far so good. The problem is that the starting techs all take about 6-7 turns to research at the beginning. Therefore to counter a factions starting tech it only costs me 6-7 turns and then we're on exactly even footing. Let me emphasize that. 10 turns into the game the faction differentiation given by starting tech is gone. After that point all factions play EXACTLY the same with respects technology. What happens in the first 10 turns? Can you fight a war or build a meaningful nation in 10 turns. Hardly. In fact I would be surprised if most games involve meeting your first opponent within the first 10 turns. Combine this with the fact that all the starting techs are so cheap and essential and it means that by the time you're actually playing the game any remnant of your starting tech is forgotten.

So. How to fix?

Well honestly I wouldn't mind at all if they merely scrapped all the first tier techs and gave you most of it at the beginning and rolled up the tech costs and a few of the not so necessary monuses into the next level up. That would meaningfully slow down the tech spam at the beginning and give you some meaningful abilities right off the bat.

That said. Let's assume that won't happen. What else can we do?

Two ideas stand out to me.

Idea #1: Give meaningful starting techs that correspond to the factions' backstory.
Examples:
Gilden starts with mining and blacksmithing

Pariden starts with channeling and enchantment

Carrodus starts with trading and economics

Altar starts with the first two adventuring techs

Tarth starts with archery and ??

Krax starts with fortification and leatherworking

At this point I'm a little fuzzy on the factions character and how to transfer them into techs but the principle is there. Then you would really have to think when you play. WHen you see gilden with an iron mine early on you know there's gonna be trouble. You know krax's cities are going to be hard to take early. And you know armoring up is going to be nearly useless against pariden.

Idea #2: Give each faction a bonus on research in one tree and a penalty in another. This is simple and easy a 20% bonus to their favored tech tree and a 10% penalty to the one that least matches with the faction. Something like

Carrodus + 20% Civics -10% Magic

Tarth + 20% Warefare -10% Civics

Parriden +20% Magic -10% Warfare

Altar +20% Magic -10% Civics

This simple mechanic would make each faction far more likely to develop according to their faction ideals and give them some flavor.